Over the last three years, under the direction of its owning company Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN has been actively pushed to “shed its liberal image” and become a Fox News Lite.
CNN didn’t make this shift in a vacuum; their efforts helped keep Trump in the spotlight, and their platforming of him in the 2023 Town Hall contributed to memory-holing his role in the Jan 6 insurrection. Combined with the rest of the mainstream media who have also centered and normalized the GOP, the media during the last three years of Biden’s presidency essentially turned into a long GOP-focused broadcast campaign benefitting the GOP and Trump 2024.
There are several programming decisions made by CNN that turned them into a continuous infomercial for the GOP:
- Framing from the GOP perspective
- Overloading commentary with Republicans
- Imbalance of video clips of elected officials
- Not interviewing Democrats of equal ranks
- Prescribed roles for Democrats they do interview
CNN’s turn to the hard right really kicked into gear when Warner Brothers Discovery, Inc. appointed Chris Licht in February 2022.These are my observations of watching CNN during different periods between 2022 and 2024, after Chris Licht took over and implemented a drive to make CNN more friendly towards Republicans.
Chris Licht fires Trump critics
After Chris Licht took over in 2022, several of hosts who were the strongest critics of Trump were demoted or fired. Don Lemon was moved to a morning cohost in September 2002, then fired shortly thereafter in April 2023. Brian Stelter was fired in August 2022 and White House reporter John Harwood was dismissed in September 2022 after calling Trump a demagogue.
Under Licht, CNN gave Trump renewed legitimacy by airing a widely-criticized town hall in May 2023, three years after Trump engaged in an insurrection.
Following the Town Hall, Discovery CEO David Zaslav told investors “All the leadership at CNN is working hard. And Republicans are back on the air. The Republicans weren't on the air.” The push went so far towards the right, CNN should have renamed itself the “Conservative News Network”.
A month after the Town Hall, Chris Licht suffered fallout from an interview he did with The Atlantic and himself was pushed out in June 2023. CNN’s push to the right didn’t stop with his exit.
The “liberal media” myth
Trump has made attacking CNN and the media a part of his existence since campaigning in 2015. Its the conservative way of policing the media. It worked. CNN’s head company pushed it hard to the right.
Even with this shift, conservatives complain about the “liberal CNN.” They overwhelmingly see conservative guests on CNN shows, and think that since the conservatives are being questioned by anchors and hosts, that the network is ‘hostile’ to conservatives.
This is a superficial viewing of what CNN actually broadcasts.
Framing from the perspective of the GOP
The first way that CNN became quite friendly to the GOP is that a vast majority of the stories were framed from the perspective of the GOP, or focused on GOP priorities. During the debt limit debate, almost all of the segments were introduced with clips from Republicans, setting the framing of the debate for the segment. Democrats were always positioned (if included at all) as having to respond to the Republican framing.
To give another example in how this might appear, a segment on abortion would focus on ‘pro-life’ aspect, instead of the bodily autonomy, civil rights, or women’s health aspect.
Overloading commentary with Republicans
This item will be familiar with DailyKos readers, as stories and diaries here have routinely shown that the Sunday morning politics shows across all network skew strongly towards having more Republicans than Democrats.
CNN did the same, having a significantly higher ratio of interviews with elected Republican officials than Democrats. Sometimes this ratio over a number of shows ran as high as three or four Republicans on shows for every Democrat on a show.
The prime example of this is Dana Bash’s noontime show “Inside Politics,” which was previously run by John King. This show should really have been renamed “Inside the GOP,” because 80% to 95% of the show focused on the GOP.
Another example is Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju would routinely skew very heavily towards interviewing congressional Republicans for the periods I watched.
Imbalance of video clips of elected officials speaking
CNN often plays video clips of officials speaking, such as at press conferences, rallies, and other interviews. They would play these in several ways; either show the clip, or as background when the commentators would debate. CNN had a large imbalance in the number of video clips they showed of elected Republicans speaking vs Democrats speaking. At times, the imbalance was as large as 5 clips of Republicans for every clip of a Democrat, both within individual shows as well as over a period of several hours.
As I documented in an article the weekend before the election, CNN Viewers Overwhelmingly See Republicans Speaking on CNN; It Isn't Even Close. On the Monday a week before the election, for a five hour period, video clips of Trump speaking outnumbered clips of Harris speaking at a 4 to 1 ratio. Twenty-three videos clips of Trump, vs. six video clips of Harris. (Note: I stopped watching after the election; I had no need to watch a continuous GOP infomercial after Nov 5). In the 2024 Election’s closing moments on the evening of November 4th, Kaitlan Collins’ show still favored the GOP at a 2 to 1 ratio.
Not interviewing Democrats of equal rank
Another thing that I observed is that they did not interview Republicans and Democrats of similar or equal rank. In the viewing the Monday a week before the election, CNN had on two different former Republican governors during separate segments to provide commentary. The only Democrat they had was an former campaign worker. The effect of this imbalance of expertise and experience gives more weight to the GOP’s position.
Prescribed roles for Democrats they do interview
When CNN did include Democrats in segments, its was in one of three very prescribed roles: responding to something Republicans said; criticizing other Democrats; or doing a “Democrats in in disarray” segment. Segments would routinely be framed by video clips of Republicans or Manu Raju interviewing a congressional republican, then proceed to discussion by the hosts, then if a Democrat comment was included they had to respond to what Republicans were saying. Or democrats would be brought on to criticize the Harris campaign for something.
It was also not nearly as common for Democrats to get their own segments as it was for Republicans. The few times Democrats did get their own Democrat-focus segments, it was to respond to some controversy in the Democratic party or campaign, e.g. “Democrats in disarray”.
The effect: normalizing the GOP
All of these programming choices by CNN have the effect of presenting the GOP position as the common shared position, or “norm”. By normalizing the GOP, CNN positions the GOP as the de facto center in *every* election and policy debate, and thus the Democrats always have to work uphill to pull people away from CNN’s “norm”.
In addition, the Democrat position is shown as the less-stable position through CNN segments frequently having Democrats on to criticize other Democrats or show the party in “disarray”.
A continuous GOP infomercial
By focusing on the GOP and watering down any serious reporting, what CNN has essentially become is a continuous infomercial for the GOP. CNN has developed into a network that focuses and centers the GOP and doesn’t push any of the Republican guests too hard.
The proof is that anytime anybody seriously challenges a Republican, like Jim Acosta recently did, they soon part ways with CNN.
Chasing an audience that doesn’t want it
CNN is still chasing an conservative audience that doesn’t want it, in part thanks to Trump’s attacks on the network. Neither Trump’s voters nor Fox’s viewers want a Fox News Lite.
Liberals, for their part don’t want to watch a continuous infomercial for the GOP, which is what CNN has become in response to Trump’s attacks on the network.
All of the mainstream media did this
I’ve already heard people say “that’s just CNN; how much influence could they have had on the election”? But once you see this going on with CNN, you can recognize it with other media outlets as well, such as the New York Times and NPR.
The Times obsessed over Clinton’s email for months, but Trump’s bathroom full of national secrets barely spanned two or three news cycles. As readers of the New York Times Pitchbot are well aware, according to the Times almost everything was “bad for Biden.”
NPR similarly skewed towards framing their blurbs around the GOP and overloading with Republican speakers; and a significant portion of their election coverage spending was likely a line item titled “interview white rural Trump voters”.
Its not just CNN that normalized the GOP and minimized Trump’s transgressions; almost the entire mainstream media establishment did this. Jeff Bezos stopped the Washington Post endorsement of Harris. The owner of the LA Times stopped that newspaper’s endorsement of Harris. The NY Times’ late endorsement couldn’t overcome the years of that paper’s normalization of the GOP.
The net effect is we have a criminal for president who is hell-bent on retribution and is actively destroying America’s democratic institutions.