Ever since Flight 370 trail went cold, signs of life at CNN weakening: Only 30 days for it to find new disaster before it runs out of juice completely.
A worldwide search for some sign of life from cable news network CNN continued today, but experts say signs are not encouraging.
“Once the pinger from Malaysian Flight 370’s black box went dead, it seems CNN’s pulse did too,” said Media Watch‘s Ann Simonton. “It would seem their very reason for existence sank along with it.”
Without a new disaster to latch onto, the network may not recover. Some hope was resurrected when a ferry off South Korea’s coast began sinking today, but that kind of disaster may be too short-lived for CNN.
“We’re a 24-hour news network, specializing in informed supposition,” said Wolf Blitzer from the Situation Room, in a phone interview today. “As such, we need stories that aren’t so black and white. We need mystery — mystery that we can flesh out with made-up scenarios, opinions, graphs, hours of talking head experts blathering on about fictions in their own minds — real, solid conjecture — you know, hard news!”
Speculation about the network’s ability to speculate has been running rampant on other cable news networks. “We surmise that CNN is on its last legs,” said Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I mean, I may be taking a shot in the dark here, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that all the guesswork has been taken out of it. They’re toast. At least, that’s my hypothesis.”
The only thing that could possibly save the beleaguered network, absent an ongoing disaster, is the upcoming elections, say experts. However, even the midterms are still a long way off.
“Midterm elections — the ones between the presidential elections — are not really meaty enough to nourish us,” confided Blitzer. “They’re like a Jennifer Lawrence movie, when what you really crave is a Scarlett Johansson flick.”
“And you can only do so many stories about Hillary Clinton, when she’ll announce, and how she’ll trounce the competition — especially two-plus years in advance,” he added. “After all, look how successful we were the last time we went with that narrative.”
Ever since the Flight 370 story started fading from lack of any shred of real breaking news, CNN ratings began to sink like the airliner itself. The network’s plucky crew may specialize in guesstimating, but even they need something to work with.
“Hey, maybe we can go with this,” a visibly excited Wolf Blitzer suddenly shouted to his director. “Picture it: News Network Suffering Long, Slow Decline — What Could Be the Cause, and What Can Be Done About It?”
For more on this developing story, check out CNN right now, and for 24 hours a day, every day.
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