Campbell Brown Insists Only CNN Is Real News; What About MJ Coverage?

Just as this White House vs. Fox News feud sounds like it may be winding down (or not…we’ll see), CNN’s Campbell Brown is weighing in on the issue.

Building on her line of questioning with Valerie Jarrett earlier this week, Brown further reiterated her position that CNN does “news” – a day after Larry King devoted nearly an entire hour to the Michael Jackson “This Is It” premiere.

Brown delivered a commentary on the White House’s position, which may seem surprising since CNN and Brown consistently push the idea there is no opinion from their prime time hosts (as opposed to their cable news opponents on Fox News and MSNBC). But the commentaries are something Brown has done in the past, and the “no bias, no bull” approach gives her the opportunity to state some opinion, while also falling back on doing it in a balanced, ‘call them all out’ way.

“I have largely ignored it on this show, mostly because I thought it was silly,” said Brown. Silly or not, it’s what many in the cable news community were talking about.

“What confuses me is if the White House is really so concerned about bias in the media, then why are they only targeting Fox?” she asked. After playing the Jarrett clip, Brown continued. “Jarrett seems loathe to admit that MSNBC has a bias, and that is where I think the White House loses all credibility on the issue.”

Some strong words, and although the point has been made in the last couple weeks while this debate has gone on, having a CNN anchor state the opinion is a new twist. And it comes as a shot at MSNBC, at a time when Keith Olbermann has taken some recent shots at CNN and Brown as well.

Then Brown said this: “Some of us, like my colleagues here at CNN, are still trying to do journalism.”

We addressed this yesterday, but when ‘doing journalism’ is what CNN has chosen as the separating factor between their network and Fox News/MSNBC, it opens them up to potential criticism when journalism seems notably absent. Last Tuesday night on Larry King’s hour, the hour after Brown’s show, the show was based almost entirely on “This Is It” – except when there was a break to interview Hulk Hogan about his new book.

Actually, maybe CNN is making a tacit admission its prime time line-up is not all about news on CNN.com. While Brown’s show and Anderson Cooper’s 10pmET program are listed in the “news” section, King’s 9pmET show is in the “interview and debate” section.

>>> NEXT PAGE: Videos, from Brown and King.

Pages: 1 2

share this post

filed under