CNN is launching an ad blitz during March Madness, and while the spots don’t say so specifically, it’s pretty clear they’re targeting Fox News. The promo began running Saturday on TNT, TBS, TruTV, and CBS, all of which are covering the college basketball championship tournament.
The ad tries—and fails—to restore some credibility to the ratings-challenged network. Watch:
“What should you expect from a news network?” the narrator intones.
“Some bury the truth, while we fight to reveal the facts. And the only side we are on is yours.”
At the end, the CNN logo appears alongside the slogan “The Most Trusted Named in News.”
Try not to laugh.
The ad is apparently in response to a lawsuit Fox is facing. Variety sums it up:
The spot is, without using proper nouns, pointing at a much-scrutinized $1.6 billion suit levied against Fox News and its parent, Fox Corp., over damages Dominion alleges it is owed after Fox News aired false claims about the voting technology company’s actions and influence on the 2020 election.
CNN’s promo smells of desperation for a number of reasons. One, its ratings are in the tank despite multiple line-up changes and a shift in focus after the 2022 resignation of radical president Jeff Zucker due to an “inappropriate workplace relationship.” Two, CNN’s partisan reporting—over the last few years especially—has made it one of the least credible news sources out there.
Meanwhile, their highest-ratest primetime host, Chris Cuomo, was ousted in December 2021 after revelations that he secretly helped his then-New York Governor brother Andrew strategize to fight sexual harassment claims—while facing several sexual harassment claims of his own.
The most trusted name in news.
And don’t forget Don Lemon’s continuous clownish behavior, including getting drunk and tattooed on live television, and more recently insulting millions of women by claiming they were past their primes once they hit 40. Unbelievably, he still has a job at the network, although he was demoted from a prime-time slot to a morning show which is struggling in the ratings. When I say struggling, I mean bombing—in February, Lemon’s “CNN This Morning” averaged 360,000 average total viewers, while Fox & Friends averaged 2.1 million, and MSNBC’s frightfest “Morning Joe” brought in 895,000.
We haven’t even gotten to all the false information the network has spewed out in just the last few years alone, with anchors repeating on a continuous loop that “the walls are closing in” on Donald Trump for the Russia Collusion case, which turned out to be a hoax. Or their spectacularly bad reporting on Nick Sandmann, another narrative they completely botched. (Note: there’s plenty of MSNBC footage in the montage below—but there’s also plenty of CNN.)
I could go on. And on and on. There’s the Hunter Biden laptop, Jussie Smollett, Joe Rogan/Ivermectin, COVID… all of these stories received significantly slanted coverage by the Cable News Network.
The Most Trusted Name in News.
I almost feel sorry for Chris Licht, who took the helm as CNN’s new CEO in May of 2022, promising to bring a new tone to the network and be less obsessed over Trump. Although somehow Don Lemon still roams the halls, Licht got rid of Brian Stelter, who was widely mocked as a political hack, not an actual source of facts. But amid the supposed change in tone and multiple schedule revampings, Licht has yet to find his footing, and his latest primetime efforts have delivered even lower ratings. Rumors that he might be shown the door grew so loud that Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav had to reaffirm his support of the CNN CEO at a meeting last week with over 600 network employees.
This isn’t sports, but if it were, Licht should be very worried about his job, because when the team owner publicly announces his support for the coach, it almost always means that said coach will be looking for work in the very near future.
CNN’s efforts at relevancy face an uphill battle—they have (deservedly) lost so much credibility over the past decade that it will be almost impossible to take them seriously again. Also, while Licht’s housecleaning was long overdue, it left them with no hosts to excite viewers. At least with Chris Cuomo, I’d sometimes tune in just for the sheer entertainment value of watching what idiotic opinions he was going to air that night.
This promo almost sounds like a parody of the formerly-great news network, and I seriously doubt it’s going to significantly boost their ratings.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.
See also:
Lonely Lemon: Insiders Report that Embattled CNN Anchor Has ‘Zero Defenders Left’
CNN Adds Another Major Failure to the Books as Jill Biden’s Primetime Special Bombs Spectacularly
