Anderson Cooper, CNN and Kevorkian – Advertising Masquerading as Journalism

I don’t usually watch Anderson Cooper.  His show airs past my bedtime.  But I had assumed he was some kind of journalist.  Maybe he is.  But when I got around to watching the taped segments of his interviews with Kevorkian, they looked more like the kind of softball/cheering squad that Larry King does so well.  If you check out the link above, you’ll find that CNN describes – inaccurately – Kevorkian in exactly the same way that the HBO site promoting the docudrama does – highlighted in yesterday’s blog entry.  Here’s a line from the description of Cooper’s interview with Kevorkian:

The film stars Al Pacino, who plays Kevorkian, the controversial physician who assisted terminally ill patients die. Kevorkian became a controversial figure in the debate surrounding physician-assisted suicide. In the clip above, he tells Anderson about the first time he helped a patient die. (emphasis added.)

This is, of course, how HBO describes Kevorkian’s body count in its promotional material on the site.

And Cooper’s “interview” steered carefully around any suggestion that any of the people who died at Kevorkian’s hands were anything less than “dying.”  Cooper was also cooperative in helping Kevorkian frame the controversy around assisted suicide as a religious one.  No clue that there might be NONreligious people – like disability rights activists who stuck it out through Kevorkian’s trial – who would object to any of this. 

I realized that I wasn’t watching an interview at all.  I was watching an infomercial.

Maybe Cooper does journalism most of the time, but once I did a little digging, I figured that wasn’t his job here.  His job was to boost the film – the characterization of Kevorkian constructed in the film and to boost Kevorkian himself.

The reason is simple: Time-Warner Inc. owns both HBO and CNN.  Therefore, any line of questioning that would undermine the portrayal of Kevorkian as constructed in the movie – or of the man himself – would go against the financial interests of the parent company.  I have no doubt they are counting on this product to boost advertising sales and bring in some DVD revenue, not to mention some prestigious Emmys.

Fair enough, I guess.  Long live capitalism.  But maybe there should have been a statement of full disclosure about  the relationship between CNN and the movie.  CNN stage-managed the “interviews” that have served as the basis for most of the news coverage – and CNN’s coverage was more like advertising. 

From where I sit, it means that CNN’s financial interests have affected the coverage of Kevorkian and assisted suicide. 

And it will continue.

Because in June, HBO will be airing a documentary on Kevorkian – also no doubt sympathetic with a new round of advertising masquerading as journalism on CNN.  –Stephen Drake