CNN, the first name in infotainment

After cleverly naming my blog Infotainment Rules, I’ve been writing for nearly two years about the total collapse of the pretense that television offers programming called worthy of the term “the news.” CNN prez Jonathan Klein hammers the final nails into the coffin here.

First, he decries the absence of horrifying news events (such as, I assume, tsunamis and spectacular terrorist attacks) in the year 2007, because they would have dragged in more overall viewers:

“It hasn’t been the greatest news year,” Mr. Klein said. “There haven’t been major news events that have moved the needle.

Then he says that to compete in the 8 o’clock slot (against Keith Olbermann), CNN will use its news footage to provide yucks for viewers:

Mr. Klein suggested that Campbell Brown’s new 8 p.m. show, set to debut in February, would compete by being “more talk-oriented,” by featuring fewer “formal pieces,” and by on occasion capitalizing on Ms. Brown’s sometimes-comic sensibility towards the news, à la Comedy’s Central The Daily Show. “Jon Stewart should not corner the market on innovative uses of tape,” said Mr. Klein. “He wishes he had access to the amount of material we get in every day.”

Finally, he promotes CNN’s “documentaries”—such as the God’s Warriors by Christiane Amanpour, which suggested that Jewish and Christian fundamentalists are as big a threat to the world as the Islamist freaks who like to blow up, torture, main, cripple, intimidate, and terrify innocents, Muslim and otherwise, the world over for the glory of Allah [e.a.].

Mr. Klein said that when he arrived at CNN in November 2004, he discovered a documentary team focused primarily on “arcane” subject matter.

Under Mr. Klein’s direction, CNN documentaries have married high-profile CNN reporters with equally high-profile subjects—Christiane Amanpour and religious fundamentalism, Campbell Brown and political attack ads, Anderson Cooper and the environment. Mr. Klein said he encourages his reporters to draw conclusions in their documentaries—an upshot of which, he acknowledged, is that CNN docs increasingly “step on some vested interests, and they do respond.”

Sure enough, over the past year, CNN documentaries have riled up everyone from media watchdog types to conservative political operatives to MSNBC’s Dan Abrams to professional wrestlers. Mr. Klein suggested that he wouldn’t shy away from the hostile attention in the years to come—and suggested it probably does the network as much good as harm.

“What I love is when our competitors then turn that into segments on their shows,” said Mr. Klein. “They have nothing else to talk about other than who has CNN pissed off today. That’s great. We’ll provide fodder for their programming, as long as they get our initials right.”

See, as long as CNN is getting attention, its president doesn’t care what it gets attention for. The content of his programs is of interest to him only to the extent that it garners attention. Whether the subject is World War Three or Anna Nicole Smith doesn’t matter to him. Is he ashamed to admit it? Fuggedaboudit! He loves it! And he’s signed on for four more years!

Here’s his picture for your dartboard: