I haven't watched CNN for many years... it is very slick, and I am not sure I have heard an err or umm in 48 hours. The machine gun delivery of small parcels of repetitive information is hypnotic but gets boring. A wide pool of experts are used but feel quite constrained.

During the commercial breaks CNN has a weird fixation with fancy hand made WATCHES, David ROTHSCHILD talking about the environment in a prominent and aspirational way and Middle East FOSSIL FUEL companies talking about being good employers..

The use of statistics reminds me of a sports fan showing off that they can remember who scored a home run or goal in 1973. Massively impressive factual recall and detail are regularly on display, but this information is mainly discussed in single or rigid ways that limit insight.

Most of the contributors feels as though they have been heavily vetted and come out of the same mold. Highly groomed, fluent and predictable. You sometimes see knowingly evil smirks when they seed particularly invidious, pre-planned narratives.

Electoral officials that would never exist and/or be allowed to talk in public in the UK are remarkably candid and chatty, but you can almost feel their fear of triggering a court case. Platitudes and discretion seem to be their comfort zone, but they explain the basics well.

Very little is gone into in serious intellectual or factual depth. The philosophic underpinnings of democracy and capitalism might as well not exist. Most issues get discussed via personalities or particular states but a lot just passes in a blur and is ultimately confusing.

The use of graphics and predictions / projections helps to fill airtime, but often stretches no or minimal information into prolonged monologues. This air-filling makes audience perceptions vulnerable to manipulation & spin as you buy into narratives largely based on speculation.

The use of music is interesting. Trumpets or drums that might once have been used to introduce Royalty are used to introduce a new segment or wake up the audience. The flicking between charts and people creates a visual dynamism, but starts to drag when nothing at all changes.

The dribbling and stretching out of small pieces of information is pretty addictive, with a new gem of information always just around the corner...