Reliable Sources.

Well, it's gone and the search for who actually held the knife will go on for some time. Licht can make all the noise he wants about moving the network back toward the center but is that really the actual goal? After all, CNN is now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and methinks this is more about the bottom line than anything else.

First a look back to the glory days of journalism and the gold standard set by Cronkite and others: many of these journalists were registered independents or de-facto independents and some actually went out of their way not to vote in federal elections to further cement their impartiality.  

Think back to Cronkite's rare editorials that were in part so powerful because they were in fact rare. When LBJ saw Cronkite's commentary on Vietnam he quickly realized that his presidency was on the down swing and likely doomed politically. 

With the advent of the internet, it became impractical to yearn for the good old days. Cable news has largely morphed over the years into reporting, context, explanation but also commentary central. Put another way, there are simply too many anchors editorializing across the board than there should be. Put aside deliberate manufacture or misrepresentation of the news and facts in general by some, the overreliance on commentary is prevalent across the board.

I'm not naive enough to think that Stelter is leaving only because of his political views which admittedly were on the left. WBD like most other media companies likely felt uncomfortable with a program that was not afraid to put CNN and its internal practices under a critical microscope. So, that fits into the departure equation as well. 

I'm all for personal editorializing at the end of shows so long as it meets the gravity of the moment but serial editorializing at the end of each and every show is a bridge too far for me. Frankly, some on-air talent like Wolf, Dana, Erin, Anderson, Jim and ironically Chris were better at holding the line without serially veering toward one party's view while others like Jim, Jake, Don, Brianna and Ana were more prone to representing a particular political agenda on-air. I must say that in Don's case I really get where he's coming from given his individual life experience and that of the black community over the last 70 years or more. 

That brings us to the billion dollar question: how to bring in and allow to flourish the happy medium without giving any party a pass or allowing it to substantially affect either directly or indirectly the reporting that makes its way on-air? Far easier said than done in the real world.

It troubles me to see talent leaving CNN but what concerns me even more is Reliable Sources' cancellation: that smacks of finding a way to get management out from under the microscope  especially from reporters and editors who happen to work for them. That's likely the real elephant in the room and time will tell if that eventually is borne out in media reporting. May the search for the RealDeal be both fruitful and timely.