Are you saying that math and science shouldn't be separated? Or is it that they didn't put up prior years so there was really no "trend" there? And they didn't say anything more about trends in the rest of the piece?
And yes, that's it... a trend is either up, or down, and requires a minimum of two data points, period. They gave one.
No wonder we suck at math compared to the rest of the world... :P
CNN does crap like this on a constant basis. My favorite is still them reporting that the Columbia broke up going 17 times the speed of light. Obviously, they don't have a single person on their staff, responsible for content, that passed high school science or math.
And yet we're supposed to trust them to give us good information on such matters? Ha.
Explain to me this: if you can demonstrably show that a news source gets simple, everyday facts completely and utterly wrong, how in the hell can you ever believe them on things that require *interpretation*, such as politics, crime, environmental issues, etc?
You can't.
CNN is truly the McDonald's of news reporting. I used to think USA Today was the McPaper, but CNN has surpassed them handily.
All the TV news stations are complete jokes. Today, fox had a little snippet that was little more than "Blind Man Sees with Electrode in Brain!" Of course, Fox has always been very tabloid and moronic, from the "Should Jesus be Cloned?" call-in survey to their pretend 'coverage' of politics. Really, the "bland man sees!" story sums it up well, since it shows how they are all about shock value and not at all about accuracy, timeliness or validity of content (or any content, for that matter.)
CNN is just as stupid, but they actually attempt to appear more legitimate (fox knows it talks to morons and doesn't hide it, whereas CNN still pretends it talks to normal people). If Bush said that a group of pink elephants created a weapon that reversed gravity, CNN would immediately run it with a huge headline on their website as if it was fact.
Of course, the one good point of CNN is that there are some good seasoned contributors that actually provide some good content, though you have to dig on the website for that.
This is due to the fact that there are now multiple 24 hour news stations and they all are driven by RATINGS. Yes it's sad... the news shouldn't be about this but the simple fact is that it is.
All the TV news stations are complete jokes. Today, fox had a little snippet that was little more than "Blind Man Sees with Electrode in Brain!" Of course, Fox has always been very tabloid and moronic, from the "Should Jesus be Cloned?" call-in survey to their pretend 'coverage' of politics. Really, the "bland man sees!" story sums it up well, since it shows how they are all about shock value and not at all about accuracy, timeliness or validity of content (or any content, for that matter.)
CNN is just as stupid, but they actually attempt to appear more legitimate (fox knows it talks to morons and doesn't hide it, whereas CNN still pretends it talks to normal people). If Bush said that a group of pink elephants created a weapon that reversed gravity, CNN would immediately run it with a huge headline on their website as if it was fact.
Of course, the one good point of CNN is that there are some good seasoned contributors that actually provide some good content, though you have to dig on the website for that.
CNN used to be good- back when the news was the star. Now that goddamned Anderson Cooper and Paula Zahn are plastered all over Times Square- now personality is the star.
This is due to the fact that there are now multiple 24 hour news stations and they all are driven by RATINGS. Yes it's sad... the news shouldn't be about this but the simple fact is that it is.
Rating, generally lowered the level of TV. Rating are more important when you show easy TV, when they emit emissions wich requires an intellectual work, people tend to flew away. It does not mean, that people just want entertainement, but that on a 24 day basis, people only want one hour maximum of serious stuff.
The problem is that entertainement is fun, but do not bring anything. It should represant only a minority of the TV emissions, giving the space for a large choice of serious stuff.
CNN used to be good- back when the news was the star. Now that goddamned Anderson Cooper and Paula Zahn are plastered all over Times Square- now personality is the star.
All news networks have their own celebrities...CNN is no different. Fox has O'Reilly and Geraldo... MSNBC has Chris Mathews and Brian Williams. CNN was actually good when Ted Turner was in charge.... the high point of CNN's coverage was during the first Gulf War.
Competition from Fox and MSNBC has brought the ratings card into play and this has effected CNN's quality. Fox is first in news ratings but so was Jerry Springer for years in daytime tv..... and recently reality television shows. You can see that even though the level of quality in broadcasting has lowered in these types of shows... the ratings also increased with them. Networks have no choice but to lower their standards to compete with the rating system. CNN unfortunately has also done this at times.
CNN is only useful for me to find out what the biggest issue du jour is. They'll have a couple of major stories that just repeat ad nauseum throughout the day, with little worthwhile analysis.
For TV news that's actually useful I'll tune into CBC Newsworld or perhaps the BBC.
CNN went off the radar for me quite a while ago. Their reports have no depth, they rumormonger as much as give the news, their evening programming is awful at best, their reporters are vacuous (only Lou Dobbs asks hard questions), and at least half their "news" is either dumbed down tabloid headlines or could be passed off as America' Funniest Home Videos.
so are we saying there's no market for real news? (good news reporting ≠ ratings?)
I guess that depends on the size of the market you're looking for. No, there's not a massive high powered market for serious news, but there are huge markets for entertainment. Just look at Al Franken's book sales.
I think we're all in agreement. CNN is utterly irredeemably vacuous.
Their special reports are absolutely the worst. You think you might learn something in an hour-long special about Afghanistan, and it ends up all slo-mo video and music and inane platitudes and absolutely zero informative content.
They're like a metropolitan orchestra who, in an attempt to cater to the masses, programs the theme from Lord of the Rings and maybe a Rossini overture and one movement of Beethoven's 5th symphony. The masses were never going to go in the first place and their real audience doesn't renew their season tickets.
Comments
Are you saying that math and science shouldn't be separated? Or is it that they didn't put up prior years so there was really no "trend" there? And they didn't say anything more about trends in the rest of the piece?
Screed
And yes, that's it... a trend is either up, or down, and requires a minimum of two data points, period. They gave one.
No wonder we suck at math compared to the rest of the world... :P
CNN does crap like this on a constant basis. My favorite is still them reporting that the Columbia broke up going 17 times the speed of light. Obviously, they don't have a single person on their staff, responsible for content, that passed high school science or math.
And yet we're supposed to trust them to give us good information on such matters? Ha.
Originally posted by Kickaha
So CNN had this blurb on tonight about US educational rankings, and they throw up a graphic:
'Trend in US rankings: Math:18th Science:19th'
Anyone want to state what's wrong with this for the class?
No frickin' wonder we rank so low.
Oh God no! How will i ever continue living?
You can't.
CNN is truly the McDonald's of news reporting. I used to think USA Today was the McPaper, but CNN has surpassed them handily.
CNN is just as stupid, but they actually attempt to appear more legitimate (fox knows it talks to morons and doesn't hide it, whereas CNN still pretends it talks to normal people). If Bush said that a group of pink elephants created a weapon that reversed gravity, CNN would immediately run it with a huge headline on their website as if it was fact.
Of course, the one good point of CNN is that there are some good seasoned contributors that actually provide some good content, though you have to dig on the website for that.
Oh, and here's another one: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/arc...23.html#002248
Originally posted by giant
All the TV news stations are complete jokes.
This is due to the fact that there are now multiple 24 hour news stations and they all are driven by RATINGS. Yes it's sad... the news shouldn't be about this but the simple fact is that it is.
Originally posted by giant
All the TV news stations are complete jokes. Today, fox had a little snippet that was little more than "Blind Man Sees with Electrode in Brain!" Of course, Fox has always been very tabloid and moronic, from the "Should Jesus be Cloned?" call-in survey to their pretend 'coverage' of politics. Really, the "bland man sees!" story sums it up well, since it shows how they are all about shock value and not at all about accuracy, timeliness or validity of content (or any content, for that matter.)
CNN is just as stupid, but they actually attempt to appear more legitimate (fox knows it talks to morons and doesn't hide it, whereas CNN still pretends it talks to normal people). If Bush said that a group of pink elephants created a weapon that reversed gravity, CNN would immediately run it with a huge headline on their website as if it was fact.
Of course, the one good point of CNN is that there are some good seasoned contributors that actually provide some good content, though you have to dig on the website for that.
Oh, and here's another one: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/arc...23.html#002248
CNN used to be good- back when the news was the star. Now that goddamned Anderson Cooper and Paula Zahn are plastered all over Times Square- now personality is the star.
Originally posted by Akumulator
This is due to the fact that there are now multiple 24 hour news stations and they all are driven by RATINGS. Yes it's sad... the news shouldn't be about this but the simple fact is that it is.
Rating, generally lowered the level of TV. Rating are more important when you show easy TV, when they emit emissions wich requires an intellectual work, people tend to flew away. It does not mean, that people just want entertainement, but that on a 24 day basis, people only want one hour maximum of serious stuff.
The problem is that entertainement is fun, but do not bring anything. It should represant only a minority of the TV emissions, giving the space for a large choice of serious stuff.
Originally posted by ShawnJ
CNN used to be good- back when the news was the star. Now that goddamned Anderson Cooper and Paula Zahn are plastered all over Times Square- now personality is the star.
All news networks have their own celebrities...CNN is no different. Fox has O'Reilly and Geraldo... MSNBC has Chris Mathews and Brian Williams. CNN was actually good when Ted Turner was in charge.... the high point of CNN's coverage was during the first Gulf War.
Competition from Fox and MSNBC has brought the ratings card into play and this has effected CNN's quality. Fox is first in news ratings but so was Jerry Springer for years in daytime tv..... and recently reality television shows. You can see that even though the level of quality in broadcasting has lowered in these types of shows... the ratings also increased with them. Networks have no choice but to lower their standards to compete with the rating system. CNN unfortunately has also done this at times.
CNN is only useful for me to find out what the biggest issue du jour is. They'll have a couple of major stories that just repeat ad nauseum throughout the day, with little worthwhile analysis.
For TV news that's actually useful I'll tune into CBC Newsworld or perhaps the BBC.
Originally posted by alcimedes
so are we saying there's no market for real news? (good news reporting ≠ ratings?)
I guess that depends on the size of the market you're looking for. No, there's not a massive high powered market for serious news, but there are huge markets for entertainment. Just look at Al Franken's book sales.
I will never be able to take that channel seriously again.
Their special reports are absolutely the worst. You think you might learn something in an hour-long special about Afghanistan, and it ends up all slo-mo video and music and inane platitudes and absolutely zero informative content.
They're like a metropolitan orchestra who, in an attempt to cater to the masses, programs the theme from Lord of the Rings and maybe a Rossini overture and one movement of Beethoven's 5th symphony. The masses were never going to go in the first place and their real audience doesn't renew their season tickets.
Originally posted by SledgeHammer
I stopped watching CNN the day I heard them say, while talking about the war, "Iraq is a country that is literally teetering on the edge of a razor!"
I will never be able to take that channel seriously again.
Someone on CNN said this?! I'm outraged!!!
You stopped watching a channel because of one sentence someone said?