This is the kind of television project critics like me have been begging news outlets to tackle for years.

CNN's well-promoted Black in America series bends a significant amount of the cable channel's promotional and marketing muscle to tell the story of black America's struggle in the now -- with the latest installment tackling everything from special counseling programs for black marriages to the unexpected success of Tyler Perry.

The channel has also created a slick online destination that weaves together news stories on black people with the material that correspondent Soledad O'Brien has developed for Black in America 2, airing at 9 p.m. tonight and 8 p.m. Thursday on CNN. And the story has given CNN an excuse to spend lots of time talking about black issues this week; a welcome spotlight on issues often overlooked by national media.

So why does so much of this effort feel so unimpressive?

Part of it, is that many of these stories feel like routine feature stories dressed up with better-than-usual storytelling and in-depth interviews. On the preview given to critics, O'Brien spends time with a seemingly middle-class black couple who, to repair their relationship, turn to a special counseling program aimed at saving black marriages.

We're told that the program was established because black families are overwhelmingly single-parent households and successful marriages have become the minority. But we are not told definitively why this has happened to black families in general, or how the couple we meet -- a pair growing apart whose only common ground remains the love for their daughters -- exemplifies those issues, if they do.

As well-done as this story is, there seems to be nothing about the program or the couple profiled to distinguish them from any other, aside from the race of the participants. After long minutes watching this story, I kept asking myself, 'Why is CNN showing me this?' "what's special about this story?'. Not much, as it turns out.

A story airing Thursday about a program developed by Chris Rock's wife to take 30 kids from New York to South Africa fares better, as O'Brien travels overseas with the kids to document the program's impact on their attitudes. But much of it still feels like a gussied-up profile of a celebrity's pet project. 

O'Brien promises "in-depth, investigative reporting" on issues affecting black Americans and their culture. But these stories don't feel like a trenchant look at core issues or reporting that gets ahead of the race issues facing America.

Race friction fuels many news stories today: a Latina Supreme Court nominee faces accusations during confirmation hearings that her cultural pride sounds like racism; the nation's first black president faces repeated accusations that he's not really an American citizen; America's leading black intellectual and chronicler of civil rights history is arrested inside his home by police investigating a burglary report.

But the snippets of Black in America 2 I've seen don't get close to those subjects. It feels more like a scratch that doesn't get close to the itch -- an effort with noble intentions that only realizes part of its massive potential.

I wish I loved the series more. But the sad fact remains that the discussion and awareness created by this series  -- flawed as it may be -- is much better than nothing.  

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