CNN CYA

Blogger Patterico reports what we all know happens when you post something on YouTube that The Elite Media Monoculture finds embarrassing; it gets pulled down. The Soviets were very good at this sort of reverse engineering of history; inconvenient truths were routinely airbrushed out of the picture when it became necessary. It is typical of the left. But then again, the Soviets did not have to contend with the Internet or talk radio.

In our latest adventure from dying leftist media, CNN demanded that the video of the Susan Roesgen report from the Chicago Tea Party be removed from YouTube because of 'copyright' violations. But the argument does not hold up for long. The purpose of the video posting, which can be seen all over the Internet at this point and not just on YouTube, is to offer criticism and comment on the performance of CNN itself; something which is protected by the 1st amendment and the doctrine of 'fair use.' If you want to offer your opinion of CNN's coverage of the Chicago Tea Party, you can use that video in order to point out what you think is wrong with reporter Roesgen's behavior. The use of the video is as evidence for editorial opinion. And that is what CNN is really against. Copyright isn't really an issue here because the people posting the vid aren't claiming it as their own; rather they are making fun of it. And CNN doesn't like that at all. They know that they look like fools for putting this reporter on the scene. They know how they are made to appear because of this video and they are doing whatever they can to erase this annoying little bit of history. But fortunately for us, it is very difficult to do that in the age of new media.

The reality is that Dinosaur media still doesn't get it. I was watching a panel of liberal journalists on C-SPAN over the weekend discussing the collapse of old media, (they didn't call it that of course) in particular the 'feature story' that seems to be more and more rare in journalism, which was the topic of this particular panel. They offered many different explanations such as the centralization of corporate ownership of media, etc., to try to understand what is happening to their publications. All of the usual explanations from the left that we have heard before. None of them dared to ask whether the content they were offering might have something to do with the fact that people were no longer buying their product. It just does not occur to them to imagine that in the world of new media with the Internet and talk radio, that you can't get away with treating half of your audience with disdain and contempt and not see a serious decline of your product, in this case the liberal newspaper or newsmagazine.

CNN got crushed in the ratings by competitor Fox over the Tea Parties and for a simple reason; they had better coverage. Fox took the protests seriously and covered them as a serious news event. They asked questions and covered the issues raised by the protests in a way that recognized that the audience really would want to know and understand the meaning of the event. CNN sent Susan Roesgen. The difference between the two was clear for all to see. The problem for CNN and for the rest of Dinosaur Media, aside from the fact that everyone knows about the Roesgen report by now, is that with the advent of the Internet regular people can now talk back to them and let them know what they think about the 'coverage.'. Speaking Truth to Power is how they used to put it when the only speaking we heard was from the left. But now that the conservative right has a voice, feedback is just a bit too inconvenient for them to deal with. But try as they might, they can no longer silence the true voice of the people. And of course, they cannot hold onto viewers who have alternative sources of information from which to choose.