CNN, a network known for its regular liberal bias, touted its supposed objectivity versus its competitors in a new ad which premiered on Tuesday evening. The ad graphically associated Fox News with the Republican elephant and MSNBC with the Democratic donkey, and claimed, "If you want to keep them all honest, without playing favorites, the choice is clear: CNN, the worldwide leader in news."
Yahoo! News's Michael Calderone, in his Wednesday article on the new ad, quoted from CNN political director Sam Feist, who claimed that their ad "simply states the obvious: We're the one cable news channel that doesn't advocate for one political party or the other." Calderone continued that "CNN's nonpartisan anchors have struggled against their more opinionated counterparts. Campbell Brown acknowledged her 8 p.m. show's low ratings against Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann in her May announcement that she was leaving the network."
[Video of the ad below the jump]
This isn't the first time in 2010 that CNN has claimed that it's in the middle. Stuart Elliott of the New York Times reported on April 13 that the network was selling itself to advertisers as "the only credible, non partisan voice left" in the cable news business. Elliott quoted then-president Jonathan Klein boasting that CNN's "mission, our mandate [is] to deliver the best journalism in the world'....'No bias, no agenda.' That philosophy 'puts us in a category of one,' he [Klein] added, as CNN’s competitors 'have abandoned the field' of objective reporting."
CNN's actual record, however, tells a different tale. The network heavily promoted the agenda of left-wing homosexual activists over the past 10 months, with its publicity for GLAAD's "Spirit Day" on October 22, their pro-homosexual parenting documentary "Gary and Tony Have a Baby," and their series of pro-homosexual agenda segments during the month of June, along with leaning towards those who opposed California Proposition 8 after the voter-approved amendment was struck down in federal court.
More prominently, recently fired CNN anchor Rick Sanchez himself went after Fox News for being "way, way, way, to the right" and MSNBC for being "left," and extended his infamous "I play it down the middle" label to his entire network during an August 18, 2010 segment. However, Sanchez had a well-documented record of targeting conservative talk radio and Fox News, along with bashing conservatives during his time on CNN.
As for Calderone's example of CNN's supposed "nonpartisan anchors," Campbell Brown, the former personality claimed that "we are seeing a rise in right wing extremism recently" during an April 19, 2010 segment. When the network held its pitch to advertisers earlier that month, the New York Times's Elliott noted that "a panel took up a large part of the presentation...moderated by Anderson Cooper and also included CNN faces like Wolf Blitzer [and] Candy Crowley." But each of those three personalities have had instances of liberal media bias, with Cooper's own pushing of the homosexual activist's agenda, Blitzer's use of a left-wing talking point on the health care debate during a September 22, 2009 segment, and Crowley's labeling Tea Party activists "tea bag partiers"on the November 2, 2009 edition of The Situation Room.
