CNN announced this week that they’re adding a new correspondent to their already crowded “Best Political Team on Television.” No, it’s not a former secretary of state or campaign adviser. It’s not someone with years of experience in reporting on political campaigns. It’s actually the former star of The Hughleys.
The new show, tentatively titled “D.L. Hughley Breaks the News,” stars D.L. Hughley, one of the “Original Kings of Comedy,” and will follow a format similar to a late-night talk show, with a monologue and guests. And jokes. It raises the question of why CNN, a respectable news outlet, is bringing on a comedian for a Sunday night show.
A cynic might think that CNN is just trying to counter the popularity of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” And they’d probably be right. It’s been well-reported that an increasing number of young people get their news from comedy shows and Jon Stewart even cracked a 2007 ranking of favorite journalists. “The Daily Show” has slowly become more substantive, taking trips to both conventions and recruiting high power guests like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. The truth is, the Daily Show is becoming a viable source of news for young adults, no matter how much the producers may disagree.
As all Medill students know, young people are prone to staying away from major news shows (and the news in general). CNN is hoping that D.L. Hughley can find breakout success and attract the Daily Show set to the network. CNN’s ratings have been up this election season, but have never been spectacular, especially among the key 25-54 demographic.
CNN has been trying to attract young adults for years and has recently put together some good tools. In the primaries, they teamed up with YouTube to transform the Internet generation’s best procrastination website into a political action tool. The debates that incorporated YouTube-submitted questions got young (and often bizarre) people to participate in the debates and did well in the ratings. CNN has also found success with their iReport initiative, which allows citizen journalists to submit content and stories. Besides a little hiccup where they accidentally killed Steve Jobs and tanked Apple’s stock, the program has been successful and has brought our generation and our propensity for recording and sharing content on any device possible into the fold. And, of course, there was talk years ago of CNN incorporating hip-hop slang into its coverage, because nothing would attract young people like Wolf Blitzer saying “fo shizzle.”
Even Fox News has tried to enter the comedy game to attract young viewers with the unfortunate “The Half Hour News Hour.” That show didn’t end well, lasting only 15 episodes, but that didn’t discourage CNN from making a similar attempt.
Call it pandering or call it clever marketing, but “D.L. Hughley Breaks the News” is a show designed for our generation to get us off of Comedy Central and onto CNN. And to his credit, Hughley has plans to make his show intelligent. He plans to bring on underreported guests and will try to actually break stories, but always with a smile on his face. He already went to a Sarah Palin rally, in a scene he described as akin to “Mississippi Burning.” He’s seizing on the opportunity to grow beyond being just another comedian with a sitcom to the echelon of intelligent comedy that gets on the cover of Newsweek.
But the idea that comedy is the only way to attract young viewers may be insulting to the intelligent people that actually get their news from the news. Will D.L. Hughley really be a big draw for people? Probably not – it’s going to take some time for him to build up a reputation. Over time, the show may become a nice companion to “The Daily Show,” but it won’t bring young viewers to CNN in the short term. Some might see it as insulting young adults’ intelligence, as if the only way to get to them is through funny jokes and not serious reporting. Why not a more serious strategy – a youth debate or a show that breaks news down and describes its impact to young people (I know a columnist who might be interested…). Or just have Anderson Cooper say “bling bling.”