Matt Drudge, of course, is the true king of the New Media--always and forever. And so The Drudge Report is required clicking for Cable Gamers: A case in point is this leaked memo, from CNN prexy Jon Klein.
Here's the way Drudge summed it up:
According to notes from CNN's Monday news meeting network president Jon Klein tells employees to use the California fire tragedy to "push" their "Planet in Peril" special, but warns reporters not to "irresponsibly link" the fires to "Global Warming."
In other words, they are supposed to "push" the story, but not "irresponsibly." Does that mean that they have been acting irresponsibly heretofore? Just asking.
And in any case, where does CNN get off linking a fire story to an environmentally themed special, "Planet in Peril"? I thought that Ted Turner had retired. But evidently, his Fonda-fied radical-chic spirit still lingers, in Atlanta and of course NYC.
I mean, does CNN really believe that brush- and forest fires are something new? Do they expect us to believe that? CNN might wish to blame fire on the automobile and the oil companies, but it seems to me that fire goes back quite a long ways, way before humans.
So who is CNN going to blame--God? Uh oh, shouldn't give Turner & Co. ideas.
(And I guess it would be silly for The Cable Gamer to expect, say, the vaunted Columbia Journalism Review to take note of such an obvious journalistic infraction.)
UPDATE: As of 11 a.m. ET on Friday--more than 24 hours after the initial post-- CJR still hadn't bothered to correct its error.
