Is It Him/Them?

(this will probably get updated throughout the day) Police take two men into custody in Virginia

It looks like they may have the sniper(s) in custody! I sure hope so, because I’ve watched more CNN in the past two weeks than I care to mention.

Speaking of, I have yet another problem with CNN’s coverage of this whole thing. With their quiver full of experts and the constantly interjecting Daryn Kagan (don’t really care if that’s spelled correctly), I’ve heard the phrase “We don’t want to speculate” about a thousand times. Yet, what do they do as soon as those five words leave their mouths? They go right on to speculate and offer whatever crocked up theory they have that five minutes. They’ve done nothing BUT speculate for two weeks on this thing. It’s their job to speculate. But, come on CNN, don’t think we’re so stupid as to think that what you’re doing isn’t speculation. It is, especially when it’s your reporters doing the speculation. Seeing as I’ve been giving CNN all this advice, I’ve come up with a new tagline for CNN. I think it would be perfect for the bumper with James Earl Jones saying, “This is CNN”. They should have Richard Lewis’s voice follow that with “Now with spectaculation!” They seem to let everyone in the speculation act: anchors, hosts, field reporters, etc.

Ok, while I’m at it, when did it become journalistically acceptable for one reporter to interview another reporter about a story they’ve both been reporting on at the same time? It happened about a million times on Saturday night after the shooting in Ashland, and it drove me nuts. I understand going to a reporter in the field, like Jeane Meserve (who seemed to be able to get info better than anyone else and made the others look like a high school A/V club), but for Anderson Cooper to interview Ms. Kagan, who was doing the same thing he was was just stupid. She was basically an anchor on location. She’s not a reporter. She’s an anchor. Don’t interview her like she’s been doing investigative journalism while they did her hair and makeup.

I would watch one of the other cable news channels, but they’re even worse. It’s sad that CNN is the best of the bunch, when they’ve clearly gone downhill.

I’ve been giving CNN a really hard time, but I do have to give them credit for covering the shooting on Saturday when even our local DC stations wouldn’t cut into normal programming (on two channels, they were showing second or third run movies… breaking news would have gotten better ratings) to cover it.