Adapted from Rant of the Week at The Stars Hollow Gazette
Under the leadership of Jeff Zucker, CNN broadens the definition of news to include more goat holograms and murder dramas.
Media Reassure Themselves They Didn’t Do So Bad in Boston Coverage
By Nicole Belle, Crooks & Liars
April 21, 2013 11:00 AM
Zucker actually sent his underlings a “you’re do(ing) a heckuva job” memo in the midst of them getting so very much wrong.
At the end up one of the busiest news weeks in recent memory-for CNN and every other major media organization-Jeff Zucker delivered his gratitude to his CNN staff in an internal memo obtained by POLITICO’s Dylan Byers. Beginning with the declaration, “What a week,” Zucker goes on to praise his team for their “exceptional work.” He wrote, “It was important to see CNN, CNN.com, HLN and CNNI all shine this week,” and let the full staff know, “you have shown the world what makes us CNN.”
Zucker dismissed the criticism levelled at his organization as so much “jealousy”. Uh huh. Sadly, Rupert Murdoch offered a similar, albeit more abridged defense of his multiple news platforms:
Rupert Murdoch belatedly came to the defense of his newspaper, tweeting: “All NYPost pics were those distributed by FBI. And instantly withdrawn when FBI changed directions.” Murdoch did not go into detail about how exactly a newspaper can “instantly withdraw” a front page already published, although perhaps that would have taken more than 140 characters (and harnessing the power of the space-time continuum) to explain. Among the mistakes the Post made this week: they inaccurately reported 12 people had died in the blast (three did); they claimed a Saudi man was a “suspect” in “custody”, when he wasn’t; and most prominently, they plastered the photos of two “suspects” on the front page with the headline "Bag Men." They didn’t outright say these two people were the bombers, but they did everything they could to insinuate it. Of course, it later turned out that neither men were really suspects, and one was a high school student who went to the police on his own to clear his name.