The Washington Post this week published a glow-up profile of the “new” CNN, praising the left-wing cable network for all the wrong reasons.
CNN, in the past few years, has embraced a model that places contrived interpersonal drama, clownish, self-serving theatrics, intentionally incendiary commentary, and self-promotion above all else, including factual, down-the-middle news reporting. The Washington Post sees it differently. CNN has merely embraced a “new emotional rawness,” it argues.
That’s one way to put it.
“Welcome to the new CNN,” writes the Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr, who says it took him “about two months” to investigate the cable newsroom’s recent descent into partisan hackery, “where journalists and anchors, traditionally restricted by industry-wide standards of impartiality, have been given the green light under network President Jeff Zucker to say what they actually want to say — even if it strikes some as opinionated.”
Zucker is quoted defending the network’s transformation from staid, button-down news organization to tabloid-style left-wing clown show, saying, “One of the things that I’ve tried to encourage is authenticity and being real. If we pretend not to be human, it’s not real.”
The Washington Post recounts: “These days, it’s not uncommon for CNN personalities to cry on air. In March, anchor Brianna Keilar got tearful during a segment about a mass shooting at a grocery store in Colorado. And after correspondent Sara Sidner apologized for getting choked up during a January report about pandemic deaths (‘It’s really hard to take,’ she sighed), the boss called to reassure her.”
“What I told her was, ‘Don’t ever apologize like that again,’” Zucker said. “She was just being real. She’s a human being. She was expressing an emotion that probably many people in the audience were feeling. And I’m totally comfortable with that happening on television. What people react to is authenticity and reality.”
“Reality” on TV. What a concept!
More seriously, who is Zucker kidding? He is best known for rehabilitating Donald Trump’s image as a savvy businessman with the popular and trashy reality TV game show The Apprentice. What Zucker has done to CNN isn’t about “authenticity” or “reality.” It’s about ratings, pure and simple. This is about spectacle, about circus and bread. Zucker simply applied to CNN the same fast-food approach to television he used at NBC. And it worked wonderfully for CNN during the Trump years! Indeed, the cable network saw some of its best ratings after it remodeled itself as a reality TV station dedicated solely to anti-Trumpism.
The funny thing is, people quoted by the Washington Post, which is completely reluctant to nail CNN for what it has become, say as much.
“That is what they used to call ‘good television,'” said Syracuse University professor and television historian Robert Thompson. “It shows personality. It creates characters. It introduces a sense of dramaturgy that makes for compelling viewing.”
This is called saying the quiet part aloud.
There are other issues with the Washington Post profile, including its soft-peddling of CNN’s Cuomo problem.
CNN host Chris Cuomo surrendered his evening program last year to his older brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, even while thousands were dying in New York following the governor’s order forcing infectious COVID-19 patients into long-term care facilities. As the Cuomo boys used CNN’s airwaves to snicker and pat each other on the back, the governor’s office established a secretive program wherein state health officials were ordered to prioritize COVID-19 care for his friends and family before anyone else, even healthcare workers. One such beneficiary of this secretive program was Chris Cuomo, who announced a few months ago he won’t report or comment on any of his brother’s current scandals, including the nursing home deaths scandal or the multiple allegations of sexual harassment.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Washington Post doesn’t hold Zucker’s feet to the fire for any of this. In fact, all it reports is: “And although he wouldn’t discuss the network’s decision-making about Cuomo, Zucker said the controversy has ‘changed nothing’ in his view of the host’s role in CNN’s future. ‘Not at all,’ he repeated.”
Worse, the Washington Post profile all but shrugs at the Cuomo scandal, writing, “viewers don’t seem to mind.”
“During the first three months of this year, ‘Cuomo Primetime’ was the most-watched show on cable news among the 25-to-54 demographic coveted by advertisers,” the report reads.
Those are old numbers.
CNN’s ratings have declined considerably since then. Its prime-time lineup, including Cuomo’s show, is hemorrhaging viewers at a breakneck pace.
Lastly, the Washington Post profile grants a supposed senior CNN producer anonymity to praise Zucker, saying of the network president, “Despite his faults, he’s been the best leader CNN has had in my many, many, years here.”
If by “best,” they mean Zucker has devalued CNN’s brand, ruining the reputation it spent decades building, all while enabling massive media scandals such as the one involving the Cuomo brothers, then, yes, Zucker is the “best.”
