We Want Media

I was watching CNN Headline News in the airport yesterday, around 6:40 p.m., and something incredible happened. The anchor -- one of those put together model-types CNN is so fond of hiring -- sourced the National Enquirer and the Sun. I kid you not.

It was about a report on the “latest developments” in the Anna Nicole “story.” Apparently, the autopsy reports are coming out soon (and you can find them "right here on CNN, live as they’re opened," according to the anchor), and the National Enquirer and the Sun have gotten some sort of inside scoop (or have fabricated another outlandish lie; CNN gave no indication they’d done any sort of fact-checking). And so, CNN Headline News reported them.

The anchor didn’t even bat an eye as she was doing it. This incredible nonchalance must be what CNN is hiring for these days because they’re certainly not looking for people with any sort of journalistic integrity.

UPDATE: Oh, one thing I forgot to mention: All this was while 11 British sailors were being held by the Iranian government on charges that they had strayed into Iranian waters, charges emphatically denied by the British government.