The New York Observer has an interesting few pages on CNN’s enormous spending on things that have very little, if anything, to do with actual newsgathering or analysis. And it reminds me that I can’t remember the last time I watched CNN or turned to CNN.com for actual news. I’m sure I’ve tuned into it to catch a live feed, but that was probably more a function of being the next channel in the progression than anything else.  To be sure, CNN has a greater actual capacity to do original reporting around the planet than most any other organization I can think of. Yet for all of that reach, they manage to filter it in such a way that it’s about a half inch deep by the time it hits your screen.  Their solution to that? Will.i.am fake holograms and prettier graphics.
