CNN Bans Talk Radio Hosts

(The post below is copied in its entirety from Andy McCarthy's post on NRO-The Corner because his points are so irrefutable and Jonathan Klein is an ass.)

CNN/US president Jonathan Klein has directed his producers to avoid booking talk-radio hosts on CNN news programs. In a burst of arrogance remarkable even by mainstream media standards (especially given some of the dross that passes for news coverage at CNN), Klein is quoted in NewsBusters as saying, "Complex issues require world class reporting," and that talk-radio guys are all noise and "all too predictable." Would that there were anything on the planet more predictable than some of CNN's "world class reporting."

The NewsBusters report also indicates that the talk-radio hosts who are CNN regulars (e.g., Lou Dobbs and Bill Bennett) are exempt from the new policy.

I wonder if the folks at CNN ever actually listen to the in-depth coverage complicated issues get for hours at a time on Rush's show and Sean's show. I wonder how Mr. Klein's assessment of talk-radio dullards squares up with, say, Mark Levin — an authentic scholar of constitutional law and American history, a mega-bestselling author of books on those subjects, and a former chief of staff to an attorney-general of the United States. Or, say, Hugh Hewitt, a cum laude graduate of Harvard, Order of the Coif student at UMichigan Law School, veteran of two prestigious federal court clerkships, like Mark a former Reagan Justice Department official, and now a professor at Chapman Law School. I wonder if Mr. Klein has ever heard Laura Ingraham or Steve Malzberg or Dennis Praeger (and I could go on and on) mixing it up with advocates for every side of every important issue.

To disagree with them is fine — that's what makes an interesting debate. But to ban them because you find yourself unable to refute them? That's class-A cowardice.

There's a reason talk-radio's audience is growing while CNN's is evaporating.

I wish Mr. Klein would just come out and say he'd like to keep to a bare minimum the insights of effective conservative voices. At least that would be honest.

[Thanks to Lucianne.]