CNN sucks. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. Right? Well, maybe not. A little background on how I came to a certain insight is in order. I have lived outside of the US for most of my life for various reasons, and I am currently settled in another country. I can speak a couple of languages competently, if not fluently. One thing that always stuck out to me about living in another country was the news. In every newscast everywhere I have ever lived, there is always a good 5-10 minutes of American political news with the local stuff. Not “how America relates to a situation X in current country,” but straight on “Clinton/Obama is a savior” or “Bush/Trump sucks soooo bad” lefty-slanted bullshit. I did not think that much of it. American hegemony, right? The US sneezes, the world gets a cold, yadda yadda, always good to know what the yanks are up to. I recently spoke with an acquaintance of mine who works in the news industry where I am currently settled. I remarked on my observation about American news. “Why not news from Argentina? Or Madagascar?” I joked. “Oh, that is easy,” my acquaintance said. “CNN translates their news and gives it away for free.” My acquaintance proceeded to explain the realities of the economics of the news. Non-English speakers do not really understand Americans and have no context as to why we do what we do. They could send their people to go and live in the US and try to understand the political landscape and what actual Americans think about issues at home and abroad. Some foreign news agencies do that. But that a) is very expensive, and b) would still probably not give them an accurate picture of what is really going on. That is where CNN comes in. For a trivial sum, they translate and give away a nice, tidy little package for free to foreign news agencies. What can a producer do in this situation? They do not have the budget to justify sending someone to live in New York or Washington permanently. So does he spend a truckload of money for very little return, or just use the free, professionally designed plug-and-play stuff to fill airtime? That is not a hard decision for anyone who wants a future in the news business. And since it is from CNN, you can guess the content. A lot of things suddenly made sense. Near the beginning of his presidency, locals were seriously asking me if Trump was really in the KKK/puppet of the Kremlin/whatever evil thing he was supposed to be that week. They were surprised that I was a supporter of his. “I did not think you were a racist/sexist/bad person,” they said. And during the impeachment? Hoo boy. Every local I talked to was certain he would be gone soon, and were completely shocked when he was not run out of town on a rail. This news narrative, I have also noticed, is supported by other (((Americans))) living abroad. Locals are far more willing to trust an (((American))) who can go on tv and speak their language well when it comes to analyzing US news. I have not been able to find out the true ethnicity of our local (((American))), but it is known that he comes from a NYC-based “entertainment family.” And boy, what a honker! I noticed it in the other countries I lived in, but I did not really put it all together until my conversation with my acquaintance. So there you have it. This is why CNN stays afloat, despite all logic that would say the contrary. They are not news aimed at us, because most of us (even Trump haters) know they are full of shit. But Americans are not the only audience other there, and control of the international narrative can be a valuable thing.