Djelloul Marbrook

In yesterday’s New York Times Dave Itzkoff writes that CNN’s D.L. Hughley Breaks the News, a comedy-news show that premiered last night, “represents the channel’s belated (and risky) entry into the well-established genre of news delivered with a satirical smile.”

I don’t know how Mr. Hughley is going to break the news, and I don’t know where Mr. Itzkoff has been, but CNN’s low-risk daytime anchors, Heidi Collins and Tony Harris, have been giving the news a bad name for a long time with their phony jocularity. Those two can trivialize famine. News with a “satirical smile” is not CNN’s specialty, but news with a friviolous leer certainly is its daytime hallmark.

Fans of the Apocalypse should not be surprised to see them turn it into a joke when it arrives in 2010 or on any other of its dates certain.

Between their embarrassing silliness and the tedious fulminator’s license granted Lou Dobbs five nights a week, CNN is lucky to have the steady Wolf Blitzer who, unlike the daytime anchors and Mr. Dobbs, takes care not to abuse good reporters with his own agenda.

The good news about Mr. Hughley is that we can expect him to be a lot funnier and a lot more serious than CNN’s daytime yaks. The comedic impulse, after all, is a far cry from silliness.—DM