CNN. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
While MSNBC and CNN have fought over who the biggest d-bags in news could be, CNN has always had something of an edge thanks to it being a household name. MSNBC has always had to play Destro to CNN’s Cobra Commander, but it’s likely something that played out in MSNBC’s favor.
CNN went so far to the left that it became a national embarrassment that even its former staffers and hosts denounced.
(WATCH: CNN and the Media Get Ripped Apart by CNN’s Former Bureau Chief Live on Air)
Moreover, the network was so filled to the brim with corruption and crime that no one was surprised to hear about everything from inter-office affairs among execs to crimes of child grooming and pedophilia.
After years of abuse, illegitimate reporting, and no shortage of attacks against America, CNN was a sorry shadow of its former self. It was often left in the dust in the ratings by MSNBC and was flailing in the mud in comparison to Fox News’s stratospheric audience numbers.
CNN was either going to crash and burn for good or it would need a massive makeover and reboot. It would need to be brought back to the center politically, kicking and screaming if necessary. It would need the hosts that were causing the network major problems to either be fired or pushed into a less influential spot in the lineup.
Sure enough, after the merger between CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. and Discovery, the changes began happening. Brian Stelter was terminated and the Earth where his show “Reliable Sources” was planted was salted. Then Don Lemon lost his prime-time spot. This was after Warner’s new CEO David Zaslav rightfully denounced CNN as an “advocacy network.”
It was a sign of big things to come for CNN.
Sure enough, the moves being made at CNN were the pebbles that start the avalanche. As The Hill reported on Wednesday, a memo from CNN’s new president, Chris Licht, warned employees that things are going to get tumultuous at the network in the very near future.
“There is widespread concern over the global economic outlook, and we must factor that risk into our long-term planning,” Licht wrote in a company-wide memo. “All this together will mean noticeable change to this organization. That, by definition, is unsettling. These changes will not be easy because they will affect people, budgets, and projects.”
According to The Hill, “noticeable changes” include “planning to gut parts of CNN that have become bloated.” He already put the kibosh on CNN+, a massive undertaking that got its throat slit by management before it could hardly get off the ground.
Licht denies that this is an indication that CNN is heading rightward, but I’m not entirely sure he’s being honest. If you wanted to keep CNN’s core audience while slowly attracting a new one through various change-ups, this is exactly what you’d say.
As I’ve written before, I do hope CNN is successful in coming back to the center.
(READ: Why You Want CNN to Succeed In Bringing Itself Back to a Better Place)
CNN might be weaker than it used to be but it is still one of the most recognizable names in news. Even at its worst, when the average American would hear the word “CNN reports” there was a tinge of credibility to it. We would have a healthier country if when CNN reported something, they reported the truth.
Not just because the truth is always what you want to aim for but because the truth is far healthier in the long run than divisive lies. CNN specialized in those for far too long, and whatever this gutting is that Licht plans on doing, I hope it goes deep. Moreover, I hope it’s replaced by integrity.
