It’s been nearly six years since 911, that fateful night before my Chemistry O level practical examination, where I sat in my living room in Serangoon Gardens, Singapore watching with my mom and siblings (my dad was on a flight to Canada when it happened) as reality showed it can often be far, far worse than fiction. But what reality do we see when we switch on the TV anymore?

Perhaps I may attribute this to me “growing up” in the years since, but as time has passed since I moved here to Canada, CNN has gradually lost its educational value to me, and consequently, I’ve practically ceased watching CNN altogether.

Why? The credibility of CNN’s ability to deliver objective, informative news in recent years has deteriorated, in my opinion, to near nothingness. From dedicating entire evenings, night after night, to covering the Wacko Jacko trial instead of the Iraq War a few years ago. From their non-stop coverage of Paris Hilton’s / Lindsay Lohan’s / Britney Spears’ latest shenanigans.

This may just be my viewpoint, but it seems to me that as the years since 911 have gone by, there increasingly seems to be an agenda behind CNN’s coverage. To prove a hidden-to-the-untrained-eye political point? To distract the masses from the horrors that are happening halfway across the globe – or in America’s own back yards?

When the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech happened, CNN seized its opportunity to sink its claws into it, trying to squeeze feel-good heroic stories and tear-jerking tales of the fallen alike from everyone they could get their hands on. The nadir, to me, was seeing Paula Zahn at the candlelight vigil, trying hard to fluff up the event with hyperbole and whatever dramatic emo-nonsense she could come up with. Leave the kids alone, for heaven’s sake – their friends are dead forever and they’re just trying to show them some respect, pray for them, remember them, mourn them… the last thing they want is to have some “journalist” standing there, pretending to be emotional, shoving a mic into their faces to milk another sob story.

NFL-er Michael Vick recently got into trouble for allegedly having dog fights in his house. I switched on the TV just now, and flipped past CNN. Paula Zahn was “interviewing” 2 African-American journalists regarding the issue that hip-hop music was endorsing dog fighting. They flashed a video clip of a Jay-Z music video with dogs snarling at each other. Worth noting is that one of the guests was Jason Whitlock, whose name should resonate to MANY people out there: he’s an ignorant, confused, deceitful, self-righteous and racist journalist who fancies himself the next coming of Rosa Parks. 90 percent of the CNN piece was dedicated to him shouting and waving his hands at the camera and denouncing (too) loudly the evils of hip-hop culture, yet claiming that he wasn’t “anti hip-hop” because he himself had released/produced some hip-hop music himself.

Zahn let Whitlock, who rudely interrupted and talked over both her and the other guest on numerous occasions, go on for minutes on end – while shushing the other level-headed guest every time he seemed to have a counterpoint to make. Finally, when it seemed that the other journalist was going to mount a good argument against Whitlock’s generalized damnation of all of hip-hop, Zahn declared that they were running out of time, and ended the segment, much to the dismay of the journalist, who hadn’t uttered more than a few sentences in the entire time he was on air.

Ironically, in my disgust, I flipped the channels up to TVTROPOLIS to watch Seinfeld – which had sadly just ended – then, as I flipped past MTV’s airheaded programming, I chanced on BET, which had Chamillionaire’s “EVENING NEWS” video on. I can’t find it on youtube because it’s brand new, but the video features a faux-news broadcast with Chamillionaire having a heated debate with “Bill O’Wiley” (played by Chamillionaire), with Cham brilliantly bringing up a number of pressing issues in his rhymes – ultimately however, when it seems Cham is about to make another good point, he is shushed as “O’Wiley’s” half of the screen devours Cham’s half, and the victorious “O’Wiley” smiles at the screen as the video ends. F*cking on point, Chamillionaire.

My purpose in recounting my views on CNN’s Michael Vick dogfighting piece here is that CNN had an agenda. They wanted to illustrate something about hip-hop and dogfighting; they played the videos that supported their point; they let a guest who they knew would obviously leap on their bandwagon and self-righteously preach away have his way; they prevented the guest who had a different point of view from what they wanted to present have a chance to air his views. Objective? No. Effective? Hell yeah, to the uninformed.

When the V-Tech massacre happened, why didn’t CNN have a feature saying that some hip-hop musicians out there are actually trying to inform, educate, and better the lives of our youths? That there are hip-hop artists who are trying to prevent things like V-Tech from happening? Why didn’t they show a clip Kelly Rowland’s “Stole” – a beautiful, melancholy song about an alienated, bullied student who shoots up his school and then turns the gun on himself? The song resonates from both the suicidal shooter’s point of view, as well as those of the poor students – an aspiring actress, a promising basketball player – whose lives were stolen; and without making any grand political point, it just mourns the senseless loss of stolen lives.

Because, as I’ve said before, CNN presents “news” with an agenda – their agenda. Not to inform, nor to educate, but to bring their point across – or, when the occasion requires it, to bludgeon our senses senseless with mindless celebrity ramblings. Is it any wonder why people young and old the world across are turning their backs on the mainstream media, and getting their news from blogs – because even though bloggers usually have a point to make, they’re at least transparent about it, and don’t masquerade their arguments as “news”?

In the last six years, CNN has played a huge part in making the world believe in the existence of WMD’s in Iraq, WMD’s which to this day, years after the US seized power there, more than half a year after Saddam’s death, have yet to be found. You cannot doubt that CNN has played a big part in that lie to the entire world, which many of us bought into. They aren’t the only media agency responsible, but their reach extends to every corner of the globe; CNN influences the viewpoints of millions.

To conclude, I would like to challenge everyone out there to watch CNN’s coverage from now on with a grain of salt. To look at other news agencies as a counterpoint, to think about current events as a backdrop, and wonder…

…What the hell is CNN trying to cram down my throat today?