Political No No of the Week Award

This week's award goes to CNN for their inappropriate focus on and repetition of their hard-hitting (not) story regarding the possible shift in power from Democrats to Republicans in the United States Senate. The real story is that a man, yes a real live person, Senator Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota), who is devoting his life to serving our country, is gravely ill. CNN jumped over that story, past several stages of logical thinking, and straight into the hyperreactive story that power in the Senate might change hands.

I suppose that is one way to get ahead of your competitors, by jumping past what is happening and reporting what might happen. Unfortunately, it is difficult to predict the future. In their haste to beat competitors, CNN has gotten it wrong many times in the past and apparently may have this time as well. At the very least, they have come across as ghoulish and so competitive that they are more concerned about sensationalism than reality and human emotion.

It is hard to trust a news source that repeatedly reports bad information in an effort to be first or draw attention through overblown sensationalism. CNN just took another step down in my list of reality-based news sources.