CNN hybrid English, why???

I would think that the primary audience of CNN International would not be Americans... but Europeans (or English speaking people elsewhere).

I assume CNN International hires presenters that appeal to their primary audience. I doubt they see English instruction as part of their mission.

Watch FOX News instead.

I've never made such experience on CNN-Europe - most anchors and reporters can't hide their US-origin, I think.

Maybe they just want to add a little colour.

if they want to sound "European", why don't they hire British presenters?

Actually, I assume the people they hire are some very experienced journalists with international background, but on the other hand, it seems speaking correct English, and sorry, an accent is part of it, doesn't matter much anymore. There is one particular presenter, Olga something, who has very thick Russian accent. I mean, okay, then when I sound a bit Czech, don't tell me I have a foreign accent. IF Russian accent is accepted for American media professional, then it seems any accent is already part of American culture. Sometimes America seems to be overly conservative and another time it seems like it doesn't care about anything. Stupid idea, but I am just confused why this is so about treating American accents.

What irritates me also about those journalists who are probably native speakers and speak that strange, non-existent English accent, is that it seems they were instructed to or had to undergo a special training where they would learn to speak with some weird British accent. Look at Renee
Zellweger, she did her job and really learned British accent perfectly for Bridget Jones, so they should either speak regular American English or give up trying to sound like Brits when they are not able to finish the job.
I know cases where an American has lived in Britain for a while and picked up a British accent, and the other way round, but these journalists don't sound like that, they really sound artificial.

The most irritating thing is that I can't figure out where this bizarre accent has come from. But I suspect is really is some stupid marketing idea. Urghhh. News are not enough, we need more weird accents!

Any chance you could dig up a YouTube clip of the accent you are talking about?

exactly, I have been working on it for past 20 minutes or so, also I have investigated a bit about what this CNN international is about

as you or someone guessed, it is a special channel supposed to compete with BBC and is adopting a lot of BBC's style

sorry about that Olga, firstly she is not Olga but Ralitsa, Ralitsa Vasilleva

secondly, she is not Russian, but Bulgarian
she was a Bulgarian journalist for the Bulgarian TV until she was hired by CNN, which is typical, as I found that CNN hires locals to cover local news, for example an Indian in India, a Taiwanese to cover all around CHina and far East etc., so Ralitsa has covered news from MOscow, former Yugoslavia etc

the typical anchor who gets on my nerves with her accent, sorry, I know that she is otherwise probably excellent and irreplacable, but her accent, oh dear...

you can listen to it , here is the link>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4SAA9cgrNQ

Her name is Christiane Amanpour, a typical CNN internatianal anchor, born to parents from Britain and Iran, grew up and studied in England, then studied in Providence, RI. Her accent is the final product of all this.

I am probably just stupid and way behind the modern trends of English.
I thought accents were more important, now the globalization also means English accents are going to be globalized too and we have to tolerate all kinds of weird examples and mixtures. ANd I've been trying to speak flat American, ok, I am going back to my weird Czech accent to be part of the cutting edge trends.

I am also curious about what you call "flat" American.

There are quite a few different accents in different regions of America. Most of the people around here don't speak with anything close to the accent of a typical American newscaster.

I guess, also, for some people it is almost impossible to keep their pure accent when they are exposed to all kinds of foreign accents as they keep traveling around the world. I am sometimes unhappy with my would-be American accent, but I can notice a huge difference after watching an American film for 2 hours - when it comes back - and after a day of listening to my Czech students.

I noticed there are basically - simplification, but usually it is so - two kinds of people when it comes to picking accents. One kind is what I would call "accent - resistant". A typical example is Milos Forman, Czech American director of Amadeus. WHen you listen to him, he has a 100% Czech accent. Incredible, not a hint of American in it. He speaks flawless, excellent English, better than a lot of native speakers, with perfect Czech accent.

The opposite is "one-way-switch" as I would call it. These people are able to learn the other accent perfectly but are usually not able to go back to their native language without sounding absolutely foreign. A typical example is another Czech American Ivan Lendl, who speaks 100% American accent without a hint of Czech in it, but when he speaks Czech, he sounds like an American.
I think he is not able to go back to pure Czech accent, maybe only if he lived here again for a decade or so.

These CNN anchors are usually victims of all kinds of strange and foreign accents and settle somewhere in the middle so that's why they don't sound authentic to me. They are neither American sounding, nor British. And it is okay with CNN marketing and now as I understand the reasons more, I can accept it even if I would like regular American English in CNN.

Christiane Amanpour is well known here as well, she hasn't been hired just for some regional market. As you say, her accent makes sense given her upbringing.

ebrown makes an excellent point about "authentic" American accents. There is a great deal of variation, not a single gold standard.

In the early 90s I would hang out with a lot of ex-pats and most of them came from SoCal and even those who were from Wisconsin or Virginia sounded alike. But then I met a guy from Long Island and he sounded like Robert de Niro in one of those mafia movies. I asked my friends if they call that prevailing American accent anything and they said "flat". Maybe they meant the TV news accent. ALthough there are minor differences, most Americans I know sound about the same. I hear difference when I watch a program from Texas, NASCAR drivers or NASCAR presenters, there it is a bit different, more nasal, and of course all kinds of black subtleties.

HOw do you AMericans look at somebody who has lived in the US for decades, has been successful, say even famous, and they speak and you hear a completely foreign accent, do you somehow subconsciously exclude them as foreigners or do you naturally consider them as American?
Or there is no clear line?

A friend of mine told me, there are local accents and foreign accents in the US. A Czech accent is definitely a foreign accent to us. But then Milos Forman
has worked in the US for such a long time, I think he is part of the US culture. How do you feel about such people?

Nabokov is another example, but his English - his accent is something unique.
He speaks like nobody else. I think you would just consider him Nabokov, above nations. A sweet accent, by the way.

They elect him governor of California.

I guess it IS a melting pot, after all. It is just that Austrians and Czechs are not very typical ingredients. But can you imagine an American governor with a French accent?

A foreign accent doesn't affect my opinion of a speaker one bit. Some accents are attractive and may even be a benefit (certainly Arnold is an example of this).

I don't speak for all Americans, but I can't think of a time where an accent has negatively affected my impression of someone. There has been a rare occasion where I met someone who was hard to understand.

I majored in Physics in college... and had professors from Eastern Europe, Israel and India. These men spoke with accents, but their brilliance commanded respect as soon as they started speaking.

I imagine that this is simply not an issue for most Americans.

Just as an FYI, you can find a Biography on any CNN anchor/host on their WWW site. If you can narrow down who it is that was speaking you can find out where they are from and where they've worked in the past.

http://edition.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/

(The "International" section selector is on the right-hand side of that page...)

I think it's safe to say that Americans are generally much less accent-conscious than Brits. Your accent instantly pegs your class and other details in Britain -- in America it can offer some clues, especially in terms of what region you come from, but it simply doesn't have the same baggage.

I know what you are talking about, it sounds like "perfect ESL English". I think there are a lot of reasons, ranging from news anchors being preferred (within the industry) to not have strong accents to the fact that their profession leads them to enunciate more than American's usually do. But most of the time I've noticed it it was an ESL anchor.

At times in my life (depending on where I am living or have recently lived) I have this accent. I call it "International English".

I tend to call it "TV English" and find that regional accents are rapidly disappearing. I think this a bit regrettable

My delight is considerable when I am in coastal North Carolina or north central Florida and find a pretty girl that actually still can say "Y'all come back now y'heah