These days, CNN is a peculiar and unlovely hybrid of progressive propaganda outlet, oleaginous media apologist, sexless cultural scold, and frenzied Donald Trump stalkerblog.
Today, CNN does not broadcast the news; it broadcasts what it wants you to think the news is.
It is difficult to convey in words just what the candidacy and then presidency of Donald Trump have done to CNN, but one can gain a sense of the descent by comparing the network with a news organization that has largely maintained its sanity: the New York Times.
It remains hard to escape the conclusion that CNN considers its main role to be as part of the "Resistance." In August, the network hired former acting director of the FBI Andrew McCabe as a contributor, despite his having been fired from the agency after a report from the Justice Department's inspector general that showed he had leaked information to the press and then lied to investigators to cover it up, and it continues to publish articles that presume or assert things for which there is simply no evidence.
In reaction to the Horowitz report - a devastating document that highlights routine abuse at the FBI and in the FISA courts, and cuts off at the knees the idea that the investigation of Carter Page was based upon serious data - CNN published an "Analysis" by Katelyn Polantz that insisted that "Many of the claims by Steele, a former British spy, have held up over time, or have proven to be at least partially true."
How could it, given that, more than any other outlet in America, CNN has bought into the extremely silly idea that members of the press are heroes by default - akin in nature to firefighters or doctors - and that their interests are synonymous with the interests of the First Amendment? Keen to ensure that any criticism of it is conflated with criticism of free expression per se, CNN offers up a glossy propaganda show named "Reliable Sources," the primary purpose of which is to whitewash the most egregious decisions it makes, to defend similar decisions made by its allies, and to explain why mirror-image behavior by Fox News represents a unique threat to the republic.
In October 2018, a few days before the midterm elections, the channel began running an advertisement for itself every ten minutes that featured Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, telling Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate for governor of Florida that, "This is CNN, not Fox - you have to bring facts." Or put another way: CNN, which is putatively a news organization, endorsed and repeatedly aired a cheap political attack from a candidate it was supposed to be covering, against a candidate it was supposed to be covering, as publicity in defense of its own neutrality.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/12/31/cnn-is-not-a-news-network/
Today, CNN does not broadcast the news; it broadcasts what it wants you to think the news is.
It is difficult to convey in words just what the candidacy and then presidency of Donald Trump have done to CNN, but one can gain a sense of the descent by comparing the network with a news organization that has largely maintained its sanity: the New York Times.
It remains hard to escape the conclusion that CNN considers its main role to be as part of the "Resistance." In August, the network hired former acting director of the FBI Andrew McCabe as a contributor, despite his having been fired from the agency after a report from the Justice Department's inspector general that showed he had leaked information to the press and then lied to investigators to cover it up, and it continues to publish articles that presume or assert things for which there is simply no evidence.
In reaction to the Horowitz report - a devastating document that highlights routine abuse at the FBI and in the FISA courts, and cuts off at the knees the idea that the investigation of Carter Page was based upon serious data - CNN published an "Analysis" by Katelyn Polantz that insisted that "Many of the claims by Steele, a former British spy, have held up over time, or have proven to be at least partially true."
How could it, given that, more than any other outlet in America, CNN has bought into the extremely silly idea that members of the press are heroes by default - akin in nature to firefighters or doctors - and that their interests are synonymous with the interests of the First Amendment? Keen to ensure that any criticism of it is conflated with criticism of free expression per se, CNN offers up a glossy propaganda show named "Reliable Sources," the primary purpose of which is to whitewash the most egregious decisions it makes, to defend similar decisions made by its allies, and to explain why mirror-image behavior by Fox News represents a unique threat to the republic.
In October 2018, a few days before the midterm elections, the channel began running an advertisement for itself every ten minutes that featured Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, telling Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate for governor of Florida that, "This is CNN, not Fox - you have to bring facts." Or put another way: CNN, which is putatively a news organization, endorsed and repeatedly aired a cheap political attack from a candidate it was supposed to be covering, against a candidate it was supposed to be covering, as publicity in defense of its own neutrality.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/12/31/cnn-is-not-a-news-network/
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