Many media outlets—including the once-credible CNN—are puzzling over how to cover Donald Trump during the 2024 election cycle. They’re used to covering these things like horse races, of course—but what do you do when one of the horses is is actually a hyena who’s more interested in eating the gobsmacked faces of the spectators who didn’t bet on him than playing by the widely understood rules of horse racing? Well, you treat him like a hyena, not a horse. Yes, he’s in the race somehow, but we all know he shouldn’t be, and so the media's rightful role isn’t to accommodate the face-eating; it’s to helpfully point out that, hey, there’s a hyena on the track, and he’s feasting on Chris Christie’s stinking viscera again.
CNN is getting tons of blowback from its Wednesday night Trump town hall, and it’s definitely well-deserved. Some observers think the event was ill conceived from the get-go but nevertheless give props to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins for doing yeoman’s work in attempting to keep the spectacle on whatever rails were built pre-show to contain it. Unfortunately, she’s not a yeoman—and apparently not much of a journalist, given that she works for the now-disgraced CNN. And you shouldn’t send a journalist to interview Trump anyway. You need a lying-dipshit wrangler. And the only “person” who really fits the bill is Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
Of course, CNN’s new CEO, Chris Licht, who appears to be trying to woo MAGA conservatives away from Fox News, “Bonanza,” and the clammy stack of Reader’s Digests piled next to their basement toilets, feels differently. And he felt the need to say so after one of his reporters called bullshit on his grossly irresponsible decision to platform the one and only 2024 presidential candidate who literally tried to end American democracy.
Writing for Puck, media reporter Dylan Byers revealed that Licht was a bit salty with CNN’s own Oliver Darcy, who trashed the town hall in the network’s Reliable Sources newsletter. In fact, Licht reportedly dressed down Darcy in the wake of the criticism.
Of course, no one at CNN stuck their neck out so far as Oliver Darcy, the thirty-something media reporter who inherited the widely read Reliable Sources newsletter from his former colleague, Brian Stelter. (I, too, contributed to that newsletter once, seemingly a lifetime ago.) On Wednesday night, Darcy opened his email by declaring: “It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening,” and reported that Licht was “facing a fury of criticism—both internally and externally over the event.” The vast majority of CNN insiders I spoke to admired Darcy’s courage for channeling their sentiments. His bosses did not.
On Thursday, Licht declared in the 9 a.m. meeting that he “absolutely, unequivocally” believed “America was served very well by what we did last night”—a direct rebuke to Darcy’s thesis and lede. Later that day, sources familiar with the matter told me, Licht summoned Darcy and his editor Jon Passantino to a meeting with himself, CNN comms chief Kris Coratti, editorial executive vice president Virginia Moseley and senior vice president of global news Rachel Smolkin, in which they told him that his coverage had been too emotional and repeatedly stressed the importance of remaining dispassionate when covering the news, be it CNN or any other media organization.
Dispassionate. Right. Because that’s how we should react to a guy who continually incites chaos and violence in service of the same cult of personality that nearly ended America.
I’m not much of an interviewer, and I don’t really like being confrontational in face-to-face situations, but my first follow-up to Trump would have been, “Ah, so I see you wore your Pol Pot Underoos today, Donny.” Because the only way to deal with a ridiculous, scornful person is with ridicule and scorn.
Of course, Licht has gone on record as saying that Trump’s odiousness needs to be put on full display (though it goes without saying we’d have gotten the gist if they’d just wheeled him around the studio for 70 minutes in a Hannibal Lecter mask), but he apparently doesn’t extend the same courtesy to his own reporters.
Darcy stood by his work and pushed back on the “emotional” characterization, one source with knowledge of the meeting said. But afterward two sources who heard about the meeting described him as visibly shaken. “They put the fear of God into him,” one source said.
Gee, does someone feel a little insecure about his standing in the journalism biz? Or whatever industry CNN is in now? It’s not really journalism anymore. What would you call it? Disinfotainment? Nazi fetish porn? The Scheiss-capades?
CNN will likely retain very few of the MAGA viewers it was courting with its transparent bid to tickle their crusty nubblies, and judging by the incandescent rage we all witnessed on social media and elsewhere in response to Licht’s grossly irresponsible decision to normalize a cartoon villain, this whole spectacle looks like a giant, flashing neon “L” for the network.
But they still have time to redeem themselves. The first and most logical step would be firing Licht. And I assume they have Triumph’s number. Come on, give him a call. After all, nothing could be more embarrassing than what we witnessed Wednesday night.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.