What's Up With the Featured "News" on CNN.com?

Many important news events were occurring this afternoon, but you would never know it with a visit to cnn.com. The selection of top, featured stories gives a visitor the impression of browsing a trashy magazine, not one of the self-proclaimed finest news organizations in the country.

Here is what CNN listed as its top 20 headlines at 1:15 p.m. EST, today, June 11, 2008:

'New life' for daughter raised in incest dungeon

Sandbags save town from flood

Video shows home pulled into raging water

KRQE: Gas, food prices hurting Meals on Wheels

Pakistan condemns 'cowardly' U.S. airstrike

CNNMoney: McCain, Obama and your taxes

Martin: Election Day should be a Saturday

Ticker: Actress amazed Obama e-mails her

McCain's oft-mocked backdrop poofs

Students try to crack famous cold cases

Friend: Paul Newman is battling cancer

Patrick Swayze going back to work

Girls' shooting deaths rattle rural town

Man stops 129 from leaping off suicide cliff

Guard jumps in front of truck to save kids

iReport.com: Can you top this crazy cubicle?

Gay marriages may be worth $684 million

WCVB: Super Bowl rings taken in heist

SI: NBA's perception problem keeps growing

Saloon bridesmaid hated dress

The last one may take the cake for me.

I get the attraction of soft news and human interest stories. I'm dumbfounded, though, by the absence of any of the moment's major happenings in the world. One would never know that:

Barack Obama had just blasted credit card companies for deceiving Americans and paying to have the laws written to their liking.

John McCain had just said bringing the troops home was "not too important," and that limiting casualties was the real priority. His comments set off a firestorm.

President Bush was beating the drums of war against Iran.

The Abu Dhabi Investment Council is poised to buy an American icon in New York, the Chrysler Building.

An Iranian-trained bomber killed five people, including a mother and her seven-year-old son, with explosions on Baghdad mini-buses.

Five years ago, my homepage was cnn.com. How many homepages are set to it today?

Follow Dan Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danbrownteacher

Comments

[hey0there]

06:21 PM on 06/13/2008

i used to visit cnn several times a day for years , i go there so rarely now maybe once a week.
it was the incessant britney spears "top news" stories that turned me off. every day a new manufactured celeb 'controversy' given full billing among the real news stories, ugh

[Aramingo]

05:17 AM on 06/13/2008

I used to point to CNN.com as the way to do news on the web. Foxnews.com was poorly designed and tabloidish in comparison. Now it seems as though the two companies have reversed rolls. All the content I used to expect from CNN.com is now on Foxnews.com. It's definitely a WTF moment.

[silverislet]

01:51 PM on 06/13/2008

Agreed - and how many times an hour is Wolf required to say "the best political news team on television". Glenn Beck, and other conservative blowhards are now welcome there. But, when you own all this, I guess its hard to be liberal.....

TIME-WARNER TBS - AOL (donated 1.6 million to GW's 2000 campaign)
America Online (AOL) acquired Time Warner–the largest merger in corporate history.
Television Holdings:
* CNN, HBO, Cinemax, TBS Superstation, Turner Network Television, Turner Classic Movies, Warner Brothers Television, Cartoon Network, Sega Channel, TNT, Comedy Central (50%), E! (49%), Court TV (50%).
* Largest owner of cable systems in the US with an estimated 13 million subscribers.
Media Holdings:
* HBO Independent Productions, Warner Home Video, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock, Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera.
* Music: Atlantic, Elektra, Rhino, Sire, Warner Bros. Records, EMI, WEA, Sub Pop (distribution) = the world’s largest music company.
* 33 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, People, In Style, Fortune, Book of the Month Club, Entertainment Weekly, Life, DC Comics (50%), and MAD Magazine.
Other Holdings:
* Sports: The Atlanta Braves, The Atlanta Hawks, World Championship Wrestling.

[americanalien]

10:33 PM on 06/12/2008

I agree, the cnn website totally sucks. It's embarrassing for such a major and influential news organization in the United States. The whole setup is awful. The fonts are way too small and the headlines rivals that only of the New York Post. I hardly visit their site except for Jack Cafferty's blog and that section they call the political ticker. They need some major reforms in the way they do their layouts over there. CNN should take a lesson out of msnbc's book which in my view has the best and most functional of all the television network websites. ABC also has a good website so does BBC news which is my favorite place for international headlines. Even fox's website looks better than cnn. Of course the Huffington Post blows everyone else out of the park, it's in a league of its own.

[3dtrix]

08:25 PM on 06/12/2008

So true, but the phenomenon (like most) cuts both ways - if I were more satisfied at CNN.com (and I'm there just about daily) I (and I'm sure, others) wouldn't have been drawn to the more in-depth coverage and higher-toned comments environment here on Huffington Post. I'm glad to be here.

[Norbrook]

04:21 PM on 06/12/2008

CNN has become yet another tabloid news service. I once relied on it for news - if there was something happening somewhere in the world or this country, CNN had it. Today, I almost never watch CNN. I instead rely on the BBC, PBS, and the Internet pages of BBC, Al Jazeera and others to keep me informed. It's sad that I can get more news about what's going on in my own country from foreign sources than I can from domestic.

[JScott]

04:11 PM on 06/12/2008

Hey Ted buy back CNN, before it's run itself into the ground.

[blaqntelligence]

03:45 PM on 06/11/2008

I was a diehard fan of CNN but they seem to have lost their way.
I am now a diehard huffpo fan. I read the different headlines here, turn on CNN and hear nary a thing about anything I've read, commented on, read others comments etc.
Interesting......

[LittleBrother]

03:20 PM on 06/11/2008

I've noticed that in recent months, Associated Press reports often listed on websites read pretty much the same as this list.

AP, a "wire service" like Reuters and UPI, used to limit itself to cut-and-dried news capsules of significant events of the day. I can't say that it NEVER offered what used to be called "features" or other soft news, including sports news-- but by and large it was unadorned news items.

But now when one runs one's eye down AP reports listed on sites like Salon.com, it's mostly a jumble of "hard" news mixed in with plenty of sports headlines and the same utter crap as listed by CNN.

This is no coincidence; the Dumbing of America marches on.

[MrWashy]

02:51 PM on 06/11/2008

Dan, you're absolutely dead on here. You have pretty much illustrated why I tend to get my news from lots of differnet palces, including here, other sites, the BBC, etc. Good post.

[SpoxLogic]

02:40 PM on 06/11/2008

Not mine. Just like yesterday, there was no mention of Rep Kuscinich's 35 aArticles of Impeachment anywhere on any of the major sites...CNN. MSNBC, YAHOO, ABC, the list goes on.

[Moncar]

02:38 PM on 06/11/2008

Mr. Brown is absolutely correct. CNN's coverage of the country's and the world's news is scandalous. The Iraq War, with its casualties in particular, has just about disappeared. There must be people who keep score on CNN's coverage, as well as the other "News" organizations and it would be a service to all if those scores were publicized by blogs such as this.
One cannot help but wonder if this missing news is Time-Warner and General Electric in-kind contributions to the McCain campaign and the RNC. No need to wonder about Fox.