CNN president Jonathan Klein promised last year that his network would redouble its efforts on good, old-fashioned reporting. But that lasted until he realized his ranters and emoters were the people bringing in the ratings, argues the NYT's David Carr.

An excerpt:

"We are not about fomenting an agenda," he said.

That seems to depend on who is doing the fomenting. At 6 p.m. every night on CNN, Lou Dobbs bangs the gong of anti-immigration until one's ears bleed. And last Tuesday, Anderson Cooper, that passionate, silver-haired empath, gave more than two hours of his program to Angelina Jolie for a two-hour infomercial fomenting an agenda — saving Africa — in a way that more closely resembled a late-night plea from Sally Struthers than a news program. (It even ended with a helpful point to a Web address for viewers who wanted to pitch in.)

Back when he was recommitting CNN to news and steering it away from personalities and agendas, Mr. Klein left a side door open: CNN would stay the course "unless the first batch of things we're trying to do don't turn out well."

Welcome to Plan B. Mr. Klein ran straight into a brutal competitive environment.

What sells on cable is "edge," not the events of the day. CNN, a longtime chronic presence on signal events, has now joined the pack in smudging the line between news and opinion, celebrity and anchors, journalism and ratings.

It is almost as if Mr. Klein, a serious journalist with a string of Peabodys and Emmys in his career at CBS, has lost faith in the core product of the network and is willing to hang on to the shirttail of anybody who seems to have momentum. That means that CNN will continue to be host of Larry King's nightly softball tournament, but more remarkably, it also means that Lou Dobbs — whose jeremiad against a porous border has brought in an average of 130,000 new viewers over this time last year — can say anything he wants to. And while Mr. Cooper has an authentic interest in news, when celebrities show up toting a Gucci bag of ratings, they can expect to be treated with kindred deference.