Remember when CNN was touted “the most trusted name in news?”
Those days are long gone, and the strategy of dogging Donald Trump hasn’t paid off.
Early in Trump’s presidency, an independent poll decided Trump was more trusted that the media. Of course, those findings created a lot of butt-hurt ‘journalists.’
As we all know, the pollsters started bashing Trump, after they established him as the Republican candidate. When they thought Trump was a chump, they tipped the polls in his favor. Once he won the Republican primary, things changed dramatically. The leftist media tried to crucify Trump. Then, he won, and things only got worse.
From that day to this one, we can’t even count how many times Trump’s gone head to head with the pollsters and their Fake News outlets. Meanwhile, we learned that not only does the media lie, it gets its talking points from the Democrats and other Leftists. And when caught, they honestly don’t know what to do.
Recall the time Don Lemon stormed off the set at the end a broadcast? And what about Rachel Maddow’s tax return debacle that even the Left lampooned? And there were many others. Is it any wonder that people have quit relying on the formerly revered journalists and organizations for their news?
Perhaps the low point for CNN is the day their leader announced his plans to continually go after President Trump. According to Jeff Zucker, Trump-bashing improved morale. Further, his employees wore Trump’s criticism as a badge of honor. But just as I predicted two years ago, steering the network further left was a bad call.
Morale may be high, but the ratings tanked. And everyone knows in TV Land, ratings are king.
The Conservative View
CNN’s desperation to save face really shined when they added a conservative to their lineup. Ratings clearly prompted the move after CNN didn’t make the Top Ten networks in primetime viewers for the week of March 6, according to a report from Nielsen Media Research. Thus, CNN made a bold move.
Sarah Isgur, a longtime Republican spokesperson, joined the network to help direct its political coverage, including the Democratic primaries and Trump’s reelection campaign.
We previously wrote:
The hiring, first reported by Politico, is unusual for a number of reasons. Isgur hasn’t worked in journalism, and has no experience managing a TV news operation. She has spent the bulk of her career as a Republican advocate, working in behalf of such candidates as Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina and the Republican National Committee.
Most recently she was the spokeswoman for the Justice Department, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Trump forced out in November.
Of course, this addition to their lineup doesn’t erase the embarrassing blunders plaguing the network, such as Jim Acosta’s ejection from the White House Press Briefings. Or the video Acosta used to deny the border crisis. He inadvertently proved Trump’s assessment of the situation with his shoddy reporting.
The more CNN makes a fool of itself, the lower they sink. However, their presence as a media giant has been rolling downhill for many years now. If you check the facts, FOX has been crushing CNN for seventy straight quarters, which is more than 16 years.
Panic Sets In
Recently, we learned Hannity crushed Maddow, as she’s completely lost credibility with her audience. And her presence as a moderator at the democrat debates was laughable.
Now, the news just got worse. CNN is forced to layoff at least 100 employees as the network dwindles.
As Fox News reports:
CNN is suffering a credibility crisis as viewership for the once-proud network continues to crater with no apparent plan in place to fix things anytime soon, according to media watchdogs and insiders.
CNN’s audience shriveled in the second quarter of 2019, averaging only 541,000 total viewers, less than half Fox News Channel’s 1.3 million average. But CNN struggled even more during the primetime hours of 8-11 p.m. ET, finishing as the fifteenth most-watched network on basic cable behind networks such as TLC, Investigation Discovery and the Hallmark Channel. CNN averaged a dismal 761,000 primetime viewers while FNC averaged 2.4 million.
The Hill media guru Joe Concha told Fox News that CNN’s freefall may not be slowing.
“The numbers warrant concern, yes. Q2 was a particularly news-rich quarter highlighted by the release of the Mueller report and all the aftermath and controversy following it, plus the launch of several high-profile Democratic candidacies including Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg to propel 2020 coverage into high gear,” Concha said. “It may only get worse in Q3 given the numbers we’re already seeing.”
No Comment
Officially, CNN didn’t comment on these emerging reports. However, things are dismal, at best.
CNN started off the third quarter with “the network’s lowest average since 2015” when it comes to primetime viewers among the key demographic of adults age 25-54, according to TVNewser. But the network has extended various contributors through the election, indicating that its apparent anti-Trump programming strategy will remain in place for at least the duration of the president’s first term.
“You know the answer,” a longtime CNN employee said when asked if staffers are panicked about the ratings decay before declining further comment.
Another current CNN employee told Fox News that there is widespread concern about the network’s ratings problem, but high-profile hosts such as Anderson Cooper remain unfazed.
Ironically, CNN recently defended Trump in the feud with Megan Rapinoe. Further, they admitted the Russian collusion started with Obama. Then they reminded viewers that the border crisis didn’t start with Trump.
So what does all this mean? I have a feeling CNN is trying to turn the ship around, before it sinks completely.
