From: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/th...

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   The Washington Examiner
   Friday, February 04, 2022

                             The weird world of CNN

   by Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent | February 04, 2022 10:18 AM

   THE WEIRD WORLD OF CNN. The oldest, and lowest-rated, of the Big 3 cable
   news networks is in an apparent meltdown these days. Much of the staff of
   CNN is upset about the sudden, unexpected firing of network president Jeff
   Zucker, who was dismissed for not reporting an affair with a subordinate.
   But here is the weird thing few seem to be talking about. All the angst,
   all the uproar, all the tumult, is over a man who was running the network
   into the ground.

   Get to the drama later. First this: A few days ago, Mediaite ran a story
   headlined, "January Ratings: Fox News Hits 20 Years at Number 1, While CNN
   and MSNBC See Massive Drops From Last Year." Massive was right. The
   article reported that, compared to last year, CNN "is down 74 percent in
   total viewers and 81 percent in the demo during day time, and is down 77%
   in total viewers and 82 percent down in the demo during prime time." (The
   "demo" refers to advertisers' most sought-after viewers between 18 and 49
   years of age.)

   CNN's fall was indeed massive. Yes, other networks were also down from the
   super-newsy days of the 2020 presidential campaign and transition. But
   MSNBC was down 56% in total viewers during prime time, while Fox News was
   down 12% in prime time. (Note: I am a Fox News contributor.)

   So, CNN's losses were indeed enormous. The network succeeded in running
   three-quarters of its audience away, all in the space of a year. And that
   was on top of years of embarrassments for Zucker and his team. In recent
   times, they took criticism from the Left for over-covering Donald Trump's
   2016 campaign, "sometimes going so far as to broadcast images of an empty
   lectern with embarrassing chyrons such as 'Breaking News: Standing By for
   Trump to Speak,'" wrote the Washington Post's media columnist Margaret
   Sullivan.

   Then, when Trump won the 2016 election, CNN shamed itself with its
   over-the-top promotion, and wall-to-wall coverage, of the Trump-Russia
   collusion theory. Remember it was CNN that played a key role in bringing
   to light the Steele dossier, the sensational, salacious, and
   never-verified Democratic dirty trick that did enormous damage to the new
   administration before Trump even took the oath of office.

   In early 2019, the contrarian journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote a story
   called "The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the
   Trump-Russia Story," and CNN played a prominent role. With stories like
   this:

   On July 27, 2018, CNN published a blockbuster story: that Michael Cohen
   was prepared to tell Robert Mueller that President Trump knew in advance
   about the Trump Tower meeting. There were, however, two problems with this
   story: first, CNN got caught blatantly lying when its reporters claimed
   that "contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to
   comment" (in fact, Davis was one of CNN's key sources, if not its only
   source, for this story), and second, numerous other outlets retracted the
   story after the source, Davis, admitted it was a lie. CNN, however, to
   this date has refused to do either.

   It's hard to exaggerate how worked up CNN got about this and other stories
   during the Trump-Russia matter. They talked about it for hour after hour.
   And in the end, the network got the big picture - Trump-Russia collusion -
   wrong. Plus, for most of the time, CNN stayed in third place in the
   ratings.

   The network had a brief moment in January 2021, when, bolstered by its
   audience's intense interest in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the second
   Trump impeachment, it rose to the top of the ratings. But it soon began to
   sink, and it has continued sinking to its present sorry state. Trump likes
   to joke that CNN needs him for ratings, but the fact is, CNN has been down
   for a long, long time. Fox surpassed CNN in the overall ratings in January
   2002 and has stayed on top since then.

   Zucker has presided over the losses for the last nine years. If a network
   measures its success by attracting viewers - and while that is not the
   only measure of success, it is extremely important - CNN, under Zucker,
   failed and failed and failed.

   Nevertheless, now that Zucker is out - and we still do not know the entire
   story of his ouster - the staff is mourning the loss of the Great Leader.
   According to CNN's Brian Stelter, Michael Bass, one of the top network
   executives who is part of an interim leadership team, said the morning
   after the news broke, "I know we're all in shock. You can't replace Jeff.
   It's not possible. There's no one else like him. The best thing we can do
   is honor his legacy and continue his mission. Do what we've been doing
   every single day." At a staff meeting, also according to Stelter, a CNN
   anchor said, "I just don't want us to be rudderless" - as if Zucker had
   been steering them in the right direction.

   And after disbelief came anger. "Zucker's fiercely loyal employees have
   been shocked and enraged," reported Vanity Fair. They are mad at Jason
   Kilar, the head of WarnerMedia who fired Zucker. When Kilar appeared at a
   staff meeting in the Washington, D.C., bureau, reporter Jamie Gangel told
   him: "From everything we've been told, this [Zucker's firing] does not fit
   the crime. I think the company has made a terrible mistake. I do not think
   you have any appreciation for what you've done to this organization, and
   to our coverage, and to all the people who worked for him."

   Gangel told the meeting that anger over Zucker's firing has spread to high
   levels of the U.S. government. "The first calls I got this morning were
   from four members of the January 6 committee, who felt devastated for our
   democracy," she said, "because Jeff was not going to be around to make
   sure that CNN is able to do its job." The extensive quotes are possible
   because someone in the meeting made an audio recording of it and leaked it
   to the media. (By the way, Gangel later corrected herself; she was
   contacted by four members of Congress, but only one of them was a member
   of the January 6 committee.)

   To outsiders, it all seemed exceedingly ... weird. Perhaps Zucker had
   treated them well personally; he was known to keep good relations with
   on-air talent. But aside from its brief shining moment in January 2021,
   CNN has been in the cellar so long that perhaps some have become unable to
   imagine that another leader might actually do a better job.

        Copyright 2022. Washington Examiner. All Rights Reserved.
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