A New Hire Sits In on a Content Meeting at CNN

Executive Producer: Ok, people. Whatta we got?

Finance Correspondent: The DOW had its worst day in 35 years yesterday. On top of that, analysts are predicting a very slow rebound.

(The Executive Producer squints his eyes, sticks out his chin, and appears to consider this for a second)

Executive Producer: Let’s come back to that. What else?

News Producer: There was a massive dairy recall announced this morning.

Executive Producer: Eh. Come on, people. “Wow” me.

Foreign Affairs Correspondent: Putin ordered the Russian military to invade England.

Executive Producer: What is this, 1936? Let’s ask the new guy.

New Guy: Uh… honestly, I would lead with the invasion.

Executive Producer: Typical new guy response. So predictable. What happened to my team here? Listen, how many YouTube cat videos do we have ready to go?

Assignment Editor: Three.

Executive Producer: Is that enough?

New Guy: Sounds like three-too-many to me.

(The whole room stares at the new guy, fearful of what he might say next)

Assignment Editor: I agree. Ferret videos are all the rage now.

Segment Producer: I don’t know. That feels like a fad.

Executive Producer: Alright, let’s do two cat videos and one ferret video tucked in between them, so it’s not as jarring to viewers.

Foreign Affairs Correspondent: How about we lead with a montage of Hollywood A-listers who haven’t aged well in the last 20 years?

Assignment Editor: Nice!

Executive Producer: I like it, I like it. Now, how many times did we break into last night’s 6 pm news segment with a Kardashian tweet?

Segment Producer: 12

Executive Producer: And how many times did we break in with a Trump tweet?

Segment Producer: 8

Executive Producer: Oooh, that number needs to triple, at a minimum.

News Producer: The one currently getting the most buzz is his one from last night in which he bragged about his bowel movement measuring a foot and a half long. But there’s no picture.

Executive Producer: Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. We can still leverage the hell out of Trump’s 18-inch turd. Did he make a joke about his name being on it?

News Producer: No.


Executive Producer: Hmmm. Call him up, ask him to do a follow up tweet that says the turd came out with the Trump name on it. Blitzer can talk about that for 45 minutes, easy.

Finance Correspondent: Do you still want to circle back to the plummeting DOW?

Executive Producer: (Groans) I don’t know. How are we going to get people to care about that?


Assignment Editor: We could do a simultaneous live feed of four other people claiming the DOW is a myth.

Executive Producer: Keep tinkering with that idea. I could be talked into the myth thing.

Segment Producer: Just got off the phone with The Donald. He said when our segment ends about his giant poop, he’d be happy to tweet out that Ted Cruz’s poop always has “Imported from Canada” stamped on it. You know, in case we need to fill another hour.

Foreign Affairs Correspondent: That man is a genius.

New Guy: Shouldn’t we be informing people about the events going on around them that impact their lives?

(Long pause)

Executive Producer: Well… that’s not really our job, now is it?

Rest of the Room: (In unison, adamantly): No, no, absolutely not.

New Guy: Yeah, I guess you're right.