Is CNN getting too carried away with this whole Twitter thing?
Look I get that it’s a necessity for news organizations to look cool and hip. It also makes sense that they would want to use these social media tools as a way to reach their audience and possibly find leads for stories.
What does not make sense is the idea of building a two hour “news” show around the meanderings of people on Twitter. Seriously Rick Sanchez might be a very nice guy and to a point I kind of like the man but two hours of Twitter sourced crap – c’mon dud let’s get serious.
I’m not the biggest fan of Wolf Blitzer or the so-called Situation Room but to cut it back to two hours so that we can get that much more Twitter stuff is brain dead.
This feeling apparently is pretty wide spread within the CNN organization as TVNewser is reporting – quoting Michael Calderone from the Politico blog.
Sanchez, who incorporates Twitter heavily into the show, is viewed by some in Washington as merging entertainment more with the news content than is customary at the network, and at one point Howie Lutt, senior director for “The Situation Room,” stood up and asked the roughly 200 staffers assembled in the bureau to raise their hands if they respect him or Blitzer as a journalist, according to network sources.Almost everyone assembled raised their hand for Blitzer; only a few showed similar support for Sanchez.
Talk about going from one extreme to another eh.