New CNN chief eschews shouting

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — "Crossfire" fans may not like him, but the new president of CNN/U.S. has made a lot of friends in the journalistic community.

Just weeks after moving into his office, Jonathan Klein canceled the political debate show-turned-shouting match "Crossfire," essentially because he agreed with "Daily Show" host/comedian Jon Stewart, who had a nasty exchange with "Crossfire" co-host Tucker Carlson when Stewart was a guest on the show.

"You're doing theater when you should be doing debate. . . . To do a debate would be great," Stewart said. "But that's like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition."

"I saw that whole episode play out as a viewer," Klein said, "and I saw myself agreeing with a lot of points that Jon was making — not whatever personal attacks he might have made, but the philosophy behind it. That surely major media companies can cover politics and important issues in a different way."

He admits he's not quite sure what the next step in TV political news coverage is, but he wants something other than strident shouting matches — something done "in a way that enables the viewers to actually hear what's being said and understand it and digest it and weigh the information, rather than just sit back and enjoy the sizzle."

Not that the decision to jettison "Crossfire" was entirely based on high-minded journalistic principles.

"We're not going to try to pull the wool over anybody's eyes," said CNN News Group president Jim Walton. "That program had not been doing well from a ratings standpoint for a while. And in fact it skewed to a very old audience."

(And old audiences don't attract big dollars from advertisers.)

What's next? Klein said his goal is to "throw open the time period and lay down a challenge and say, 'You know what? Let's think of the next way to talk to the public about politics and issues.' I'm very confident that together we can come up with a better way to have that conversation."

However, Carlson won't be there for whatever comes next. He's left the network and is headed for MSNBC.

"It was a basic programming decision," said Klein, who effused over Carlson's "ton of skills," his "fabulous" writing and his "unpredictable presence."

But Klein said Carlson demanded a prime-time show to anchor. And a weeklong tryout as guest host of "Newsnight" didn't go well.