Carol Costello, CNN’s “Cougar” extraordinaire knows how to provide a mouthful

All right, I’ve been off the radar most of this month.  I said I would be placing content on a near-daily basis, and I intend on reaching that goal, but please bear with me as I try to get a few things in my life in order.

Today I’m going to discuss a new story that is reaching out all over the internet as I type.  (http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/22/im-just-sayin-dont-call-me-a-cougar/)

This is from Carol Costello, a reporter with CNN, who dedicates the majority of her time to the “American Morning” program.

Her story, if you didn’t click the link, is about “Cougars.”  Not the kind that will rip off your arms, the kind that are middle-aged women with penchants for sexual relations with 20-something men.

Carol’s video clip has made it onto YouTube (no doubt the handiwork of a tech intern in Atlanta), and her story is revving up the engine of bloggers that run the gammit.  (Did you know there is a blog for Feminist Mormon Housewives???? Look! –> http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=2500)

So I guess as a journalist, Carol has done her job. She got us talking about the story. Obviously, I am including myself in that virus, as I’ve mentioned her name, employer, claim to fame, and latest brain fart.

Carol has been effective, getting out her message by using all the various channels of Social Online Media. I’ve seen the story on Facebook, not including the opinion that I posted.  I’ve seen more twitter posts on this story in the last day than any concerning gay marriage.  Even if Carol is only attracting this volume of coverage for one week, this is a huge benchmark in the digital world.

With that, I applaud you, Ms. Costello, for capturing a small share of the audience market, at whatever cost to CNN and its continuing spiral into irrelevancy.

I am about to editorialize a bit, so feel free to close out this page now, and visit again soon.

The problem with this story and many others like it is that the journalist is not looking at the issue with objectivity. It is clear that Ms. Costello takes issue with ABC producing a program on the topic of older women having relations with younger men. Though I’ve managed to view only a few teasers for this program, the situations and premise of the show does not seem as nefarious as Mrs. Costello positions her report, or how she describes the show.

At the end of her video, she asks very pointedly, “Are you listening ABC?”  Oh, I forgot to mention that her tone of voice was at the snot-nosed pitch of a 14-year-old girl, requesting the return of her cell phone  from the principal.

Whatever happened to free choice?  Last I heard, it was still alive and kicking. But people who have opinions voice them everywhere they possibly can without thinking of the repercussions. In order to justify that, they consider how it may hurt them, but if it hurts people at large, who cares, right??  I mean, it’s only what I have said on a national program, no harm, no foul.

And that’s what this “story” really is.  I’m not going to rely on the usual “must have been a slow news day,” phrasing that is commonly used for this scenario, because this is the attitude that allows such a product to be propagated as a genuine “news” story.

It is not news, and it is definitely not something a storied news network such as CNN should be publishing.

Perhaps it is a good editorial piece, but it should be presented as that, rather than a news story.

Ms. Costello is winning a battle, but she will lose the war.  Eventually she will publish so many opinion pieces such as this, that she will alienate her audience until there isn’t a Nielsen rating to justify her existence.

If we are looking for the next Tom Brokaw, we are going to have to start demanding MUCH higher quality product from our journalists.

On May 6th, MSNBC gave six minutes of coverage to President Obama eating at a burger restaurant in D.C.  (http://www.immabloggings.blogspot.com/)  This is a blog that addresses the nonsense far better than I ever could.

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH MORNING “NEWS” PROGRAMS?

Why are they all falling flat on their faces?

When I first discussed this story with someone, I asked, “Are we not still fighting in Iraq?”

Why are stories about Iraq not placed in these story slots?  What about the idea of bailing out newspapers with taxpayer money?

Where is the coverage about the mother in Portland, Oregon who has been arrested for drowning her son?

Oh sorry, I guess that’s only a “local” story, right?

Instead of worrying about what people might think about her, why doesn’t Ms. Costello remove herself from the focal point of a national show, and cover topics of interest to everyone?

The title of her story, “Don’t call me a Cougar!” is not lost on me.  I know this was her attempt to insinuate herself into the story — theeeee deadliest sin for a journalist. The story is not about the journalist, it’s about the story.

And people are aware that you’ve thrown the whole cougar thing around because you have been labeled one.

Guess what?  We don’t care, and you shouldn’t either!

For comparison, look at the issue of gay marriage.  The story is about individual rights.  Regardless of the person’s political ideology, religious roots, or personal agenda, at the end of the day, access to marriage of any kind is about the pursuit of individual rights.

Yet the media would have us believe it’s about winning an election, or about making a name for the crusader for the cause of the week, or about a judge and the rule of law, or about anything other than individual rights.

Think about that for a second.  With all the reporting we’ve seen on the issue of gay marriage, how much has the coverage done to cement the opinion you already fostered to the consistence of stone?

Now, if you were to watch stories on this issue that focus on the individual rights of citizens of the United States, would your opinion still be stone-like or more like semi-soft clay?

Yes, we have a free media, and right now as television staffs across the nation try to come up with ways to compete with the Internet, they are truly pursuing the “free” part to it’s absolute edge.  Because Social Online Media is community oriented, and therefore centers around one general voice despite individual opinion, television producers now think they must form extreme opinions.  They are test-marketing this approach on the public through nonsensical stories and fluff pieces, then threading them throughout the digital media whereby our responses to these topics and the methods of presentations can be gauged.

It’s a win-win for them. They get to control their “experiments” in creating and or shaping public opinion, and they get to learn very deep secrets within varying ideologies held by people throughout the Internet.

For TV, any response is a good response, because when it comes to television, even if we respond negatively, it still means we’re watching.  Don’t take my word for it, check out your RSS feeds, and the news content streaming through Facebook and other social networking sites.  Generally you’ll find strongly opinionated “stories” on very weak material.

What those in the television industry still do not seem to get is that we can shut off content. We can stop a video instantly.  We can remove ourselves from their “feed.”  We can block messages, emails, alerts, and anything else they send into our boxes, or channels, or even apps.

This is not rocket science, CNN or anyone else in TV wants to read.  TV will always be TV. The MSNBC experiment lost its muscle long ago, because the attempt at literally combining the Internet with TV does not work. The two needed to be separated, so that now both are surviving.

You don’t gain “cool” points by villifying something without employing logic in the equation.

Americans still hold individual rights as their priority, because that ideology is the foundation of thing that even TV cannot invade. And that’s EVERYTHING.  You can’t change that, no matter how many social editorials you approve for news slots.

Ms. Costello, ‘can’ it with the “I’m upset because someone called me a name” victim act, and grow up into the mature, strong woman CNN thought they had hired.

So what if two people consent to a loving relationship or a sexual relationship?  If they are doing it behind closed doors and it’s consensual, why should anyone care?  Why would we ever consider that news?

Good grief, next the girls of “The Hills” will be filling all the anchor seats on Dateline, and then we’re all going to be in for it!

Thoughts?

Tags: American Morning, Carol, Carol Costello, CNN, Costello, Cougar, Women