The Other Shoe Drops at CNN

[PGage]

When Mark Thompson, who was credited with finally finding a way for the NYT to successfully reinvent itself as an internet business, was hired to run CNN 18 months ago, word was he was going to similarly reinvent CNN. Then pretty much nothing happened.

Now it has.

This morning CNN announced  it was cutting 200 jobs, mostly from linear operations, and would be adding about the same to its digital side, about 100 over next 6 months. Zaz is investing $70M in a new subscription streaming CNN service, and some kind of unspecified subscription “Lifestyle” (food, fitness, health travel, etc) service, which was the finger print of what Thompson did at NYT.  Of course I don’t watch CNN when it’s basically free for me now, so not sure why I would pay to watch some kind of “almost CNN” online. 

They seem to be very excited about adding hundreds of “vertical videos” every day, which I guess are like the videos on I Seagram that they want you to scroll through addictively (We got a Goldendoodle puppy 6 months ago, so most of my Instagram videos are about dogs, and they do sometimes trap me for 15 minutes scrolling thru them). Not sure if that will work with Wolf Blitzer. 

One consequence of focusing on brief, scrollable news videos for breaking news content is actual fact checking has been minimized. As the NYT reported:

“getting those videos published has been slowed at times by CNN’s review process, known as the Triad, which used to include fact-checking and standards and legal vetting….Last year, Mr. Thompson moved fact-checking, formerly known as the Row, into a new unit called CNN Fact Check that works closer with editors and producers earlier in the story-generation process.”

As Brian Stelter pointed out in his Newsletter this morning on the same story, we are now seeing the decade long “reshaping” of linear news turning into a “revolution “. NBC and ABC News are expected to announce similar changes to their operations soon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/business/media/cnn-layoffs-mark-thompson.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/1737637981000fd2c87f5e074/raw

[Joe Hass]

<sarcasm> About time someone pivoted to video. </sarcasm>

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[Kevin M.]

I keep seeing people on the socials pointing out to one or two people at CNN who are actually trying to report the news amidst the rest of the network which is actively trying to dumb down society. 

The fact they can only point to one or two people should serve as a reason to never watch CNN again. One or two people does not make a news network. 

Trying to produce content for non-linear or online audiences is hardly revolutionary, but doing so without pandering to young people won’t be possible with CNN’s brand 

Kevin M. (RPCV)

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