What would Ted Turner do?

Ted Turner successfully launched CNN in 1980 when he noted that network news shows were turning more to serving popular entertainment tastes than they were serious news. Turner said he wanted CNN to be The New York Times of the airways, not The New York Post.

Now when it comes to serving what it thinks is audience demand, CNN is one of the worst offenders in skewing the news. No place is that offense more pronounced than in its coverage of the economic crisis and the government attempts to deal with it.

While AIG collects $150 BILLION in a rescue package, CNN fills its hourly news summaries with cable chatter. Every hour the network plays tapes of the RNC chair and Rush Limbaugh's piss and make-up routine in the Republican sandbox. They put on political party "strategists" who yammer and prattle and piddle with the party lines.

What CNN does not do, for example, is explain just what the hell AIG is doing with four rescue dispersements of taxpayer money, who is getting it, why it is needed, and why AIG is so important to rescue.

What CNN does is report on John McCain's hissy fits on the floor of the Senate, but it does not check into just what he describes as wasteful earmarks really are.

If you want the real news, you still have to go to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Internet sources like ProPublica, and the PBS Newshour.