About us Login Get email updates
County Fair
Print

Why does CNN employ Lou Dobbs?

November 11, 2009 4:06 pm ET by Jamison Foser

I don't mean that in the sense the question is typically asked -- "Why would CNN inflict such a loud-mouthed xenophobe on it's audience?"  I mean, why does CNN employ a host whose journalism is so inconsistent with its stated business model?

Whenever there's a news report about CNN's sagging ratings, a CNN executive steps forward to say that their brand is serious, nonpartisan news, and if they turned to opinionated hosts who might boost their ratings, they'd damage that brand.  Here's an AP article out today, for example:

The network could cast aside Cooper, Larry King and Campbell Brown for opinionated analysis and probably see its ratings go up, said Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide.

The benefit for one arm of the company isn't worth the potential damage to others, he said.

CNN has built its business - encompassing international networks and wholesale news reports, mobile device services, a Web site, a wire service to print publications and radio - around the notion that it is delivering nonpartisan, straight news reporting, he said. The company has shown double-digit growth for the past few years and is on pace to continue. It invests by hiring more personnel, and this month opening a new production facility in Abu Dhabi.

"People hear what's being said and it's branded CNN and (they say), 'OK, that's news. That's nonpartisan, that's factual, it's timely," Walton said. "That's what we want to deliver around the world. We compete against a lot more than Fox and MSNBC."

So ... How does Lou Dobbs fit into that business model?  Quite plainly, he doesn't.  So why does CNN damage its brand by giving him an hour every night?

UPDATE: Right on cue ... Under pressure, Dobbs announces his resignation from CNN

Expand All Expand 1st Level Collapse All Add Comment
    • Author by bobalu (November 11, 2009 7:33 pm ET)
        2
      CNN is not watched much except for the Lou Dobbs show...maybe they can merge with MSNBC or PBS?
      Report Abuse
    • Author by justamaz (November 11, 2009 7:49 pm ET)
        2
      Because, duh, there are multi-thousands of Independents out here, in the real world, that have many of Lou's beliefs. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that.
      Report Abuse
      • Author by John Paradox (November 11, 2009 10:34 pm ET)
        2  
        Actually, the less like a rocket scientist a person is, the more likely they are to believe Dobbs.
        Report Abuse
        • Author by mycos2679 (November 12, 2009 2:34 pm ET)
             
          Or, as McClosky said in his "Conservatism And Personality", an article that appeared in the well-respected journal American Political Science Review, "Conservatism is not the doctrine of the intellectual elite or of the more intelligent segments of the population, but the reverse. By every measure available to us, conservative beliefs are found most frequently among the uninformed, the poorly educated, and the less intelligent".
          Report Abuse
    • Author by jonpin (November 11, 2009 8:25 pm ET)
      1  
      Well... there's your answer.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by DellDolly (November 11, 2009 8:37 pm ET)
      1  
      Do you tell fortunes, Jamison? If so, I'm buying! LOL
      Report Abuse