It is an oddly emotionally satisfying rationale and I reflexively agree.
But upon closer examination part of me wonders if this particular project was a victim of creation by committee, where there was only one person, who could make decisions and the rest were well-paid bobbleheads.
I have no doubt marketing did their research ( and as much as I hate ads, marketing people look for how things really are ), it is possible only some pieces filtered up and/or dissenting voices were just drowned out by 'why are you holding us up?' type of responses.
I am obviously speculating here, but elites ( however you define them ) are people too and subject to most of the same issues as most of us.
Having been in the trenches on a large scale initiative gone awry, my hunch would be the same as yours: the lack of strong/well informed leadership leads to bad decision-making despite all the checkboxes being checked (market research, etc).
In that case, it's easy to blame the "elites" (who certainly do deserve blame). Doing so blindly without deeper reflection is cathartic but not too productive or meaningful. A lot of times, the "elites" are victims of a system bigger than them (established culture, procedures, politics, etc). Spending energy to change said system would IMO be more productive than playing the blame game.
I think you're spot on. CNN, as a company, is not run like a news organization any more. There is a specific objective and the content they produce is designed to influence rather than to inform. The broader market is onto this dynamic. They are selling a very specific product to a specific audience. It turns out that the audience doesn't think it is worth much.
