The Top Ten Most Embarrassing CNN Gaffes
In the September issue of Vanity Fair, contributing editor Michael Wolff analyzes the triumphs and failures of CNN, the 30-year-old cable news outlet that’s lately lost some of its once-undisputed cultural relevance to the flashy sensationalism of its more conservative colleague, Fox News. Wolff characterizes CNN’s traditionalist approach to earnest, straightforward news broadcasts as a fatalist acceptance of the rise of punditry. “At CNN, they tend to see the odds as painfully overwhelming—there is just no way to compete with this new desire for opinion and for political identification,” he writes. While the network’s profits are reaching record highs, CNN executives are concerned with their programs’ lack of, as Wolff puts it, “buzz.” This is not exactly true. CNN is a regular component of the cultural conversation—perhaps just not in the way the network intended. Political, entertainment, and journalism blogs are awash in unintentionally delectable, infinitely embarrassing television clips highlighting the network’s typos, gaffes, and malapropisms. After the jump, watch VF Daily’s ten favorite CNN bloopers.
On election night 2008, Wolf Blitzer checks in with political correspondent Jessica Yellin, who had been beamed into CNN’s New York studios as a hologram. “It looks a little different from a real person there, but it’s pretty remarkable,” the fuzzy-edged Yellin marvels. “It’s still Jessica Yellin and you look like Jessica Yellin and we know you are Jessica Yellin,” Blitzer assures those watching at home who might have been alarmed by Yellin’s inexplicable incarnation.
That same evening, Anderson Cooper, host of the eponymous Anderson Cooper 360, interviewed the holographic manifestation of the Black Eyed Peas’ co-founder will.i.am. The musician was in Chicago at the time, but thanks to CNN’s cutting-edge technology—the likes of which had not been seen since pogs—Cooper was able to receive willi.i.am’s updates.
Paul Begala invited Wolf Blitzer on the set of Larry King Live to celebrate Blitzer’s 20 years with the network. Begala gifts Blizter with a Washington Wizards jersey (enumerated with a “20”, naturally). “Paul, you didn’t come on here to talk about Elena Kagan!” Blitzer observes. “Well, I don’t know anything about the Supreme Court, but I know the Wizards and I know you,” Begala says. Blitzer laughs; so do we, though likely not for the same reason. Later, the basketball team’s mascot, a blueberry with a growth disorder, presents Blitzer with a red cake.
Rick’s List host Rick Sanchez was absolutely confounded by this year’s volcanic eruption in Iceland. “How can you get a volcano in Iceland? When you think of a volcano you think of like, you think of like Hawaii and long words like that,” he says. “Hawaii,” as linguists have proven, has one less letter than “Iceland.” He continues: “You don’t think of Iceland! You think it’s too cold!” Volcanoes, as geologists and generations of elementary school science fair projects have proven, emerge from the reserve of lava just below the Earth’s crust and are independent of the climate of the planet’s surface.
CNN contributor and RedState.com editor in chief Erick Erickson appeared on the show Reliable Sources to apologize for some questionable commentary, for example, the following question: “Is Obama shagging hookers behind the media’s back? I assume not. I assume that Obama’s Marxist harpy wife would go Lorena Bobbit on him should he even think about it?” Erickson explains that he made these comments “a lifetime ago.” Actually, it was spring 2008, two years before CNN hired him, evidently desirous to air his opinions on their programs.
Wolf Blitzer apologizes on behalf of the entire Situation Room staff for accidentally mislabeling a graphic within a “Hunt for Osama” segment with President Obama’s name. (“Where is Obama?” an image asked.) “We want to apologize for that bad typo,” Blitzer says, and announces that he will be personally calling Obama to offer his condolences.
In the lead-up to President Obama’s meeting with Harvard professor Skip Gates following the latter’s unlawful arrest outside his own home, a palpitating CNN embedded a beer summit countdown clockin the network’s news ticker. As CNN counted down the seconds to the summer picnic, news flashes like “bombings kill at least 15 in Iraq” whizzed by unnoticed by anchors. The network’s coverage of the actual event was equally breathless.
At the end of a segment about a Pennsylvania woman who drives at the age of 103—perhaps a hard-hitting investigation on reckless endangerment?—CNN scored footage of the woman getting into her car with a selection from Coolio. After realizing that the song, “Fantastic Voyage,” contained the lyric “ain’t no punk-ass nigga’s set trippin’,” the cagey anchor announced that the show had used “the wrong music.” “It was a terrible mistake, and we’re working very hard to make up for it,” she explains.
2. Thriller
Immediately after news of Michael Jackson’s death broke, the King of Pop’s ghost appeared to haunt Anderson Cooper’s coverage of Janet Jackson’s reaction. The singer presumably had unfinished business with the network’s graphics department.
Debra Tate stopped by Larry King Live to discuss the ongoing Roman Polanski extradition saga. This would prove to be an unwise choice. Before Debra’s sister Sharon Tate was murdered by Charles Manson in 1969, she was married to the embattled film director. King asks Tate if she ever speaks to Polanski; she replies that she has, yes. “How can you have a civil conversation with someone who so brutally murdered your sister,” King asks, not afraid to pose the tough questions.
Someone now cue the “right music”!
August 5, 2010, 12:00 AM
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