Credibility as Precedence

What does it say about the fourth estate that the network with the best reviews in their election coverage had low ratings?

The Washington Post's media reporter Erik Wemple praised CNN's coverage with a column headlined “CNN destroys cable competition on election night.” Among other kudos, he pointed out the detail within CNN's coverage, presented by reporter John King, “He breezed from counties in Florida to counties in Ohio to counties in Virginia, each time contextualizing precisely what was going on in the race,” Wemple wrote. He praised the investment CNN has made in their new studio.

Wemple excoriated FOX News for serving “pablum” of interviewing Sarah Palin, and mocked them for the Karl Rove meltdown.

But who wound up with the numbers, the bottom line of The Fourth Estate Sale? Well, it is hard to compare broadcast channels to cable channels, and NBC had the most prime time viewers with 12.1 million viewers (8p-11p). And sure enough, FOX News was number 2 with 11.45-million, then ABC at 10.52 million and CNN with 9.25 million. MSNBC, with their talkative host Rachel Maddow, was an also ran, in this race.

I pray that management at CNN decides, for the first time in years, that praise by those who professionally report on the journalism takes precedence over the ratings. CNN has greater revenue no matter, but hopefully they can hold up the Wemple column, among others, to answer taunts about ratings in election coverage.

Lord knows many of us former CNN editorial types have been, for many years, hoping that they would see the light. When FOX News first started leading in some ratings, I asked why we were trying to compete with their nonsense. After all, at that time, Anna Nicole Smith had higher ratings than either of us, and we were not trying to emulate her. Credibility and good reporting was all we had, so why sell it?