Earlier this week, I happened to catch CNN's live breaking coverage of the bombing of a bus in Israel. If there was ever a question in my mind why they are getting their butt kicked by Fox News it has disappeared. We begin our coverage with Kyra Phillips, a woman who clearly has no business being on a channel where breaking news is the order of the day. While talking to someone on the scene, makes a point of saying that she doesn't want to be gruesome, then proceeds to mention that she has heard that there are “severed bodies” at the site of the blast. Huh? Gee, Kyra, that wasn't at all gruesome. Although I would have expected nothing less from her. The week before, during the blackout on the east coast, she speculated, despite any evidence, that both a computer virus and terrorists were the cause of the sudden power failure. I guess Kyra's idea of news is defined as anything that pops into her empty little head. CNN then goes on to show graphic video of the injured, including a shot of a bloody child. Kyra doesn't hide her revulsion at the video being played out in front of her. On this point I can't argue with her. It is only after they have shown these graphic images that they place a small note up in the top corner of the screen that they are broadcasting unedited video. Nice to see that they finally got around to that. Then Phillip's co-anchor, Miles O'Brien, comes on and makes a half-assed apology about the nature of the video that they have just exposed their viewers to. He notes that it only happened because they have no control over the video, since it is coming live from an Israeli TV network. Gosh Miles, nice to see CNN can't even manage to control what goes out over its own channel. Here's an idea morons, instead of rushing to be the first to be on the air with the blood and guts, why not use a delay for the news feeds that you use? That way you might just insure that you don't have to issue warnings, which O'Brien did, that maybe parents might want to have their children leave the room. Oh wait, you can't do that, God forbid Fox or MSNBC got the pictures of maimed bodies on the air 30 second before you did. But things got even better. Just moments after O’Brien’s apology, CNN decided that their little unedited video note in the corner wasn’t cutting it. So right in the center of the bottom portion of the screen, you know, the spot where they usually display the colorful “name” of their story, like “Sniper On The Loose” or “America Strike Back”, they decided to display “Graphic Video” in the same style as they use for their other idiotic story slogans. Make no mistake about it, this wasn’t a responsible broadcaster trying to warn viewers about what they might see, this was a cheap attempt to draw in more viewers who might be looking for some severed limbs. Sorry, CNN, you’ve lost your way, and my respect. There is no denying that Kyra Phillips is gorgeous, but it takes more than good looks to make a good news anchor. Sadly she doesn't have it. So the next time breaking news is going on, if Kyra is sitting behind the anchor desk, I'm grabbing the remote control. And the next time you decide to brand another news story with another goofy logo, like “America’s New War”, my news is going to start coming from anyone other than CNN. As for the graphic gore, you might want to clean that up before one of your viewers loses their lunch all over their TV screen.

¶ 8/24/2003 05:54:00 PM

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