CNN Gives Up Any Pretense of Being a News Organization with it’s New “Branded Content” Studio Called “Courageous” (archive)

(archived from July 6, 2015)

by Scott Creighton

CNN has been fabricating news for decades. I don’t mean simply slanting it to serve the interests of the billionaire oligarchs of the world, I mean “making it up”, “fabricating it” and “producing news and stories like Steven King produces crappy horror books for profit”. We’re talking “Wag the Dog” levels of manufactured events over at CNN. It’s like they take pride in it. And every time they are caught doing it, they get all quiet and go away for a little while till something comes up they can lie about, and they are off to the races again. That’s CNN.

Well now they have a studio which offers that same service to various corporations for a price, right out there in the open. It’s called Courageous I guess because CNN is courageous enough to say “we don’t care if folks know what professional liars we are”. For a price CNN will now produce “news” stories that try to make vaccines look great for your kids or GMOs tasty for your mouth. It doesn’t matter. They’re whores. They’ll get in bed with anyone. And they apparently don’t care who knows it. Soros needs some help with keeping folks from knowing Ukraine is being run by real Nazis? He can go right to CNN and they’ll spin him something up.

My message to CNN?

“Corporate fucking shill, you’re another whore in the capitalist gang bang. There’s a price on your head. Everything you say is suspect.” Bill Hicks

from WSJ

CNN is creating an in-house studio that will produce news-like content on behalf of advertisers, a move that reflects marketers’ growing desire for articles and videos that feel like editorial work.

About a dozen staffers (made up of journalists, filmmakers and designers) will help launch the new unit, called Courageous. The division will fashion and distribute “branded content” across CNN’s fleet of properties, from TV to the Web and newer platforms like Snapchat.

This isn’t the first foray into branded content for CNN, which is owned by Time Warner Inc.’s Turner Broadcasting. CNN’s recent push into more digital video yielded 18 original series last year, 17 of which are sponsored by a company.

But the idea now is to work more closely with companies to highlight things that may have news value, such as the building of a manufacturing plant or a philanthropic effort, according to Otto Bell, the lead of the studio and former creative director at OgilvyEntertainment.

Mr. Bell said that his team would be staffed with “folks who have journalistic instincts” who would go into a company and “find that newsworthy element and extract that.”

[read more here]