CNN gets Chung. Beefs up roster.

January 23, 2002 9:38 AM

CNN gets Chung. Beefs up roster. Their continued battle with Fox News heats up with their hiring of Connie Chung. All this sounds a lot more exciting than it really is.
posted by lostbyanecho (15 comments total)

Am I alone in the sentiment that Chung is a useless softball schmoozer interviewer in the same mold as Larry King and Barbara Walters?
posted by owillis at 9:40 AM on January 23, 2002

Sorry to be snarky, but it sounds exactly as unexciting as it really is.
posted by argybarg at 9:43 AM on January 23, 2002

what's CNN being punished for?
posted by tolkhan at 9:45 AM on January 23, 2002

A sad commentary when we have "superstars" to present watered down and carefully selected news read from teleprompters by highly paid people who are now in the big league paradigm of moving from "city to city" or station to station, whichever can offer them more. I don't disappove of a person going for the best deal but to elevate these people to Star status plain silly.
posted by Postroad at 9:57 AM on January 23, 2002

News about news is . . .

MetaNews!

*scampers off to found the MetaNews Network*
posted by iceberg273 at 10:14 AM on January 23, 2002

1.) Will Connie get her own "sexy" commercials, like Paula Zahn's?

2.) Does Maury come along in a package deal?
posted by senorbunch at 10:17 AM on January 23, 2002

Am I alone in the sentiment that Chung is a useless softball schmoozer interviewer in the same mold as Larry King and Barbara Walters?

No, you're not, Oliver, but Connie lacks Larry and Baba Wawa's amusingly weird vapidity, which makes her even more of a snooze.
posted by jonmc at 10:21 AM on January 23, 2002

Don't forget Diane Sawyer, who has a hard-hitting exclusive whenever someone OD's on fertility drugs and has a "miraculous" multiple birth. I think you have to have nine now if you want your 15 minutes.
posted by gimli at 12:48 PM on January 23, 2002

Clearly cnn and fox news need to do stripping anchors. Like those nude weather girls they have in Japan.
posted by tiaka at 8:12 PM on January 23, 2002

I personally volunteer to 'Beef Up' CNN's roster...nudge, nudge, wink ,wink, if ya know what I mean...
posted by ttrendel at 9:35 PM on January 23, 2002

As someone who has watched a few hundred of my CNN.com friends get laid off in the last two years, including some of the very best journalists in the online world, I'm certainly thrilled to see the network pick up another high-priced person at a contract that probably could pay for 20 dot-commers (in the case of Larry King, more like the entire dot-com annual salary cost and then some).
posted by Phaedrus at 8:55 AM on January 24, 2002

Yeah, it's too bad people don't tune in to CNN for the dot-commers.
posted by kindall at 8:56 AM on January 24, 2002

Well, you should look at the Media Metrix numbers for CNN.com (and in fact, all the big news dot-coms). Millions and millions of unique users per day...now, compare that to the typical ratings of a CNN news program, in which a point-five rating is a glory during the day and a 1.5 is heaven at night.
posted by Phaedrus at 8:59 AM on January 24, 2002

What I meant was, the appearance, name, reputation, or personality of the people who work on CNN's Web site do not draw visitors to the site in the same way that Larry King's or Connie Chung's intangibles draw viewers to the channel.
posted by kindall at 11:47 AM on January 24, 2002

I heard they're gonna combine Connie Chung's and Larry King's show into one 2-hour mega news show and call it "Chung King".

Sorry, bad joke I heard somewhere.
posted by mikhail at 12:24 PM on January 24, 2002