CNN'S "TITANIC" MENTALITY – AT 9:40 A.M. ET:  The head of CNN resigned last week, saying that new thinking is required for the struggling news network.  He is correct, but I'm not sure the new thinking that's required would be accepted.  CNN will not solve its serious ratings problems unless it understands why it's in such trouble.

John Hideraker, at Power Line, has an excellent analysis of CNN's situation:

CNN represents the passive-aggressive Left. MSNBC is unrestrained id, but CNN can never fully surrender to its liberal impulses. It tries to maintain a fig leaf of neutrality. But CNN can’t get through the day without betraying what it really thinks, often in underhanded ways. Thus, when CNN did a story on Chick-fil-A today, what did it focus on? The merits of the controversy? The fact that more than one Democratic government official has threatened to violate the company’s constitutional rights, because its CEO is opposed to gay marriage? No. In a dog whistle to its liberal audience, CNN focused on the fact that Todd and Sarah Palin, along with thousands of other Americans, tweeted photos of themselves eating at Chick-fil-A.

CNN introduced its segment with Pink’s “Stupid Girls,” a song which is obviously inappropriate for a cable news bumper, and evidently was intended as a comment on Palin’s support for Chick-fil-A.

COMMENT:  Anyone watching CNN knows that its left-wing bias is relentless.  After all, its two big international "stars" are the dubious Christiane Amanpour, a borderline leftist airhead with a slick British accent, and the insufferably superior Fareed Zakaria, an Iran apologist who thinks we exaggerate the threat from our enemies.  Zakaria has apparently never contemplated the power of nuclear weapons.

There are some straight shooters on CNN.  I think Wolf Blitzer is one of them.  But he's overwhelmed by the bias, and the history of bias.  CNN is a creature of left-wing zillionaire Ted Turner, who, after all, married Jane Fonda.  Nothing more need be said.

CNN will not recover unless it realizes that the public is on to its biases.  Like most mainstream journalistic outlets, it regards itself as better than the audience it serves, the first mistake of news operations in the process of committing suicide.

Oh, by the way, in the last two years both Christiane Amanpour and Fareed Zakaria were invited to deliver commencement addresses at Harvard.  That nails it.

July 30, 2012