CNN doesn't decide what our countries politics are or what they will be. The problem is they are attempting to be an international news source that can appeal to the whole international community verses a source that respects our independence as a nation. I think that will continue to be an issue for awhile longer. These internationally minded companies will have to learn to deal with on their own. They don't get to determine our future, we do.
I got verbally bit this morning over someone being pissy about people he grew up with that are whackos like you mentioned in post
#3 I wasn't even totally awake yet
The problem is they are attempting to be an international news source
I don't know if you've noticed or not, but CNN has over the past couple years taken to carrying content in addition to their news and their current events/public policy editorial content.
- CNN's Believer series is not news programming. It is a show that happens to be carried on the CNN network.
- Calling Aslan a CNN host is okay enough, I suppose, but it's not as though he's the host of recurring news program CNN produces and airs. The only thing that makes calling him a host be ostensibly apt is that he actually appears in his show rather than merely being a voice we hear. Who are or have been program hosts? Anderson Cooper, Christine Romans, Brooke Baldwin, Jerry Springer, Regis and Kathy Lee, and many others who actively shepherd the dialogue and progression of a program episode over the course of its airing.
The show Aslan "hosts" is not a news show, it's a video essay about various aspects of theistic lifestyles and belief systems. He is more fittingly termed an author, though the essays he delivers, which are essentially well composed high school history or comparative religion research papers/essays, are in a video format rather than print. About all that distinguishes his program's content from that which a high school student might include in research paper is that Aslan has somewhat better access to individuals who can provide him with their own remarks that he can in turn quote. A high school student who judiciously chooses their topic could have (and were they to, would be expected to avail themselves of it) the same sort of access to original input from relevant individuals.
Is there information in his program that may be new information to some people? Yes, of course there is. That there is does not make the show be a news program. I mean really. When you watch any of the Discovery Network's non-fiction programming, do you call it news? It's not. It's merely information. It's not news because, well, there's nothing that's new about it by the time it airs on those programs.
Don't believe me? Take a look at the publication dates of the scholarly papers and texts that form the content base for those programs. You'll see that none of it was published yesterday, last week, or even last month. At its most current, it may have been published in the past six to twelve months.
Most importantly, however, Aslan made the remark on Twitter, using his personal Twitter account, not on his CNN program or using the
Believer Twitter account. The man didn't make his profane remark in any way that inextricably or incidentally connects it with CNN. Contrast that with, say, Bill O'Reilly who, as a Fox employee harassed other Fox employees in Fox's facilities. Fox even paid some of the law suit settlements resulting from his harassment of other Fox employees and did their best to keep the matters mum.
Now, do networks and advertisers, or employers in general, make a "big stink" when their employees engender public reprehension? Yes, they sometimes do. Whether they levy penalties against their employee is nearly always a business decision accruing from the nature and extent to which the employee's actions can be legitimately construed as having been condoned by the employer, or at the very least, by their appearing to have looked askance at the person's words/deeds, tacitly remit the opprobrious nature of the employee's actions/statements.
