CNN reports in future tense

Media doesn’t just report the news in near real-time anymore: now they do it in what I like to call “pre-real-time.” That’s right, CNN can now report news before it happens, including this gem:

Obama will claim victory during a speech in St. Paul, Minnesota, according to prepared remarks released by his campaign.

“Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another — a journey that will bring a new and better day to America,” he’s expected to say.

I’d like to repeat that for emphasis: “he’s expected to say.” I have mixed feelings about the media in general, but none about CNN: they drive me insane. Their insistence to be first to the punch now pre-empts the actual utterance of quotable speeches. They steal thunder not only from competitors, but from the speaker (in this case, Obama) and amazingly from themselves — instead of capturing real emotion from a real speech, they’re more than happy to dilute the moment by filling in the gaps with assumptions and prepared comments.

Here’s the link, but because CNN has this great habit of micro-changing their online content once editors or readers point out their various idiocies, I’ll include a screenshot for posterity:

It’s truly amazing what they can accomplish by doing this, and equally amazing that the whole 1948 “Dewey Defeats Truman” thing didn’t actually teach anyone a lesson that lasted more than four minutes.