We've been impressed with your suggestions on how to improve CNN. So here's the discussion question for the weekend........who would you ask CNN to hire back if you had to single it down to one former on air personality? Feel free to elaborate with your reasoning if the spirit moves you.
23 comments:
Definitely miss Tony Harris here in America. Thought he was a great broadcaster. He seems happy though at Al Jazeera English. Great job he is doing there.
Without a doubt LARRY KING! He never wanted to leave. He was the star at CNN. I'm sure many will agree.
I would say bring back Betty Nguyen and develop a
brand new 7 PM show since Erin Burnett is going to
the new morning show. She is a familiar face to CNN
viewers so they would already be used to her.
Heidi Collins!
Straight news, no drama, pleasant voice, good camera presence, never betrayed her biases on camera..........attributes which are lacking in most of the current crop of anchors.
There are two woulds in the second line of: 'who would you would.'
I would ask Miles O'Brien back because he NEVER should have been fired in the first place, and unless Zucker is a Republican, which we gather and hope he isn't, this man is needed if only for his knowledge in science and the atmosphere, and global warming, a topic the President addressed.
Yes, CNN needs someone who has the ability to read a global warming trend and analyze it, before the next super storm, 'ya think.'
The Polar ice caps are melting folks. That's a fact.
I would bring back Campbell Brown. She got a raw deal and they should have given her more time and supported her show. 8pm was too tough a time slot but she would have done fine at 7pm. For all the flack she got about ratings, she outperforms Anderson's ratings at 8pm. She is a much better anchor and journalist than Burnett.
Tony Harris was great and a class act. I agree and speaking of Al Jazeera, Jon Stewart
really held Al Gore's feet to the fire, during his interview on TDS this past week.
Stewart alleged that ol' Al was a bit hypocritical selling Current TV
to the Saudi family who has made their fortune in oil.
Gore kept his cool, but barely.
Stewart asked him to justify the mogul Gore with the 'activist Gore.'
If Jon ever decides to leave comedy, which he wouldn't, he'd make a fine journalist. Just one of his many talents.
Huffpost has the clip.
Can't think of anyone that should be hired back. They brought Soledad back to the anchor chair and the verdict is still out whether that was a good move or not. Soledad is quite talented but what she also is, is a very polarizing journalist.
He hasn't been let go and I think it would be a mistake if CNN decided to let him go, John King. If John King is allowed to play to his strengths which are commentary and analysis, he is such an asset. An asset definitely worth keeping.
TJ. It's a real joy to see him pop up on MSNBC
now and then.
My comment is not really on a former personality but rather a former look CNN used to have. I'm talking about their on-screen graphics. CNN logo was bigger, words were capitalized, it was simple, and no ticker on the bottom. It's way too much to read on screen these days.
I would like to bring back Michael Ware and Campbell Brown. Michael was such an outstanding correspondent. Campbell Brown is as smart as Soledad O'Brien, but so much more likeable. Soledad has had two shows that have had poor ratings. It is funny that there was a Harris poll of top ten TV personalities and Anderson Cooper was number 7 even though he never wins his time slot.
LARRY KING. Period.
So many good suggestions. I was hoping no one would say Glen Beck or Lou Dobbs. Hard to believe they were once on CNN.
I am old school and still miss Aaron Brown, but he's happy playing golf and teaching journalism in Arizona so I don't see him coming back to television.
Also miss Rick Sanchez on many levels. He never took himself too seriously and he did bring a Hispanic demographic to CNN that it presently lacks.
But if I had to narrow it down to one choice I would say John Roberts. He would be fantastic doing a fast paced nightly news (ala Bri Wi) type program on CNN, something that I've always wished CNN would do.
Rick Sanchez never took himself seriously? He was SO full of himself! Big reason why many were happy to see him go. He was a smart ***.
Any anchor who allows himself to be filmed while being tasered on camera, spending the night in the wilderness with a survival expert, rescued by the Coast Guard at sea in a helicopter, reporting from the streets of Phoenix...in a suit...in 120 degree heat and so much more while laughing along as other CNN anchors poked fun at him is a very good sport who doesn't take himself too seriously. Our nickname for him at ATA was Mr. Rick “I’ll Do Any Story” Sanchez.
And I have yet to hear of a CNN anchor who isn't full of themselves. If they didn't have that confidence in themselves they wouldn't have made it to the level that they have. So I stand by my comment anonymous 12:25.
I agree with the Aaron Brown comment.
Maybe he wasn't a populist kind of anchor, and was criticized for being a bit elitist and slow paced than the competition -- but there is a place for smarter news on TV.
Tony Harris is also very good. And I always liked Leon Harris and Bernard Shaw.
Lots of the old reporters too - Richard Blystone, Tom Mintier, Brent Sadler and Mike Chinoy.
How about the news. The news needs to be the star on CNN. It is their bread and butter. Because of social media/mobile old media like CNN have less power. Come up with with a brand new news hybrid. Have a team who will have the job 24/7 365 searching the world , the web, social media for news. What you will discover is that there is a huge disconnect between cable news and millions of potential viewer for CNN. Oreo gets it. What they did when the power went out was just amazingly brilliant. CNN needs to the do the same thing for news. There GIF, meme , tweets. It is not too hard these days to engage viewers with the news. Hint it is not longer about ideology. People want to learn and share news . Can CNN make the shift to new faces as contributors with no political connections
Let's see people from Business Week, Mashable, New Republic. Hire people who know how you find out the news that people are really taking about on Face Book, Twitter and others. CNN needs to pay attention to their own Trends.
I don't ever want to see Rick Sanchez or Campbell Brown on CNN again. Move bring n new talent with fresh ideas for making CNN relevant again. Don't revisit anything that Jon Klein did for CNN. It was a complete disaster.
I have to agree with news. I had to turn from CNN
this morning. Nothing about the drone strikes story,
Obama's presser a 1 :15 PM and they completely
messed up on Lindsay Vohn. It was a leg injury as
reported by ESPN. How can you be serious about
sports and not give us any scores and virtually no
highlights,
Wow. The hiring continues for CNN. They have just announced that they have hired Zain Asher. Good news. She is awesome. I'm betting she will be on the new morning show with Chris Cuomo anchoring the business news in the morning. Stay Tuned.
There is no doubt about, I would bring back Heidi Collins. She was a class act all the way. When she was on the air reporting the news you could tell that she was in control and actually cared about the viewer and not her ratings.
Also, please move Suzanne Malveaux back to reporting. She was much better at that then her current anchor gig.
There are a few that I would bring back, a few I'd bring in, and a few I'd toss to the scraps:
Have Isha Sesay and Erica Hill do a show at 7 pm...focused on the news (no talking heads, include an international aspect/view)
With Anderson's daytime show about to end, that means he can get back out on the road and do the things he did to make a name for himself at 8 pm.
Bring in George Strombolopolous to do "The Hour" at 9 pm and replacing the disaster that is Piers Morgan. George is not a pompous, blithering jack@$$ like Piers.
Bring in Aaron Brown to do a 10 pm show.
Dayside, it goes without saying that a big revamp of the morning shows is required. My first impression of Cuomo is that he's not exactly the kind of guy I want to wake up with. And if the rumours about Burnett are true, this show is dead on arrival. For as many degrees as that woman has she's as dumb as a doorknob. Ann Curry is NOT the answer - she didn't work on Today, what makes you think she'll work at CNN? Why not a TJ Holmes / Don Lemon / Brianna Keilar show? Or even Rob Marciano?
The Newsroom concept is fine (save for the talking heads) but they need to improve the anchors. Rather than have Suzanne, Carol, Brooke, etc. are so not interesting. Give Poppy Harlow a bigger role. Bring Kyra back. Bring back Tony Harris. While Rick Sanchez wouldn't be my first choice, I think he was better than any of the Newsroom anchors they have now and he brings a Latino perspective that can only benefit CNN.
I would also think that Wolf Blitzer is probably starting to think about retirement so they better start planning now as to who will replace him.
CNN has an interesting situtation on its hands. I can recall as a teenager back in the early 80's when I was a young teenager watching CNN take shape and really telling the story. Reporters like Christiane Amanpour and others were new and not worried about what they looked like on the screen with regards to fashion or makeup. They just wanted to report the news and get the story correct the first time.
CNN has anchors like this now, such as Kate Bolduan, Brianna Keilar, Christine Romans, Randi Kaye, Fredricka Whitfield and Ashleigh Banfield (when she is out in the field doing reporting)
Anchors like Soledad O’Brien, Carol Costello, Brooke Baldwin, Erin Burnett and Zoraida Sambolin (it is a shame that she left Chicago where she was such a large part of the commuinity and her job at WMAQ-TV NBC fit her strong points, CNN does not fit her at all) just need to be released from their contracts. The general public just does like the way they report the news. It seems as though they attempt to place too much of their own opinions into the news reports, not allowing the comsumer to decide for themselves. Also, please keep Alison Kosik reporting business news; she does not at all seem in "control" behind an anchor desk.
Barbara Starr reporting from the Pentagon is rock solid. She seems to have just what it takes to be believable and trustworthy from the public's point of view. Jessica Yellin at the White House is a solid match as well. She is likable and knows the material that she is reporting day to day on.
Since the network let the likes of Heidi Collins and Betty Nguyen depart for greener pastures, (big mistake by the way) they need to get some new talent in. Sorry, Ann Curry is not the answer either. Stay away from anyone dealing with News that NBC currently has on their network.
Try possibly Elizabeth Vargas, although getting ABC to release her from her current contract would probably extremely difficult or Maggie Rodriguez (formerly of CBS "The Early Show"). They both seem to be mature and intelligent reporters who command respect from their audience, not to mention they are easy on the eyes as well.
Difficult decisions will need to be made. Keep the likes of John King and Wolf Blitzer around. They are wise gentlemen who are in control of what they are doing. Just some thoughts from someone who has watched CNN since its inception and would like to see it put Fox News and MSNBC back in their rightful place at the bottom of the ratings. Good luck and remain true to the "real news".
DEAR MR ZUKER
I HAVE WATCHED CNN FOR YEARS AND FIND A FEW THINGS THAT SHOULD CHANGE AND A FEW THAT SHOULDN'T. FOR HEAVENS'SAKE DON'T GET RID OF JOHN KING ,WOLF BLITZER, BARBARA STARR,ANDERSON COOPER.
THEY MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE WHEN THEY LET LARRY KING GO AND REPLACED HIM WITH PIERS MORGAN,AND ERIN BURNETT IS JUST ANOTHER PRETTY FACE WHO TALKS TOO FAST.
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