CNN Minus

You may have noticed that I have refrained from commenting on some of the most talked-about stories in the news in the past few weeks - nothing about mass shootings, no commentary about the border crisis, and not even a mention of the leak of classified documents from that kid in Massachusetts.  The main reason for this is that I don't feel like I either know enough of or have proper insight to such stories.  I don't think there's anything I can add to them and, besides, it's much too depressing to try to keep up with the latest mass shooting in America.

On the lighter side of the news ,though, I can't resist to comment further on the mayhem at CNN, which is the lighter side of the news.

CNN seems to be in a state of flux as it tries to navigate between its its coverage of the news and its various special presentations.  The flap over Donald Trump's "town hall" event is hardly likely to die down, as it's become obvious that Trump will be raring to go for another town-hall-style broadcast he can turn into a studio rally - and ratings-hungry CNN boss Chris Licht is just as likely to go for more as well. News personalities at CNN are in a state of flux as well, as Licht decides whom to keep and whom to throw out.  He's already given Brian Stelter the green weenie, and Ana Cabrera has departed for MSNBC. As for CNN's News Central programs, they're pretty good at reporting the news, but they're not very good at presentation; Licht has the anchors of the morning and afternoon programs stand while on the air, and the women are expected to wear high heels.  Even Brianna Keilar. 

Licht has also made it clear that if they want to keep their jobs, they have to forfeit a little integrity.  Hence we have to hear Anderson Cooper and Michael Smerconish, among others, defend - yes defend - the Trump town hall event that featured Trump as the host with moderator Kaitlan Collins in a supporting role,  They're all reading from the same script, saying that Trump is the front runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and CNN cannot simply ignore Trump and must give him air time to respond to the voters.  It's the same old song and dance about how Trump is a credible presidential candidate, even though CNN risked and possibly destroyed its credibility by having Trump come on and repeat his lies in front of an appreciative studio audience.  I know I said all this last week, but I cannot emphasize it enough. 

As for CNN's special programming . . . well, the channel is currently showing its multipart documentary about the 2010s, the worst decade in human history until the 2020s got underway.  I found the first two episodes on TV and music a snoozefest, mostly because I find a lot of contemporary television uninteresting and because  I still believe that making strange sounds with a laptop isn't music (and when Renee Graham of the Boston Globe comes on, you know she's going to defend hip-hop to the death as a great form of artistic expression).  Also, Greta Van Fleet were not mentioned.

Much more interesting was Eva Longoria's culinary travelogue "Searching For Mexico," a series originally made for CNN+ but aired instead on the parent channel when the online child died in its crib.  I didn't know half the stuff that Eva Longoria dove into, particularly with the food - and she only visited Mexico City and six of the country's 31 states.  But will it be back for a second season to explore places like Baja California or Puebla, or did Licht just burn off the original episodes made for CNN+?  The channel pretty much left Stanley Tucci's "Searching For Italy" (Tucci co-produced Longoria's show with her) to wither before he could finish visiting his ancestral homeland's twenty regions, because Licht no longer wants to bother with independently produced programs.  I expect Longoria will get the same harsh treatment.

Finally, speaking of harsh treatment, I cannot end this blog post without commenting on the departure of Don Lemon.  Lemon lived up to his name as a newsman, forced to make small talk with Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow on "CNN This Morning" after having hosted his droll, dull evening program for so long, only to get himself in trouble when he said he preferred watching men's soccer to watching the U.S. women's national team (he apparently likes to watch losers like our men's soccer team; I wonder if he's a Pittsburgh Pirates fan?) and called presidential candidate Nikki Haley "past her prime," angering Harlow and Collins and causing them to walk off the set.  (Many guests wouldn't even appear on "CNN This Morning" because he was on it.)  I didn't think it was possible for a gay man like Lemon to be misogynistic, but there's always a first for everything.         

Lemon's stint as a morning-news anchor didn't even last six months, and his last day was a Monday; he only found out he was fired that night.  With MSNBC having everyone they need (including Ana Cabrera), Lemon might want to take the same path taken by Chris Cuomo and join NewsNation.  He'd be better off returning to local TV news like Susan Roesgen did.  Because he might want to remember the story of the woman with two sons.  One went to sea and the other became a NewsNation anchor.  Neither was heard from again. 

This . . . Is CNN??

When I heard that CNN was hosting Donald Trump in a live "town hall" event to meet with voters in New Hampshire, I was skeptical bordering on uneasy.  This town hall, as it was promoted, would give Trump oxygen at a time when he's already getting too much of it.   But he was supposedly entitled to such a format, given that he is the front runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and credible presidential candidates - at least credible presidential candidates not named Martin by their mothers and O'Malley by their fathers - are taken seriously be CNN.  And Kaitlan Collins, who got banned from covering Trump by his administration after she asked Trump uncomfortable questions about Vladimir Putin and Michael Cohen at a 2018 White House press conference, was tapped to host the event and was seen as someone who would grill him like a steak n a barbecue.

Instead, she folded like a bridge table. 

Despite looking resplendent in a white suit signifying the struggle for women's equality, Collins let Trump walk and run roughshod all over her as he:

• advocated for a debt default in the event that Republicans don't get the massive spending cuts they want 
• mocked Elizabeth Jean Carroll by seeing she played "hanky panky" in dressing rooms and once again insisted that he has never met Carroll, who just won a civil suit against him for accusing him of rape, despite that photo from the late 1980s shows Trump and Carroll in great proximity to each other while talking to their spouses  
• said it didn't matter whether Ukraine or Russia won the war between the two countries as long as the fighting ends
• said he would pardon many convicted January 6 insurrectionists, saying there was "love in their hearts"
• continued to insist that the 2020 election was stolen
• refused to answer questions abut a possible federal ban on abortion while taking credit for the repeal of Roe v. Wade by appointing three Supreme Court justices
• ridiculed his critics, including Carroll, whom he called a "wack job" 

Instead of exposing Trump for what he is, CNN simply allowed him to tighten his already-firm group on the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and the heavy promotion of the event drew more eyeballs to the cable channel than you would expect for a political TV broadcast in the middle of May.  Which, of course, translated into big ratings and lots of ad revenue for the channel.

Chris Licht, the CNN boss who is attempting to make CNN less anti-Republican and more neutral, praised Collins for hosting the event and fact-checking Trump in real time, even though her efforts satisfied no one.  She may be in line for a prime-time anchoring slot.  So rather than get a reprimand for her ineffectiveness, she may get . . . a promotion.

And I put this woman on my beautiful-women picture blog?  

I must say, though, she does look good in white . . . which of course is the color of surrender.

Licht can frame this as an example of how the town hall cast light on Trump's despicable behavior, but the event was designed mostly to attract people who are quite pleased with Trump's behavior - i.e., his supporters.  The participants of this "town hall" were mostly MAGA Republicans who were chosen specifically to have Trump's back.  Some reports said that CNN actually coaxed the audience members to cheer Trump's idiotic and hurtful statements to pump some life into the event, but, quite frankly they didn't need any coaxing.  And for every person watching on TV who was appalled by Trump, there was someone else - maybe two people - who were cheering him on.  

Chris Licht is crowing about how his channel made news with this event, but that should not have been, and likely was, the objective.  The objective is to report news.  If CNN wanted to give Trump a platform in which to state his case for being returned to the Presidency, it likely could have found a way to do so without having a live broadcast and without an audience who acted like they had just been warmed up by someone like the late Jerry Springer.  Give Trump a live feed and a room full of sycophants and I doubt that even the late Eric Sevareid couldn't have controlled him.  

This broadcast was a disgrace and an abomination.  Ironically, it may have helped President Biden by destroying the very thing Trump supposedly had that got him this moment in the spotlight in the first place.

Credibility.

A Source Run Dry

Chris Licht, who took over from Jeff Zucker at CNN after the creation of the Warner Brothers Discovery media company promised big changes for the cable news channel, and he is starting with, of all people, Brian Stelter.

CNN is canceling Stelter's program "Reliable Sources," which has been on the air since 1992 and which Stelter has hosted since 2013.  Stelter himself is leaving the channel.  Airing on Sundays at 11 AM Eastern, "Reliable Sources" has long been required viewing for anyone eyeing or pursuing a media career or just wanting to know what goes into reporting a story and presenting it in today's fragmented media.  Many of Stelter's observations of the news media have been tough but fair, and he has complimented them for their work as well as critiqued it.  But this self-analysis of his own profession apparently tended to look like navel-gazing to Stelter's new and soon-to-be former bosses, and so Licht has made "Reliable Sources" his first casualty following the termination of CNN+, with many more to come.  

Some folks are afraid that Licht's agenda could weaken CNN's news gathering, while others fear that he may be trying to please some of Warner Brothers Discovery's more Republican-friendly investors and make CNN stand for the Conservative News Network.  Whatever the reason for this decision, the loss of "Reliable Sources" is a major blow toward anyone who appreciates an incisive look at the media and understanding the "story behind the story."  It's as if the mainstream media don't want anyone to know how a story is framed and how biases seep in.  Because what John Mayer once said in one of his songs several years ago - when Big Media own the information, they can bend it all they want.  

I'm going to miss Stelter for his excellent media analysis.  I wouldn't worry too much about the fact that he won't be around anymore to call Fox News out on their misleading and untrue propaganda masquerading as news and commentary. if only because other CNN personalities and virtually everyone at MSNBC will be doing the same.  Still, this loss is comparable to Eric Sevareid's retirement from CBS and Soledad O'Brien's dismissal from CNN.   It leaves a big hole in its wake.   

Stelter's last broadcast on CNN is today.