Tag: CNN

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Media Politics

CNN Says Twitter Users are Obviously “Narcissistic.”

Just thought I’d post this to the blog. AP reporters are being encouraged by their union not to tweet news articles while they’re negotiating their contract. Certainly, it makes sense. Probably, it will reveal information of great interest to anyone who studies the flow of information in social networks. But @CNN opts not to bother going into any detail with this and chooses instead to focus on getting a nice dig in for all us Twitter users:

Reporters often volunteer to spread links out of good will for their employer or for obvious narcissistic reasons. The labor union is discouraging people who’s job explicitly entails using social-networking services from participating in the boycott.

Good of CNN to point out the obvious: that anyone who uses Twitter is a narcissist. Or perhaps, anyone not tweeting out of a sense of “good will for their employer” is doing it for narcissistic reasons.

Now as it happens, I am a narcissist. But I keep that separate from my Twitter usage. Because I’m a pro. And I’m sure the “Worldwide Leader in News” who urges us to “Go Beyond Borders” and has “The Best Political Team on Television” would readily recognize such egotism when they see it. So, its not like they’re completely wrong.

But let’s not drag everybody down to our level, shall we, CNN?

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This is it! Get out there and vote!

Well, its November 2nd and if you have managed to make it all day without seeing any news, this is just a reminder that yes, it’s Election Day. Time to get out there and do your civic duty.

I don’t think there’s any question that, for Democrats, this year’s civic duty is just that: a duty. Very few of us are overly enthusiastic about what the media keeps telling us will be a drubbing. Personally, while I’ve never been sanguine about Dem’s chances, I have to admit that the constant barrage of media negativity is starting to wear on my stomach.

Thing is: no one is really polling most of these individual Congressional races and really, the pundits are largely going on feeling which is to say: largely going on the group-think of the Pundit Class. It will be interesting to see what the narrative is by tomorrow morning. You can be sure that, no matter what happens, it certainly won’t be the media’s fault for over-hyping what is supposed to be a serious matter of electing leaders. If the Republicans don’t crush the Democrats across the board – if the take the House as is now all but axiomatic in the group-think, but do no better – the question will be what is wrong with the Republicans rather than what is wrong with the media’s analysis.

So here’s my advice, gleaned from careful observation of MSNBC, TalkingPointsMemo.com and CNN: the question is how big the wave will actually be, and we really need to watch the early results to get an indication of what happens next, then we’ll need to see how it unfolds from there.

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d00ced! CNN Morning Show Producer

A producer at CNN has been d00ced for blogging on the state of the media without first clearing his reporting with CNN.