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Former CNN Anchor Is Worried About CNN's Use Of "Breaking News"

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Cable news veteran Frank Sesno asks, “how much ‘breaking news’ is really breaking news?”

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Despite some reservations, longtime CNN employee Frank Sesno gave the network's aggressive coverage of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 his stamp of approval while appearing on the network's own Sunday morning media show, Reliable Sources.

The 18-year cable news veteran defended CNN's non-stop coverage of the missing jetliner, citing first the network's brand as the place people turn to when a huge mystery like this captivates the public and ratings increase that these kinds of stories usually lead to.

However, Resno warned about abusing the term "breaking news," hinting that it might be time for the network to take its foot off the gas:

Sesno: "The big danger always confronting CNN — and it's confronted CNN since CNN went on the air and started doing 24-hour news — is how loud to shout, how much to do this, how much "breaking news" is really breaking news, and how do you convey to your audience this a huge story?

CNN's primetime ratings went up 67% in the first few days of the story, and they continue to be stronger than usual as the network's coverage enters its 11th day.

Determining how much is too much is the question — especially in a business that continues to work with a flawed Nielsen television ratings system and an advertising industry that uses the Nielsen metric as the measure of television success.

Watch the full Reliable Sources segment below:


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There Is One Movie Neil deGrasse Tyson Approves Of Scientifically

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After famously criticizing Gravity , the astrophysicist — and host of Fox’s COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey — doesn’t know if he’ll ever publicly fact-check a film’s science again. Praising a film’s science, however, he can do.

Neil deGrasse Tyson in COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey

Fox

AUSTIN — When acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson took to Twitter last fall to catalogue the scientific errors in Gravity — "Nearly all satellites orbit Earth west to east yet all satellite debris portrayed orbited east to west" — he had not intended his factual critique to go viral. Not even close.

"I was astonished at the attention the tweets got," he told BuzzFeed while at the SXSW Film Festival, where the first episode of his scientific TV series COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey screened before its series premiere on Fox. "I have some metrics for how far a tweet will reach. I had no way to have predicted it [would be] on Today, and "Weekend Update" [on] Saturday Night Live, and on CBS Morning Show, and the blogosphere."

Tyson's shock was partly due to the fact that this was far from the first time he's critiqued science in a film. He famously got James Cameron to replace the night sky in the 2012 re-release of Titanic, and he once schooled Jon Stewart on the rotation of the globe that opens The Daily Show. (And then there was the time Tyson, as the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, was the most visible scientist in the successful effort to de-list Pluto as a planet, a different sort of fact-check.) Tyson explained, however, that he only tries to weigh in on a movie's accuracy "if the film has a premise that it's getting things right." "I don't tell you the bad physics in Star Wars," he noted.

The Gravity tweets, however, garnered so much attention so quickly — even after Tyson clarified that he did enjoy the film "very much" — that it's given the Harvard and Columbia educated scientist pause about the whole notion of pop-culture fact checking.

"I don't know if I'll do it again, given how people just went crazy," he said. He happily listed the science that Gravity got right, including the appearance of liquid water in space, the orientation of the stars in space, and the physics to how Sandra Bullock tumbled backward when she first tried to use the fire extinguisher. "But that's not as interesting as picking out the few things that it got wrong," he asserted.

Then again, it's doubtful Tyson will keep to that mild declaration. When pressed to list films that did indeed get the science right, something compels Tyson — perhaps his sense of scientific rigor, his sense of showmanship, or both — to note when those films also got something wrong, even when it is Tyson's stated favorite film ever.

The Matrix (1999)

The Matrix (1999)

"I love The Matrix," said Tyson without hesitation. "The Matrix 1 — not 2 or 3, of course. But that's my single favorite film of all time. I like the visual effects. I like the story. I like the premise. It gets one thing wrong with the physics, but I'll forgive it, because it did so much else so well. That part where [Laurence Fishburne] holds up the battery and says [the machines] are breeding humans to serve as a source of energy for their civilization, so that we're just really like a battery, a copper top. That's a weak point in the storytelling, because you don't make a human, and use the energy of the human, because you have to put energy in a human to begin with. Whatever energy that you're putting in the human, use that to drive your civilization. Any time energy transfers from one form to another, you lose efficiency. You're losing some of your energy. And a human is not the most efficient way to express the energy that you're feeding it. But then they wouldn't have a story. So I gotta give them something."

Warner Bros. Pictures

L.A. Story (1991)

L.A. Story (1991)

"The story as it plays out lasts a month," said Tyson of the romantic comedy written by and starring Steve Martin about a weatherman and a magical highway traffic billboard. "How do I know that? Because they had the moon in the sky at night changing phase. And you know he put it there because he put it there, and each couple of days, its slightly bigger, and it goes through its phases. I thought that was great. I put a check in the box for thinking about connecting your storytelling to the cosmos."

Unfortunately, Tyson's praise only goes so far: "What he got wrong was the moon grew in the wrong direction. So you did good for thinking about the universe, but next time call somebody!"

TriStar Pictures / Via samefacts.com


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16 Reasons You Quit Being Pre-Med

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Because what the hell were you thinking?

You couldn't stand the sight of blood.

You couldn't stand the sight of blood.

Paramount Pictures / Via vintageclothesretro.tumblr.com

You weren't a good enough artist to draw your way through an organic chemistry test.

You weren't a good enough artist to draw your way through an organic chemistry test.

Walt Disney Pictures / Via eponges.tumblr.com

You didn't think your lifestyle would ever be healthy enough to set a good example.

You didn't think your lifestyle would ever be healthy enough to set a good example.

Columbia Pictures / Via tribecafilm.tumblr.com

Your social life was suffering.

Your social life was suffering.

HBO / Via calzona-and-caskett-love.tumblr.com


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Meet The Suavest Cat Brothers On Instagram

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The Tuxedo Trio is here for any and all of your debonair needs. (H/T cats_of_instagram )

This is Jack, Ben, and Desmond.

instagram.com

They weren't always such a grown-up bunch...

instagram.com

...little Jack came a little late to the game, but they're a handsome family all the same.

instagram.com

They're the coolest kids on the block, though, that's for sure.

instagram.com


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This App Will Help You Avoid Everyone In Your Life

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Welcome to the socially awkward person’s dream.

Avoid this feeling at all costs

NBC Universal

Cloak is a new app that bills itself as "incognito mode for real life." It uses the location data from your Foursquare and Instagram to chart out on a map where all your friends and acquaintances are lurking. Your ex just posted a photo to Instagram at 58th St.? ALERT ALERT! STAY AWAY!

It's like a reverse Foursquare: Instead of knowing where your friends are in case you want to join them, you can monitor where they are to actively avoid bumping into them. It's a genius concept, even if it does seem to assume that you're constantly running into old flames, familiar faces, and terrible humans on the street.

Because people don't stay in the same place forever, their icons will start to fade four hours after checking in on Foursquare or posting an Instagram pic tagged with a location.

Sample screen


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12 Evil Carnival Movies That Beat "American Horror Story"

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The next season of American Horror Story will be set at a carnival — sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Here are some of the most notable horror films to employ a similar setting. WARNING: Graphic violence and clowns ahead.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Directed by: Robert Wiene
Written by: Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer

Where would carnival horror be without the deeply demented Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? A classic in German expressionist horror, the film involves two friends who meet the eponymous evil doctor at a carnival. At his side is Cesare, whom the doctor keeps in a coffin and controls by hypnosis. Worst sideshow attraction ever.

Kino Video / Via e-e-r-i-n-e-s-s.tumblr.com

Freaks (1932)

Freaks (1932)

Directed by: Tod Browning
Written by: Tod Robbins

We can talk about how problematic Freaks is by modern standards — and, indeed, it's a serious exploitation of people with physical deformities. But for the self-proclaimed "freaks" of the carnival, the film was a means to show off their talents for the mainstream. In the context of a creepy horror film, of course.

Warner Home Video / Via harlequinnade.tumblr.com

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Directed by: Herk Harvey
Written by: Herk Harvey and John Clifford

The story of a woman who begins seeing things after a car crash feels familiar, but it wasn't trite at the time. The "carnival" in Carnival of Souls is perhaps not the kind of attraction you're imagining — but it's creepy enough to merit inclusion. And you'll never hear organ music the same way again.

Criterion / Via tiredtangerine.tumblr.com

Vampire Circus (1972)

Vampire Circus (1972)

Directed by: Robert Young
Written by: Judson Kinberg

Well, the title kind of says it all, doesn't it? There's a traveling circus, led by a gypsy woman and her dwarf companion, and a whole lot of vampires. The carnival in question isn't actually called a "Vampire Circus" — that would be a bit too on the nose — but frankly, I wouldn't attend anything called the "Circus of Night" either.

20th Century Fox / Via laurel-sea.tumblr.com


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This 107-Year-Old Syrian Refugee Was Just Reunited With Her Family In Germany

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Sabria Khalaf has been reunited with 20 members of her family — including her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and 33-day-old great-great-granddaughter.

AP Photo/dpa, Federico Gambarini

A 107-year-old Syrian refugee, Sabria Kahalaf, was reunited with 20 members of her family in Germany on Monday, including her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and 33-day-old great-great-granddaughter, the AP reported.

Khalaf fled Syria with her son, Kenan, seven months ago, first traveling to Turkey and then Greece, according to Germany's DPA news agency, AP said. European Union regulations require refugees to apply for asylum in the first EU country they reach, which in Khalaf's case was Greece. However, authorities agreed to expedite Khalaf's request to transfer to Germany, where other relatives had fled from Syria, on humanitarian grounds, according to the Office for Migrants and Refugees. Khalaf is a member of Syria's Kurdish minority.

Khalaf's ordeal came to light after a German lawmaker saw a report about Khalaf in the Munich daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung earlier this month, and then urged German President Joachim Gauck to help Khalaf's family, according to the AP.

The Syrian conflict has displaced an estimated 6.5 million Syrians inside the country, with at least 2.5 million having fled to other countries. Germany has agreed to take in 10,000 Syrians, the highest commitment of any EU state.

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The 21 Commandments Of Going To A Catholic College

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Because there are way more than 10.

Thou shalt have awkward relations with members of the opposite sex. After all, you're leaving room for the Holy Spirit.

Thou shalt have awkward relations with members of the opposite sex. After all, you're leaving room for the Holy Spirit.

Warner Bros. Pictures / Via us105fm.com

Thou shalt both be gloriously excited to be freed from Catholic school uniforms, and also strangely miss them.

Thou shalt both be gloriously excited to be freed from Catholic school uniforms, and also strangely miss them.

Britney Spears Vevo / Via bidnessetc.com

Thou shalt put the "Christ" back in "Christmas," but also be just sacrilegious enough to attend many ugly sweater parties.

Thou shalt put the "Christ" back in "Christmas," but also be just sacrilegious enough to attend many ugly sweater parties.

uglychristmassweaterkit.com

Thou shalt be pals with at least one priest or nun.

Thou shalt be pals with at least one priest or nun.

Touchstone Pictures / Via whattalking.com


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"Backdoor Teen Mom" Farrah Abraham Has A New Song Called "Blowin'"

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She’s blowin’ all right — just not in the way you think.

Here's Farrah's new video. What is YOUR favorite part?

When she turned into TWO Farrahs?

When she turned into TWO Farrahs?

Farrah Abraham / youtube.com

When her Twitter user icon started moving?

When her Twitter user icon started moving?

Farrah Abraham / youtube.com

When her Facebook icon started to sing?

When her Facebook icon started to sing?

Farrah Abraham / youtube.com


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Rhode Island Wants To Teach Your Mom How To Get Your Attention On Tinder

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No, really. An unorthodox new method for recruiting young people to Obamacare.

WASHINGTON — If you're young, from Rhode Island, and don't have heath insurance, look out: That potential hot date on Tinder might just be your mom.

In a new campaign set to officially launch Tuesday, the Rhode Island state government is taking the longstanding national effort to use the opinion of mothers as the pathway to youth insurance enrollment to new levels. In Facebook ads aimed at state residents aged 23-33, the state will warn people that if they don't sign up for health care through the Rhode Island exchange — known as HealthSourceRI — then Rhode Island will help their moms find them on Snapchat, Vine, Tinder, Twitter, and OKCupid.

It's not an idle threat. Last week, the state soft-launched the Nag Toolkit, a website for moms containing simple instructions for how to join, entice, and stalk their children on dating websites with reminders to buy health coverage before the enrollment deadline passes at the end of March. A separate campaign aimed at moms will drive them to the Toolkit site, which also collects email addresses of young people submitted by their moms. The ads for moms are aimed at women in Rhode Island aged 45 and up.

The Facebook ads warn young people that if they don't buy insurance, Rhode Island will teach their moms how to use OKCupid and the other sites. The ads aimed at moms set out to do just that.

"We're sort of playing off this idea of the influence mothers have on their young adults," said Dara Chadwick, communications director for HealthSourceRI. "We're playing with the idea that kids don't want to sign up for health insurance, they don't really want to talk about it, and they don't want to be nagged by their moms. So the idea was, we would set out to find what they wanted less."

Obamacare critics noticed the Nag Toolkit Monday and started attacking it as "creepy" and "weird."

When it comes to OKCupid at least, the NagToolkit can be a little unsettling.

"Create a provocative username," the Toolkit advises. "Upload a photo and create a profile. Select Find User/Search for your son/daughter. Send them messages saying 'Get health insurance.'"

Chadwick says critics are blowing the ads out of proportion and seemed surprised at the reaction they were already getting in the day before their official announcement.

"It just launched, I haven't even done a press release about it yet," she said. "Some people don't like it, some people really like it, but that's how it goes with any advertising campaign that you might do."

"If the campaign gets people talking about it, than that's really what it's all about for us," Chadwick added.

The idea for the campaign came from NAIL, the Rhode Island exchange's Providence-based advertising firm, Chadwick said.

The Rhode Island health official's own kids aren't old enough to be off their parents' insurance — her oldest is 18 — but Chadwick suggested she wouldn't be above using the Nag Toolkit to get the attention her own uninsured young people if it became necessary.

"I'm really hoping that my children are not on OKCupid," Chadwick said. "But I do have Snapchat and, you know, I use it."

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