Howard Kurtz asks CNN president Jon Klein what he was thinking when he offered disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer a prime-time show on his network. Klein tries to sell Spitzer as someone who has reformed himself, but Kurtz presses Klein on the issues of both credibility and faux celebrity, pointing out that like the defunct Crossfire, CNN once again has a show co-hosted by someone without any journalistic background at all. Klein, who once famously disparaged bloggers as people wearing pajamas in their living rooms, attempts to support his choice by noting that bloggers have built their own credibility based on their work in New Media:
It’s a good point about bloggers, and I’m glad to see Jon Klein come around on this point — at precisely the moment he needs the analogy to save his butt on national TV, of course. But David Zurawik has the better argument by far. After all, Spitzer isn’t just some retired politician, or a blogger who carved out a national audience by dint of his or her work. Spitzer made his career in part by crusading against the very prostitution rings he later patronized; when caught, he tried covering it up. Why should anyone believe anything Spitzer has to say? He proved himself a man without character when given a position of public trust, and his first instinct was to abuse his power to save his own skin.
It’s now the Client Number Nine Network, apparently, where celebrity counts much more than credibility and character. This is CNN.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member