CNN excutives preached non partisanship and objectivity to advertisers in an effort to convince them to continue doing business with the flailing cable news network.

From the New York Times

In a presentation to advertisers and agencies on Tuesday morning, executives of CNN indicated how they plan to counter the growing ratings of  — and buzz about — the rival Fox News Channel: play up their channel’s identity as an objective source of news.

“Journalism is our core value; it’s who we are,” Greg D’Alba, executive vice president and chief operating officer for advertising sales and marketing, told an audience at the Frederick P. Rose Hall at Time Warner Center. “Good journalism will make the difference.”

Jim Walton, president for CNN Worldwide, part of Time Warner, put it this way: “We’re the only credible, nonpartisan voice left. And that matters.”

Both executives alluded to the recent spate of news articles about CNN’s poor ratings in the first quarter as Fox News, part of the News Corporation, and MSNBC, part of NBC Universal, stay ahead of CNN in prime time.

Mr. Walton referred lightly to “all the great coverage we’ve had” and Mr. D’Alba said that “there’s no way” the complete story was being told about CNN’s performance.

CNN is telling its story as the cable channels continue their series of so-called upfront presentations to Madison Avenue decision-makers. CNN shared the event with its sibling channel, HLN, formerly CNN Headline News, which offers a Fox News-like line-up of evening opinion shows from the likes of Joy Behar and Nancy Grace after a day of news coverage.

Indeed, the HLN part of the presentation was titled “News and Views,” in contrast with the descriptions of CNN as “Our mission, our mandate, is to deliver the best journalism in the world,” said Jonathan Klein, president for CNN U.S. “No bias, no agenda.”

I love that quote from Klein even though I don’t believe him for a minute that CNN actually operates in a no bias and no agenda zone and I would venture to say that the advertisers and the public in general would have a hard time believing Klein.

CNN has long had a liberal bias and during the Clinton years it was so pronounced that they were often referred to as the Clinton News Network.  Very little has changed since then and if anything the network has probably tilted more to the left with the cancellation of Crossfire several years ago and the departure of Glenn Beck and addition of Joy Behar.

I guess objectivity is in the eye of the beholder and for CNN it comes through a liberal prism.

 

 

 

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