JOURNALISM: Examiner on CNN's Peep Show Style Journalism

[Frederick Noronha]

http://www.examiner.com/x-6572-NY-Obama-Administration-Examiner~y2009m11d26-CNNs-peep-show-journalism-with-White-House-party-crashers

The Examiner

November 26, 2009

CNN's Peep Show Journalism with White House party crashers

By Marc Rubin

CNN did a story on Wednesday evening about a couple who crashed the
White House State dinner. Aside from the fact that the story itself
didn't deserve more than two or three minutes but was milked by CNN
for more than 15 minutes on Anderson Cooper,  CNN reached new lows in
visual  journalism with a package they pioneered which I have
previously called "peep show" journalism.

I gave it that name after watching CNN do story after story where they
run the same 10 or 15 seconds of visual footage over and over and over
again like the kind of  8MM porn loops that used to be shown in 42nd
street peep shows in the 1950's and 60's.

Last night CNN, in doing the story about the party crashers,  ran the
same 10 seconds of footage of the couple entering the White House  and
walking by the press, close to 20 times,  just like the old peep
shows. And that is exactly what it was.

The couple, for those who care, were part of a cable reality series,
"The Real Housewives of Washington" and they managed to get past a
checkpoint and enter the grounds. But they never made it to the tent
where the dinner was being held. But as CNN gave us the story and then
went on and on about security and metal detectors, we were given the
same 10 seconds of innocuous footage of the smiling couple mugging for
the press cameras as they made their entrance. It went on for the full
15 minutes. A shorter version took up 10 minutes on Cambell Brown.

This  visual peep show journalism is a product of the producer,
director and news director at CNN. Its an embarrassment and they've
been doing it a long time but last night they hit new lows.

The technique says that people behind the scenes at CNN are not only
tasteless they are painfully stupid when it comes to pictures and
journalism and show no respect for the intelligence of people who
watch CNN. And no respect for themselves either.

The first time I saw CNN use this peep show technique was during the
Monica Lewinsky frenzy. The day Lewinsky arrived to testify in front
of the grand jury the cameras were there.  CNN ran the same shot of
Monica Lewinsky getting out of an SUV 15 consecutive times. The same
shot -- Monica opening the SUV door, her legs swinging out, and
sliding off the seat. They ran that shot 15 times while the reporter
did his story.  I say 15 times but that is not accurate. I actually
stopped counting after 15 times.

The fact that no one, no journalist, no producer, no control room
director, no one ever said "are you crazy doing this"? says a lot
about whats happened to integrity in journalism and the quality of the
journalists and executives at CNN.

 CNN should be embarrassed. But what is even worse, and why there wont
be any changes anytime soon is, they aren't.

If you can stand to watch this insanity ( which will include the same
repeated shots of Facebook pages) be my guest. Video from Cambell
Brown is below.  Give them some time to get warmed up. But when they
do, they really get going. By the time the story got to Anderson
Cooper later in the evening it got a lot worse but keep watching. This
is bad enough.