CNN Rapidly Becoming a Joke

I swear I can remember when CNN was a revered news source. The last 5 years, however, have seen a ratings slide that has catapulted the network in the direction of Entertainment Tonight. Perhaps it's the silly celebrity sagas carried as hard news. Perhaps it's the bimbo anchors on Headline News. Perhaps its covering the developments of American TV shows with greater interest than international events (don't you care more about the demise of an American Idol contestant than 20,000 people in the Sudan?). Whatever the case, CNN viewers are now swimming in a kiddy pool of content.

At this very moment, CNN.com has 8 headlines at the top of it's front page. Two of these, (1/4) are the following:

• Surprising death on 'Six Feet Under'

• Aniston: 'I love Brad; I really love him'

Yes, America. There was a surprising plot development on a fictional TV drama, and an actress cares for the actor she's divorcing.

It's not really that we don't care at all about these things, but CNN? Do they have any desire to still be taken seriously? In front of me sits a New York Times with front page articles on the deaths of leaders in Saudia Arabia and the Sudan. You won't find a mention on the front of CNN, though the incredibly sparse 'World' page has a story on Saudi King Fahd.

I don't think I'm using hyperbole when I suggest that CNN probably devotes as much air time to TV and Hollywood as they do to the entire Southern hemisphere of the globe. It's a sad state of affairs.