Full disclosure, the Chairman and CEO of today’s CNN, Chris Licht, is a friend and former colleague. He was an associate producer for a nightly half-hour program on the O.J. Simpson trial when I served as the lead reporter for KNBC and CNBC in the 90s. He is a talented producer with a long line of successes, and I agree with his mission to return CNN to its roots as a no-nonsense straight news service.
But it is in today’s world a Mission Impossible.
CNN’s effort to return to the middle is a quixotic quest for a centrist road that no longer exists. Yes, I can close my eyes and wish for the pre-Trump years when the audience yearned for facts and tuned into CNN once or twice a day to catch up on the day’s developments. And then perhaps Larry King in primetime for a celebrity interview.
But those days have vanished.
Donald Trump set out to destroy all institutions designed by the founders to check Presidential power. He packed the Supreme Court with right-wing sycophants he hopes will save him from prison and help him return to office.
He denigrated the Justice Department and FBI to blunt their investigations. He hired an Attorney General who distorted the Mueller report which did find that Russia helped the Trump campaign, offering disinformation in a Trump Tower meeting.
Trump disavowed CIA intelligence that showed Russia was responsible for meddling in the 2016 election, instead believing Vladimir Putin’s claim that he did not.
And, of course, he destroyed the reputation of election officials around the country with his claims of rampant fraud, which court after court ruled did not exist.
Finally, from the day he took office, his attacks on the press have been so consistent and virulent that his followers no longer have any faith in the Mainstream Media. From “fake news” to “enemy of the people”, Donald Trump has single-handedly destroyed the middle of the road in journalism.
It is not there anymore.
In today’s world, both sides journalism cannot exist because one side lies all the time. One side allows disinformation and libel to permeate its broadcasts. Fox did not pay Dominion hundreds of millions of dollars because it tells the truth.
CNN’s effort to stack its panels with both left and right-leaning commentators does not attract Fox viewers, it only serves to irritate and turn away its left-leaning viewers.
Why? Because the new right-wing commentators sitting on the CNN panels will not admit that Trump lost the election and therefore lose all credibility and should not be allowed to spout lies on what is now supposed to be a centrist channel. Being like Fox, by allowing people like Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL) to bully his way over moderators who attempt to fact-check him in real time makes for an unwatchable screaming match.
David Axelrod or Abby Phillip or the other veteran thoughtful CNN commentators are diminished by giving equal weight to people like the Florida congressman who, when confronted with his misstatements, merely yells “Let me finish” and continues on with misinformation.
CNN’s decades-long problem has been ‘How do we attract an audience when war is not breaking out or there isnt a mass shooting, or a storming of the Capitol’.
The answer had been with big talents like Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo, both of whom unfortunately destroyed their careers with off-air misconduct. They were talent that kept CNN at least competitive with MSNBC and Fox.
I like and respect Gayle King, and find Charles Barkley entertaining on sports shows. But a once a week appearance by the duo hardly seems like the answer.
Chris Licht no longer listens to me. He is way too busy to answer calls from an old friend. But my unsolicited advice is to do the big news the way CNN does best and fill the rest of the time with big-name hosts who can control, fact-check, and avoid runaway panels that drive away your core audience with MAGA talking points and shout-fests.
People like Jake Tapper and to some extent Anderson Cooper. You know Brian Williams is available. And you have Chris Wallace on the payroll. Both of them could fill your primetime schedule with credibility and return CNN to prominence.
Leaning left and fighting Donald Trump’s effort to destroy journalism is a pathway to CNN’s return. Searching for a middle road that no longer exists is failing.
