Pew | Politico | The Daily Beast
Before “Crossfire” returned to the air Monday night, CNN’s evening programming was about 2/3 opinion, Mark Jurkowitz and Jesse Holcomb write. CNN overall was “the only one of the three cable channels” in a Pew’s State of the Media report earlier this year “to offer more reporting (54%) than opinion (46%).”
But in the evening, CNN leaned more heavily on opinion—66% as opposed to 34% reporting—than Fox News. The resurrection of Crossfire, which will replace a half-hour of Wolf Blitzer’s “Situation Room,” will likely increase the commentary quotient.
Crossfire’s return “could be a signal that CNN executives agree” with the idea that more opinion content means higher ratings, Jurkowitz and Holcomb write.
Politico’s Dylan Byers writes that the show’s debut “was, to put it mildly, awkward.”
Stephanie Cutter and Newt Gingrich, both of whom are very comfortable debating issues as guests on other CNN programs, proved to be remarkably uncomfortable in the co-host chairs. Their questions were too scripted, their repartee too forced, their interactions tempered by uncharacteristic stage-fright.
“But that doesn’t mean they can’t improve, and fast,” Byers says.
A couple more reviews:
• “The show remained notably not contentious, though there were some arguments,” some uncredited person writes on The Huffington Post.
• “There were even moments when the debate over a military strike in Syria went a little deeper than the typical cable news segment allows,” Elspeth Reeve writes. “It was also a pleasant surprise to discover that Crossfire is only half an hour long.”
Also on Monday, PBS NewsHour’s new anchor team of Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill made their debut.
ICYMI: @gwenifill and @judywoodruff closed out their first show as official co-anchors with…a fist-bump http://t.co/HNph8myUKZ
— NewsHour (@NewsHour) September 9, 2013
I couldn’t find that event in the end of the show’s video, but NewsHour’s Justin Scuiletti has created an animated GIF.
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