CNN, the world’s most important news station (and so say all of us!) showed it’s true colours tonight.
Tonight is the 10th anniversary of one of the most significant events of the 20th century, the tearing down of the Berlin wall. Though the end of the cold war was marked by many different stages and events, the tearing down of the wall was easily the most powerful and dramatic. It marked an end to almost fifty years of isolation and hostility, that macabre dance of death between the two lethally-armed super-powers, the exploitation of proxy states in the third world, and the polarization of the globe’s communities. It provided the world with a striking symbol of the failure of communist ideology to satisfy the needs and aspirations of millions of people. It was one of the most important events of the century.
In honor of this event, CNN decided to broadcast an interview… with Princess Diana’s butler.
You know, this is pretty consistent with CNN’s general philosophical point of view, if you can call it that. News is entertainment. That was clear from the early days of “Eyewitness News”, a stylistic innovation pioneered by the masters of trashy tv in the 1970’s, ABC. “Eyewitness News” redefined “importance” to mean “that which provides the most exciting film footage”. The top news story would be that blazing car wreck at Jefferson and Wilson, or a gaggle of high school cheer-leaders holding a car-wash to raise money for fashion orphans, instead of some new disarmament treaty or new labour laws or trade agreements or whatever. Eyewitness news injected humour and trite personal comments by the newscasters. It emphasized the chemically enhanced skin tones of their anchors and their flashy hairstyles.
This is where most Americans ingest their news. Pabulum for the brain.