CNN: 'SNL' Hillary skit was a 'wake-up call'

TCA -- The CNN session Friday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills opened with a sharp question for the news network's election team: "Why did it take a skit on 'SNL' [where the media was portrayed as hostile to Hillary Clinton] to change the tone of the coverage of the Democratic primaries?"

Gloria Borger, CNN senior political analyst: “I think the skit on 'Saturday Night Live' made us take a look at ourselves. But I would also say Barack Obama did not get the soft coverage that everybody thought he did. I think like anything, it gets in the zeitgeist and you look at yourself and think maybe there’s a way you can improve. However, I don’t think it was a radical turn."

John King, CNN chief national correspondent: "We're far from perfect. We have to cover the game at the moment. The Clinton campaign started by presenting itself as inevitable – 'we have more money ... the Clintons are coming back to power.’ So we covered them as the fortress Clinton. Then Obama started to win ... but, sure, you watch those things and it was a wake-up call."

Borger: "The underdog always gets the easier treatment until the underdog becomes the front-runner."

King also noted that covering John McCain should be interesting, and said that -- contrary to Democratic portrayals -- McCain isn't a third term of George W. Bush.

King: "John McCain is no George W. Bush ... somebody will win this election ... it's not the George Bush/Karl Rove Republican party anymore ... McCain is a very complicated guy. He's led a long and rich heroic life … and in some ways he’s an irascible son of a bitch to some people ... he's [privately taken care of seniors and people in need] ... he's a compelling guy."

David Bohrman, CNN's Washington bureau chief, said the current polls favoring Obama may not amount to much.

Bohrman: "A 50-45 national poll rating in the race for president doesn't mean anything because Al Gore won that particular kind of race in 2000. But there are 50 separate elections and get to you 270 electoral votes, I don't think we will see a runaway race in electoral votes at all. I think this is going to be extraordinarily interesting campaign."

The session was introduced with a flurry of CNN election coverage clips set to the rousing music of "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Comments

[Kenny Pice]

These days SNL is only slightly less tone-deaf than CNN.

If Gloria Borger & John King care to sample the zeitgeist, they're better off tuning into The Daily Show and Colbert.