I'm still utterly unconvinced that CNN really intends to turn over a new leaf, integrity-wise, but I've been thinking about it a bit, and I agree with Patti's comment that it could be huge, both as a marketing decision and, almost incidentally, as an ethical one.
Imagine what would happen if CNN started a fierce and public campaign to change their ways. They have huge distribution worldwide and still, for whatever reason, have a decent reputation. If they launched a drive to tone down all the whiz-bang, the distracting graphics, the screaming and yelling, and started taking seriously their responsibility to educate and inform the public about world events, presenting things in an honest and truly balanced way, how could anyone argue with it? How could another network not respond? If CNN actually made substantial changes and other networks didn't follow suit, they would be tacitly admitting that they prefer flash over substance and aren't interested in trying to be better news organizations.
If CNN's slogan became "CNN: The Truth For A Change" or something like that, and they actually tried to do it, they'd kick everyone's ass. They have the resources, they have the distribution, they have the reputation, they could use it for immeasurable good. They've seen - from Jon Stewart primarily, among others - that there is a huge market for media that 1) is relatively unbiased, 2) treats the public with respect and 3) isn't afraid to look in the mirror and take some responsibility.
Imagine a show on CNN that showed clips of other news programs, even past CNN broadcasts, and pointed out how unfair, biased, and uninformative they were. "See how we allowed this politician to go off on a little tirade and didn't offer one single substantive challenge? We're not going to do that anymore. See how we're treating unsupported opinions as equal to positions based on real-world information? That's gone, too."
A guy can dream...
