Job Losses Pit
CNN's Dobbs
Against Old Pals
By JULIA ANGWIN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is on a crusade -- and oddly, his target is the U.S. business establishment. Nearly every night for the past year, in a campaign he calls "Exporting America," Mr. Dobbs has railed against companies that move jobs to low-wage countries.
On recent broadcasts of "Lou Dobbs Tonight," he has called for President Bush to fire a top economic adviser who said outsourcing U.S. service jobs is probably good for the economy, and lauded Congress for considering legislation to limit government work from being sent overseas. On his section of CNN's Web site, Mr. Dobbs has compiled a list of more than 200 companies that he says are "either sending American jobs overseas, or choosing to employ cheap overseas labor, instead of American workers."
The ferocity of Mr. Dobbs's attack has surprised and even angered some observers used to associating the well-known Republican financial journalist with spirited defenses of capitalism and cozy interviews with America's top chief executives.
"It's really one of the most dramatic shifts of attitude and persona that TV has seen," says David Bernknopf, a media strategist and former CNN vice president. "Lou was always seen by corporate America as a reliable and generally friendly journalist. Now he has shifted 180 degrees and has clearly dedicated his show to criticizing a lot of the way that corporate America does business."
CNN has been reshaping its identity ever since the pioneer of 24-hour news lost the battle for ratings supremacy to News Corp.'s opinionated Fox News Channel. Now the straight-ahead, just-the-facts-ma'am style of reporting that made CNN famous is being played down. The network is driven as much by personality as news, hoping to hook audiences with the likes of anchors Paula Zahn and Anderson Cooper.
The 58-year-old Mr. Dobbs has always been one of the most opinionated CNN commentators, but his opinions generally were seen as unabashedly pro-business. His "Moneyline" show was successful partly because of his wide contacts and ability to woo executives to do on-air interviews. After Mr. Dobbs left for a dot-com start-up in 1999, the show's ratings plummeted. He returned to "Moneyline" in 2001 and added what he calls "the political economy" to the show's roots in business. "Moneyline" was renamed "Lou Dobbs Tonight" last year.
Mr. Dobbs's pugnacious style seems to be catching on with viewers and advertisers. "Lou Dobbs Tonight" attracted about 511,000 viewers in January, up 9% from 470,000 a year earlier, according to Nielsen Media Research. The show's ad revenue of $14.7 million in December was up 24% from $11.9 million a year earlier, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
Mr. Dobbs acknowledges that his anti-outsourcing campaign has sparked complaints from some traditional allies. "I've had one or two CEOs suggest that I'm a communist," he says. James K. Glassman, a conservative commentator who sparred with Mr. Dobbs on the air earlier this month, has launched an anti-Dobbs campaign on his Web site. And in India, an economist calls the growing political backlash in the U.S. against outsourcing the "Lou Dobbs effect."
At the same time, the fight by Mr. Dobbs is winning him friends in new places, including praise from Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.). At a gathering of 3,000 labor activists earlier this month, Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, showed a clip from Mr. Dobbs's show. "The blind loyalty to free trade is being challenged in the mainstream media," Mr. Trumka told the crowd.
Mr. Dobbs insists he hasn't dramatically changed his tune, saying he just wants the U.S. government to study the consequences of outsourcing so it can make wise policy decisions. "I am an absolute free market capitalist, but I believe in true free markets and the importance of clear, accurate information to create free markets," he says.
On the air, Mr. Dobbs sometimes takes a caustic tone with guests who disagree with him. "What is it with you people?" Mr. Dobbs asked after Mr. Glassman commented on the benefits of a trade deficit. Later in the same show, Mr. Dobbs told Mr. Glassman: "You talk like a cult member."
Mr. Glassman says the interview was "an amazing experience. I knew he was going to be very argumentative, but I think he sort of lost it." Mr. Dobbs now says his comment was aimed at "the orthodoxy amongst too many economists, too many in business who simply say it's free trade and the hell with the consequences."
After tangling with Mr. Dobbs, Mr. Glassman posted a study on his own Web site that concluded that the companies listed by Mr. Dobbs as moving jobs out of the U.S. are good stock picks overall. A portfolio of the so-called "Dobbs Rogue Fund," which includes General Electric Co., Pfizer Inc. and Yahoo Inc., would have gained 72.4% in the year ended Monday, compared with a 39.1% return for the Standard & Poor's 500-Stock Index over the same period. "Lou is definitely on to something," Mr. Glassman jokes.
Mr. Dobbs counters that the stock-market performance of these companies doesn't prove that outsourcing is necessary for success. "They should be sharing their success with their stakeholders and living up to their responsibilities," he says.
He says all the companies listed on the CNN Web site have confirmed moving jobs out of the U.S. A CNN spokeswoman adds that Mr. Dobbs's show is clearly labeled as news and analysis, as well as opinion and debate.
Mr. Dobbs conducted another crusade two years ago. When federal prosecutors went after the accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP for its role in Enron Corp.'s collapse, Mr. Dobbs repeatedly denounced on-air what he saw as the federal government's effort to destroy "the livelihoods of most of those 85,000 innocent people" who worked at Andersen.
Mr. Dobbs was criticized at the time for having ties to Andersen. Andersen had sponsored a show of his on CNN and had paid Mr. Dobbs for speaking engagements prior to his reporting on the issue.
This time, Mr. Dobbs says he doesn't know of any instance where he has received any speaking fees related to his anti-outsourcing crusade, adding that CNN's ethics committee approves all his speaking engagements. He says he doesn't directly own any of the stocks he mentions on air, except shares of CNN's parent company, Time Warner Inc.
Write to Julia Angwin at julia.angwin@wsj.com
CNN's Dobbs
Against Old Pals
By JULIA ANGWIN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is on a crusade -- and oddly, his target is the U.S. business establishment. Nearly every night for the past year, in a campaign he calls "Exporting America," Mr. Dobbs has railed against companies that move jobs to low-wage countries.
On recent broadcasts of "Lou Dobbs Tonight," he has called for President Bush to fire a top economic adviser who said outsourcing U.S. service jobs is probably good for the economy, and lauded Congress for considering legislation to limit government work from being sent overseas. On his section of CNN's Web site, Mr. Dobbs has compiled a list of more than 200 companies that he says are "either sending American jobs overseas, or choosing to employ cheap overseas labor, instead of American workers."
The ferocity of Mr. Dobbs's attack has surprised and even angered some observers used to associating the well-known Republican financial journalist with spirited defenses of capitalism and cozy interviews with America's top chief executives.
"It's really one of the most dramatic shifts of attitude and persona that TV has seen," says David Bernknopf, a media strategist and former CNN vice president. "Lou was always seen by corporate America as a reliable and generally friendly journalist. Now he has shifted 180 degrees and has clearly dedicated his show to criticizing a lot of the way that corporate America does business."
CNN has been reshaping its identity ever since the pioneer of 24-hour news lost the battle for ratings supremacy to News Corp.'s opinionated Fox News Channel. Now the straight-ahead, just-the-facts-ma'am style of reporting that made CNN famous is being played down. The network is driven as much by personality as news, hoping to hook audiences with the likes of anchors Paula Zahn and Anderson Cooper.
The 58-year-old Mr. Dobbs has always been one of the most opinionated CNN commentators, but his opinions generally were seen as unabashedly pro-business. His "Moneyline" show was successful partly because of his wide contacts and ability to woo executives to do on-air interviews. After Mr. Dobbs left for a dot-com start-up in 1999, the show's ratings plummeted. He returned to "Moneyline" in 2001 and added what he calls "the political economy" to the show's roots in business. "Moneyline" was renamed "Lou Dobbs Tonight" last year.
Mr. Dobbs's pugnacious style seems to be catching on with viewers and advertisers. "Lou Dobbs Tonight" attracted about 511,000 viewers in January, up 9% from 470,000 a year earlier, according to Nielsen Media Research. The show's ad revenue of $14.7 million in December was up 24% from $11.9 million a year earlier, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
Mr. Dobbs acknowledges that his anti-outsourcing campaign has sparked complaints from some traditional allies. "I've had one or two CEOs suggest that I'm a communist," he says. James K. Glassman, a conservative commentator who sparred with Mr. Dobbs on the air earlier this month, has launched an anti-Dobbs campaign on his Web site. And in India, an economist calls the growing political backlash in the U.S. against outsourcing the "Lou Dobbs effect."
At the same time, the fight by Mr. Dobbs is winning him friends in new places, including praise from Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.). At a gathering of 3,000 labor activists earlier this month, Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, showed a clip from Mr. Dobbs's show. "The blind loyalty to free trade is being challenged in the mainstream media," Mr. Trumka told the crowd.
Mr. Dobbs insists he hasn't dramatically changed his tune, saying he just wants the U.S. government to study the consequences of outsourcing so it can make wise policy decisions. "I am an absolute free market capitalist, but I believe in true free markets and the importance of clear, accurate information to create free markets," he says.
On the air, Mr. Dobbs sometimes takes a caustic tone with guests who disagree with him. "What is it with you people?" Mr. Dobbs asked after Mr. Glassman commented on the benefits of a trade deficit. Later in the same show, Mr. Dobbs told Mr. Glassman: "You talk like a cult member."
Mr. Glassman says the interview was "an amazing experience. I knew he was going to be very argumentative, but I think he sort of lost it." Mr. Dobbs now says his comment was aimed at "the orthodoxy amongst too many economists, too many in business who simply say it's free trade and the hell with the consequences."
After tangling with Mr. Dobbs, Mr. Glassman posted a study on his own Web site that concluded that the companies listed by Mr. Dobbs as moving jobs out of the U.S. are good stock picks overall. A portfolio of the so-called "Dobbs Rogue Fund," which includes General Electric Co., Pfizer Inc. and Yahoo Inc., would have gained 72.4% in the year ended Monday, compared with a 39.1% return for the Standard & Poor's 500-Stock Index over the same period. "Lou is definitely on to something," Mr. Glassman jokes.
Mr. Dobbs counters that the stock-market performance of these companies doesn't prove that outsourcing is necessary for success. "They should be sharing their success with their stakeholders and living up to their responsibilities," he says.
He says all the companies listed on the CNN Web site have confirmed moving jobs out of the U.S. A CNN spokeswoman adds that Mr. Dobbs's show is clearly labeled as news and analysis, as well as opinion and debate.
Mr. Dobbs conducted another crusade two years ago. When federal prosecutors went after the accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP for its role in Enron Corp.'s collapse, Mr. Dobbs repeatedly denounced on-air what he saw as the federal government's effort to destroy "the livelihoods of most of those 85,000 innocent people" who worked at Andersen.
Mr. Dobbs was criticized at the time for having ties to Andersen. Andersen had sponsored a show of his on CNN and had paid Mr. Dobbs for speaking engagements prior to his reporting on the issue.
This time, Mr. Dobbs says he doesn't know of any instance where he has received any speaking fees related to his anti-outsourcing crusade, adding that CNN's ethics committee approves all his speaking engagements. He says he doesn't directly own any of the stocks he mentions on air, except shares of CNN's parent company, Time Warner Inc.
Write to Julia Angwin at julia.angwin@wsj.com
