New CNN CEO Chris Licht is asking Republicans to start appearing on the network again and promising that the network will be fair to them. But the current iteration of CNN is rotten to its core, and promises won’t erase the memory of CNN’s on-air liberal activism.
It will be impossible to convince anyone, particularly Republicans, that CNN can be fair and impartial with the same on-air personalities that have served as Democratic mouthpieces for more than six years. Brianna Keilar has served as a Democratic attack dog on critical race theory and immigration. Fareed Zakaria, who hosts a Sunday show, compared Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) to the Chinese Communist Party for saying that the United States should not tolerate violent riots.
On the actual anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown — when Beijing did “send in the troops” — suddenly Tom Cotton wants to imitate the Chinese Communist Party? pic.twitter.com/XWHKzdexEd
— Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) June 3, 2020
Jim Acosta, the camera-hungry former White House correspondent who sought to cause drama every time he was given a microphone in the press room, was given a Sunday show. He uses that show to make smarmy quips about Fox News being a “bulls*** factory” or how the delta variant of COVID should be called the “DeSantis variant,” after the Republican governor of Florida.
John Harwood, who now serves as the network’s White House correspondent, is a water carrier for the Biden administration. Harwood has said Republicans are “smacking American democracy in the face” and implied that Republicans were racist for opposing the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
The daily Harwood-ism: If Trump said ‘go smack your mom in the face,’ “The [GOP] would go smack their moms in the face and try to explain it to them afterwards. In reality what they’re doing is smacking American democracy in the face.” @johnjharwood pic.twitter.com/Mh3H2e3XnM
— Kate Bolduan (@KateBolduan) December 11, 2020
You could go on and on down the list. Brian Stelter uses his show to clean up the mistakes of other establishment media outlets and attack conservatives who criticize those outlets. He used his show to promote Michael Avenatti, the now-convicted felon who became a resistance hero for trying to take down Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination with false rape allegations. Jeffrey Toobin still serves as the network’s chief legal analyst, despite not being very good at it, because he is happy to attack Republicans over abortion. Jim Sciutto is an anchor on the network. He worked in the Obama administration.
Brian Stelter to Michael Avenatti: “And looking ahead to 2020, one reason I’m taking you seriously as a contender is because of your presence on cable news.”pic.twitter.com/lp9qrZ7ner
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) February 4, 2022
Countless establishment media networks and outlets shed the veneer of fair journalism during the Trump presidency, and Republicans are finally ready to treat them as the partisan organizations that they are. No outlet fell further during that time than CNN. Republicans have made it clear that they will no longer forgive and forget.
It would be a nearly impossible task to turn the network’s reputation around among conservatives now, but it will never happen so long as conservatives are asked to pretend the same partisans they’ve seen on the network’s airwaves for six years will give them a fair shake going forward. If Licht truly wants to turn the ship around, he will have to recognize that fact.
