"Down the Middle": CNN 10 and the Ideology of Objectivity

CNN 10 is a popular digital news show that explicitly targets schoolchildren with reporting branded as "objective." The show helps to introduce many young people into Western news logics, but it has received little scrutiny in media scholarship. This critical textual analysis examines the show's content in light of its metajournalistic ideology, focusing on coverage of U.S. elections, the COVID-19 pandemic, and environmental disasters. Analysis suggests that by promoting "balance" as the highest journalistic value, CNN 10 reifies simplistic conceptions of media bias and obscures journalism's more essential truth-telling responsibility, with implications for broader discourse around news.