We fear it is going to be a very long election year indeed for TV viewers who opt to turn to CNN to follow the many presidential primaries and other events as they unfold.
For at least the last couple of years, the deteriorating ratings performance of CNN, once the go-to brand for in-depth breaking news and political coverage, has been a hot topic of discussion in media circles.
Invariably CNN’s bad showing in Chicago and elsewhere has been compared to the considerably stronger ratings performance of rival cable channel Fox News, part of Rupert Murdoch’s broadcast empire.
We too have watched CNN extensively over the years and written on occasion about the issues we had with the news channel and why it has become hard to watch. We weren’t surprised when CNN’s ratings began to drop.
But never in our years of monitoring the channel have we witnessed an eye-popping on-air meltdown anything like what occurred in the wee hours of Wednesday morning — well into the seventh hour of CNN’s wall-to-wall coverage of the Iowa Caucuses.
By the time the shocking display of silliness erupted, we had already dozed off a couple of times — lulled to sleep by the mind-numbingly dreary ramblings of CNN’s lead anchor Wolf Blitzer, who — pardon us for being so blunt — has to be one of the dimmest bulbs at CNN.
Blitzer, in his flat drone of an anchor voice, has a unique way of making the mundane utterances that constantly escape from his lips sound as if he were revealing the most profound mysteries of the universe.
Iterating and reiterating the most obvious ad nauseum is Blitzer’s stock-in-trade, and yet, the clueless management at CNN seem determined to give him some of the news channel’s most high-profile anchor assignments, including plum political coverage that in election years past has helped draw more views.
Chemistry non-existent among personalities
But almost worse than having to deal with Blitzer for hours on end on Tuesday and Wednesday morning was CNN’s decision to pair him with John King and Anderson Cooper, two very different personalities, for sure. But at least both appear to have brains that function and process information, and they manage quite often to fashion intelligent remarks from that info.
Erin Burnett, who only recently arrived at CNN from cable business channel CNBC, rounded out the quartet of principal talent fronting the Iowa Caucuses coverage.
Burnett is but the latest of several females in CNN’s prime time lineup. The others came and went because they couldn’t deliver the ratings. And we’re not yet convinced Burnett is going to prove any more successful than her predecessors — if her Iowa Caucuses debacle of a performance is any indication.
Before we get to that meltdown we alluded to at the top of the column, it must be noted that any sign of chemistry on air between these four disparate talents was totally absent.
Cooper could barely tolerate standing next to Blitzer, and the two struggled to converse. King kept his distance mostly, and Burnett — well, she was off on the side working the so-called flicking chart in a dress that cunningly showed off her hourglass figure.
Burnett’s meltdown over new electronic chart
And that flicking chart — one of the new pieces of electronic gadgetry CNN used for its Iowa Caucuses coverage — is where the real meltdown began around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Throughout the evening, Burnett was trying with very mixed success to break down the percentages of Iowans who were voting for each Republican Presidential candidate and explain why they voted the way did.
But she was also trying to use her finger to “flick” her pie charts from one screen to another, so that her pal Gloria Borger could make additional remarks that mostly amounted to something along the lines of “Yea, Erin that’s right.”
All evening long Burnett had problems getting her flick of the charts to work properly, and shortly after midnight, she simply broke down. And we were forced to watch as she repeatedly stabbed at the screen until it finally did her bidding.
Clearly frustrated, Burnett turned to the camera and threw her arms out in a sort of “tah-dah!” fashion, as if to suggest she had proved she could master the impossible.
Burnett’s painful display paled, however, compared to what happened next at the ridiculous electronic Twitter chart, where CNN reporter Ai Velshi was trying to explain to an obviously befuddled and disinterested Anderson Cooper how many people around the nation were tweeting about which candidate and whether those tweets were pro or con or neutral.
His patience with the Twitter data and the perplexing chart clearly exhausted after so many hours, Cooper simply dropped any pretense of professionalism, and said he really didn’t get what the dot-flecked electronic chart was all about or why Velshi was so wrapped up in trying to explain it. Cooper called Velshi’s assignment “a thankless task.”
Taken aback by Cooper’s snarky remark, Velshi redoubled his effort to keep on explaining the tweets, while we heard CNN commentator Roland Martin off camera chortling uncontrollably at Cooper’s stunningly honest expression of feeling.
Those few minutes of candid behavior on air came off as some sort of wickedly hysterical spoof of CNN, except this was the real thing.
Yes, it looks as if it may be a long year for those viewers looking to CNN for election coverage. To help us through it, CNN management might consider dispensing with some of the increasingly wide array of electronic chart gimmickry on display Tuesday night and simply let the talent — if they can — talk more to viewers about what is happening.
But above all CNN, please give us less, not more, of Wolf Blitzer.
Contact Lewis Lazare at: LewisL3@aol.com
