CNN.com was a study in cognitive dissonance on Thursday.
In an article on The Mitchell Report and the topic of steroids in baseball, CNN unwittingly had Google ads blaring such headlines as “Want ripped muscle fast?” and “Legal steroids buy now.” One ad even directed visitors to the “Top 5 websites for steroids.”
How can this happen? Google generates automated text ads that are related to the topic on a given website. While this can be convenient, it can also be potentially embarrassing.
TechCrunch.com also found that when searching the topic of steroids on CNN.com and LATimes.com, Google generated ads related to buying steroids. In fact, Roger Clemens could have conceivably found his Winstrol via LATimes.com, though the Google ad shilling that product spells it “Winstrall“.
In another cable news/Mitchell Report related story, MSNBC would have been far better off staying with coverage of the Democratic Debate on Thursday. The cable net was the only one of the big three cable news networks to go with George Mitchell‘s press conference, and it suffered mightily in the ratings. CNN and FOX News averaged over 900,000 viewers for the debate, while MSNBC stumbled to a mere 200,000 viewers for the Mitchell press conference.
Link to TechCrunch.com found via TVNewser.
