It seems that CNN+ was doomed before it even launched.
The subscription streaming service, which launched on March 29 and will shut down on April 30, was misaligned with the long-term strategy outlined by Discovery executives, who took over WarnerMedia just a week or so after the service launched, and who plan to create a super-service that combines entertainment and news into one compelling package.
“Some of this was avoidable,” Warner Bros. Discovery’s top streaming executive JB Perrette told employees in a town hall Thursday, according to an attendee who spoke with The Hollywood Reporter. Perrette also lamented that WarnerMedia leadership pushed forward with the plan to launch a standalone service, knowing that the new ownership was coming in skeptical of the idea.
Why would anyone pay for CNN?
It used to be a network worth watching. Ted Turner owned it and made it a news channel. (He created it in fact.) But it was news. And people would watch it on basic cable -- no extra charge to have it on their cable bundle -- because it covered news. They would especially watch if a hurricane struck, a national tragedy, a child stuck in a well, a police car chase or some other attention getting event took place. They would tune it at night for a talk show: LARRY KING LIVE.
They have talk shows now -- cheap talking heads -- but they are not quality talk shows. They do not bring on Sophia Loren or some international star that we want to hear from. Instead, it is gab gab gab about partisanship. It is nonsense. It is not entertaining and people flee.
Can you imagine if these so-called talk shows on CNN had call-ins? Larry King did call ins all the time. If these shows had it, even pre-screening could not stop people sneaking in to scream "Boring!" on the air before they were cut off.
So CNN is at its worst ever and the ratings reflect that and they decide to create a paying subscription model?
People are saying no to CNN as a freebie. In what world did someone 'brain'storm this bad idead?
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, April 21, 2022. Julian Assange, the only person the US government has ever wanted to punish for the illegal Iraq War.
Starting with Julian Assange who is being persecuted by US President Joe Biden for the 'crime' of journalism. Julian, the publisher of WIKILEAKS, exposed War Crimes the US crried out in Iraq and Afghanistan As a result, 8he remains held by the UK as they decide whether or not they're going to turn him over to Joe Biden so that Joe can isolate and torture Julian.
We've gotten a little smarter over th98e last few years. Partisan trash used to think they could get away with Ju8lian was guilty of some disloyalty to his government charge. No. Julian is not8 an American citizen. He's an Australian citizen. And the government of Australia has made clear that they are too weak and too pathetic to protect their own citizens -- see also their refusal to assist Robert Pether who remains rotting in an Iraqi jail.
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Julian published the truth and did so with the help of many -- including THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHIGNTON POST, THE GUARDIAN and many others around the world. These same outlets ow fail to come to his defense8. Talk about RELIABLE SOURCES, huh? But don't expect human trash Brian Stelter to talk about Julia8n because he knows he's on iffy ground. He's got to be a good whore and dance for his corporte masters now more than ever as new internal polling at CNN found that viewers find him grotesque. That's only a surprise if Brian's never looked in a mirror. His ratings are poor and just his face is enough to run off viewers. He'll keep lying and distorting and distracting while thanking his personal savior that someone is stupid eough to put him in front of the cameras.
Brian will die as he has lived -- having done nothing of note, having done nothing at all.8 He chose to waste his life. Julian chose to stand up for important issues and expose crimes.
Joe Biden is a 8failure and his war on The First Amendment only adds to that. His polling is appalling and that's with the usual whoring going on, the usual excuses, the usual refusal of the press to hold a sitting president accountable. Can you imagine how much worse his reputation will be ten or twenty years after he's out of office?
Who's going to salvage his reputation hen? That creepy sister who has always given vibes or perversity? That corrupt son that 8should be in a court of alaw answering for all he's done?
No.
Joe ha8s no defenders. None who can't alter public opinion.
So he'll go down as the man who declared war on the First Amendment while inflation soared, while homelessness increased, while he made statements telling the American people to prepare for food shortages.
Depressing Joe seems intent upon restoring The Great Depression.
He could really use a win of some kind for his legacy. He's not going to find it by persecuting Julian Assange.
Jake Johnson (SCHEER POST) notes:
A British judge on Wednesday granted formal approval to the U.S. government’s request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who faces espionage charges for publishing classified material that exposed war crimes by American forces.
“The home secretary must act now to protect journalism.”
The judge’s new and widely expected procedural order, the culmination of a drawn-out legal battle, places the final decision on Assange’s extradition in the hands of U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel, leaving the WikiLeaks publisher with dwindling options to fight his removal to the U.S.—where he could be hit with a 175-year prison sentence.
Patel is expected to make a final decision by May 18, after which Assange can attempt to appeal via judicial review, Reuters reported Wednesday. As Patel weighs the extradition order, Assange will remain jailed in a high-security London prison, where he has languished for years under conditions that experts have condemned as torture.
Human rights organizations wasted no time urging Patel to reject the extradition order. Allowing it to proceed, they warned, would endanger press freedoms around the world, given that the charges against Assange seek to punish a common journalistic practice.1
At this point, the only thing that an save Julian is public outcry and it needs to be aimed at the right targets. In the UK, that's the home secretary. In the US, that's Joe Biden. Those are the two who can stop this travesty. They choose not to.
Reporters Without Borders has a petition: You can sign at the link, here's the opening paragraph:
On 20 April, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court signed an order confirming the alarming next step in the more than decade-long case against Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange. Following more than two years of extradition proceedings in UK courts, Assange’s fate has once again become a political decision for the Home Secretary – the very office that made the political decision to green-light the US extradition request in 2019.
The following sites updated:
