CNN fired off a manifesto earlier this week.
Facts First, it's called.
Oh, brother.
Maybe we should start with the question: So facts weren't first before?
We'll get back to that.
Facts First must have been the slogan the focus group picked. Wonder what the other nominations were? News to Us. Truths and Trumps. Change your Mind or Change the Channel.
In truth, marketing your services or products absolutely makes sense, but marketing honesty makes you wonder whether they were not dealing in facts to begin with.
Ratings First would be more honest. Our Facts First would be more accurate. Facts (that we like) First would be the most appropriate.
CNN, the brainchild of McCallie School alumnus Ted Turner, made its name and its mark in the new world of 24-hour news in the early 1990s. The War in the Gulf made CNN a household name.
But today's 24-hour news cycle is way different.
The internet and social media changed that game, and the handheld portals to stuff from the president's tweets to cat videos have changed everything.
I work for a newspaper, and I know a little about the changing media landscape and the challenges of competing in it.
The 24-hour news channels, amid all of the news outlet choices out there, have embraced targeting their "news" and "views" to their specific demographic. When there's something out there for everyone, maximizing your audience by giving it what it wants is a fundamentally smart business plan.
But that has also increased divisions among us. Everyone is looking more to the message of the right and the left rather than the message of the right and the not right.
Facts are irrefutable.
Facts are undeniable.
Facts are numbers and evidence, questions and answers provided with context and without opinion.
And facts are in high demand in an era in which the facts for the powerful are secondary to how they can spin those facts.
As the "middle" continues to shrink and people are drawn to whichever side they feel the strongest about - or are the least offended by - the margins of success only grow with the divide.
So call me skeptical about Facts First. Sure, I hope that becomes the approach that worked well for so long on TV news. Somewhere in the newsroom in heaven, Walter Cronkite is wondering, "Why does anyone need to say or announce Facts First?"
For CNN, maybe the Facts First campaign is a direct response to Donald Trump. Maybe Fox News will respond with "What About Left Out Facts" or some other catchy slogan that looks good with a hashtag in front of it.
If the two were to meet in the middle -in the name of truth - we would all be better off.
Whether that business model could survive on cable TV these days is the bigger question.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6343.