Tuned In

Cable-News News: King Moves Up, Hannity Owns Up

By James Poniewozik | @poniewozik | November 12, 2009 | +

That was quick: Less than 24 hours after Lou Dobbs abruptly left the air, CNN has announced he’ll be replaced by magic-wall-wrangler John King, hosting a daily political program. King’s show begins early next year. Thereby ensuring that the network’s 7 p.m. hour will not have to deal with future Dobbs-like controversies, or, most likely, anything else at all interesting.

The charitable view is that CNN, now in the basement in primetime news ratings, is not trying to copy the competition but sticking to its brand of straight news (though, face it—there’s plenty of filler on The Situation Room). And King does bring his sidekick, the magic wall with him. (As if that wall’s ego wasn’t big enough already. Mark my words—that flat-screen is going to be a terror when it comes time to renegotiate its contract.

Meanwhile, credit where it’s due. After being called out by Jon Stewart for splicing in two-months-old footage into coverage of last weekend’s health-reform protest, Fox News’Sean Hannity took it on that proud American chin last night: “As much as it pains me to say it, Jon Stewart, Comedy Central—he was right.”

Related Topics: cnn, fox news, john king, Jon Stewart, lou dobbs, sean hannity, tv news

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  • drad098

    “Meanwhile, credit where it’s due”

    Yeah, it takes a big man to get caught out misleading people and lie about it being an accident.

    Sure, mistakes happen, but at this point these little games are a pattern.

  • carolmr

    Now maybe Mr. Stewart will play ombudsman for MSNBC for a change. I guess he missed last month’s footage on MSNBC showing a tea-party rally and focused on an AR-15 that a man had slung over his shoulder. But they didn’t show the man’s face, they just focused on the gun. That’s because the man was black and that would not fit MSNBC’s view of the radical right.

  • guillo28

    Speaking of political “newscasters”, did anybody catch South Park’s amazing episode last night. With Palin’s book coming out,it couldn’t have come at a better time (“I’m just asking a question”).

  • van68

    Aaaaaand … Fox pulled the linked video for a “terms of use violation.” I guess even 36 seconds of public contrition is more than they want to leave out there for too long.

  • logicalmayhem14

    Carol, first of all if you watched Jon Stewart you would know he calls out all of the cable news networks with regularity. That Fox News gives him more material to work with by doing things like blatantly inserting footage from one protest when discussing a different protest isn’t his fault.

    But more importantly to your point, why does the man’s race matter at all? He showed up to a protest with an assault rifle … an ASSAULT RIFLE. And it wasn’t just any protest, it was outside of a presidential rally. In light of that, you chose to focus on how MSNBC did not discuss the man’s race. Not that a man showed up with an automatic weapon 1000 yards from the president? Come on.

  • carolmr

    logicalmayhem1, if the race of the man carrying an assault rifle doesn’t matter, then why did MSNBC go through the trouble of obscuring it?

  • itsrainingkarma

    Prove that MSNBC went through the trouble of obscuring it rather than it being irrelevant. You could have a show like the Daily Show if you could.

  • logicalmayhem14

    Carol, I can’t speak for MSNBC because I don’t watch or particularly like them, but the #6 comment sums it up pretty well. It’s very likely just that his race was plain old irrelevant. At least, I know it’s irrelevant to me. Even IF they did consciously make the effort to conceal the man’s race, this is in no way a comparable level of dishonesty as what Sean Hannity did and doesn’t even belong in the same discussion.

    And isn’t this a 3 month old story? Why is it still bothering you?

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