This is CNN: Confidential conflict of interest News Network.

What Alex is doing isn't really anything new, but thanks to the internet this PR tactic is as obsolete as a cavalry charge against machine guns.

ummm.... what Republican health care plan?

The only credibility CNN has left is with certain goatherds.

Greg added that CNN "doesn't appear to have known about Castellanos' work." I suspect that's right; CNN probably wouldn't deliberately hide the analyst's conflict of interest. Instead, Castellanos probably didn't disclose his work, which raises questions about why CNN has him on the air as a credible analyst in the first place.

WTF, Steve? Okay, let's assume for the sake of argument that CNN "probably wouldn't" hide this guy's conflict of interest. It took me three seconds of googling to find out about Castellanos's company. Where is the freaking due diligence? Are we now seriously arguing that CNN and its ilk have no responsibility for checking out their contributors and should be viewed as hapless victims if said contributors don't make full disclosures?

Why was it never an issue when BHO failed to disclose his ties to Bill Ayers?

...which raises questions about why CNN has him on the air as a credible analyst in the first place.

And also why they think he deserves to keep appearing on CNN.

Could be worse--there could be a blogger out there getting a free book to review.

And Al--BHO did disclose his "ties" to Ayers, such as they were--it's just that his disclosures didn't match your lurid fantasies.

CNN. Would that be the same CNN that feels it needed to Fact Check a SNL skit concerning Obama's acomplishments and not Fact Check dorks like Castellano?

Oh, THAT CNN. Nauseating.

I second what Shortstop said.

CNN should be ridiculed regardless of whether Castellanos failed to disclose the relationship.

A competent organization would require disclosure upon formation of the conflict and would perform periodic checks (i.e., a 5-minute web search) to ensure compliance. You would think that such a check would be routine when a person is scheduled to appear on a broadcast.

i am so glad i don't watch the shit on the teevee.

FOX may be the most insidious shit-filled propaganda machine, but I'd hafta say that CNN is the stoopidest -- by far -- of all the corporate conspiring, chitter-chatter nihilistic spectacle-creating infotainment poor excuses for journalism...

all of them are large piles of excrement defiling the intelligence of the citizenry and the content of public discourse.

Always easy to spend money and resources fact checking SNL's Obama piece.
Now fact checking its own work, that's something beyond CNN's abilities.

Probably because they would not like what they find ...

Ditto Sarabath @11:39 and bdop4 @11:46.

If CNN puts that kind of quality research into making sure their "experts" are experts, then just imagine the quality of the rest of their reporting. Suddenly the reason that they more often report on what others are saying instead of actual events or issues becomes clear.

So glad I don't watch them.

People who get their "news" from cable TeeVee deserve what they get. . .

And if you recall, when Grayson appeared on CNN he was treated as the skunk at the garden party who was somehow guilty of an eggregious breach of Washington protocol when he slammed Republicans as the party of death on the House floor. These things are just not done! Yet, making a fortune placing ads for the insurance industry one day and taking on the industry's most ferocious House critic the next on CNN. Well, that's just business as usual.

Well as Jon Stewart so pointedly asked the other night of CNN's inability to conduct even the most minimal fact checking, "What about all those people behind you in the newsroom....they have computers...they can't look it up?"

Maroons.....total maroons and worse yet, incredibly dangerous to Americans who desperately need to know the truth and instead are fed corporate funded propaganda disguised as rational discourse.

If bloggers have to reveal that they got a Pez dispenser for recommending Pez, shouldn't a guy who makes millions working for the health industry at least have to reveal he is working for them before he starts shilling their position on national cable "news"?

Just askin'

CNN is trying to mold itself into Fox Jr. so this is about par for the course. They seem to be following in the mold of the WaPo, a formerly respected and respectable news agency prostituting itself for who knows why.

The skit that Jon Stewart did about CNN and its fact checking needs to be shown on a daily basis on every monitor in the world. CNN has lost any claim it ever had to respectability by wallowing in the gutter with Fox.

When I go overseas, I can generally get CNN and BBC in the hotel room. BBC isn't as good as it used to be (the Hard Talk guy is only slightly less irrelevant than Chris Mathews), but it is still a much better news source than CNN is now.

The only credibility CNN has left is with certain goatherds.

Leave Mickey Kaus out of this.

Instead, Castellanos probably didn't disclose his work, which raises questions about why CNN has him on the air as a credible analyst in the first place.

They should have that gecko on instead. He's just as credible, and he has a charming accent.

I don't call it the WaPo. I call it the HoPo, short for Whore Posse.