Last year, “The Most Trusted Name In News” sacked the quintessentially moderate Brian Stelter. In effect, it did so in the name of waxing less “liberal”. Now it plans to bathe Donald Trump in limelight, Teflon, whitewash, and smarm- thereby propping him on a platform of legitimacy, from which he can demagogue sheer evil.
Let’s get real. At NBC, Jeff Zucker spearheaded the “reality” ripsnorter that put the scourge of New York on the nation’s map. (Gosh. What a swell “Apprentice”-ship for helming a news source. Or not.)
Surprise, surprise. For his buddy, Big Blonder, Zucker threw CNN in the tank- and this country under the bus. In 2016, buoyed by media malpractice (not limited to CNN), hush monies, Russian cyber-sabotage, and faint, feckless campaigning by Dems, the lyin’ scion/holy (cash) cow stampeded into our Pennsylvania Avenue china shop. Ensconced there, he was shocked, shocked to find Zucker-and-company’s pom-poms shaking less fervently. So he threw meat to his base by biting the hand that had boosted him- to wit, with a clip showing him smacking down some contumacious clown tagged “CNN.”
What the hell. How bad could he be, right? Sigh. In the wake of J6, for a brief, shining moment, some mainstream newsies grasped the debacle at hand. For instance, the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan observed how CNN had been less a trusted news source than a funhouse that had “treated [Trump’s 2016] campaign like entertainment, rather than a prelude to autocracy.”
For me, the fire bell in the night pealed early and often. In a fast-food joint, on 1/12/2016 (if memory serves at all), I caught CNN’s Dana Bash-delivered, no doubt Zucker-inspired “analysis” of President Obama’s final SOTU speech. With vim bordering on vacancy, Bash chirped about how Mr. Obama had sounded drained. Tired. And ‘hence’ (she connoted, if not denoted) substandard.
For absolute, Gospel-level ‘confirmation’ of her ad-hominem hooey, she cited the GOP’s then-rising frontrunner: since Trump had said Obama looked and sounded rundown, well, she gushed, it must be true. Doing so, she did not report. Nor, by any normal, fact-steeped standards, did she even opine so much as advertise. Cheer. And campaign for Big Blonder.
Yes, dear friends, she Zuckered us. (Or, if you like, Zucker-punched.) Either way, since 2017 she’s taken flak for daring to report some facts about poor Donnie. So, heads he wins. Tails, the misinformed electorate loses.
Once in a while, he himself tells the truth. With rare candor, he likens himself to the proverbial ailing snake that, after being rescued and nursed back to health, bites and kills its benefactor. So now, arguably, he’s put a deeply fanged CNN in a sick bed (or worse). If that sounds odd, look. As a now-moderate, now-Trumpian nothingburger, Zucker’s (now Chris Licht’s) roost has seen its ratings swoon. So. On May 10, seeking cash-in-the-pan, it plans to further normalize the autocrat who, at a 2022 rally in Florence, SC, told his faithful to prepare to “lay down their very lives” for his cause. Whose party officially calls J6 “legitimate political discourse.” Who anoints himself “The Chosen One.” And who still lauds Vladimir Putin.
Here’s the thing. In terms of that ‘wrestling with CNN’ trope, we’re all on the ropes. And we can all hang separately: if he reprises his regime, the ring’s cords can be reworked into nooses to match the one Trump’s troop draped over a gallows outside our Capitol. Plain as the dye in his hair, the town hall from hell can’t help but work toward that very end.
Rather than foist a petting zoo for a self-styled serpent, CNN needs to cancel its slated abomination. Better late than never, it needs to make amends (not bucks). Strange as it may sound, it really ought to search its own soul (while airing some remedial mea culpas).
It could start to redeem itself by canceling this town hall from hell in favor of re-airing some clips of J6. ‘THIS IS WHAT TRUMP HAS WROUGHT; WE NEED TO PULL OUT ALL STOPS TO ENSURE THE GOP CAN NEVER REPRISE ANYTHING LIKE IT,’ its chyrons could blare- in, of all things, the public interest.
Hopefully, CBS’s shameless, crazy-like-a-Fox fling with MTG has proven slime doesn’t pay. At least, not always- especially not when a self-polluted outlet still claims to crave respectability. Decency. And the provision of information conducive to vote-legitimized self-governance.