Trump derangement, all the time: lies, smears, threats, and profanity. Viewers are noticing — and leaving.
2'A cynic would argue that CNN had deliberately given Trump undue coverage during the Republican primary on the theory that he would be the weakest Republican in the general election and would therefore be the weakest challenger to Hillary Clinton. CNN president Jeffrey Zucker at one point had bragged that in the primaries, Trump made CNN money. Only later, after Trump’s nomination, did Zucker regret giving so much airtime to Trump and his boisterous rallies.
“ 'If we made any mistake last year, it’s that we probably did put too many of his campaign rallies in those early months and let them run,” the contrite Zucker conceded in October 2016, at a talk at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Yet Zucker admitted that Trump had been a “publicity magnet” as a primary candidate, and, more important, “Trump delivered on PR; he delivered on big ratings.”
"So CNN’s Zucker gave copious coverage to Apprentice-star Trump both to win ratings and to ensure the nomination of a candidate who was polling anemically against Hillary Clinton — with the intention of then reversing course and destroying Trump in the general election.
"The ratings gambit worked; the second aim, of aiding a Clinton victory, did not. And now CNN is focused on another strategy: to destroy the perceived Frankenstein monster that Dr. Zucker helped to create.
"Just recently, MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell broke a story based on a single unnamed source who said that Deutsche Bank documents (which the source had not seen) would soon prove that Russian oligarchs had co-signed a loan application for Donald Trump — O’Donnell was apparently trying to resurrect the Russian-collusion zombie. The story was discredited within 24 hours by denials from the bank — as O’Donnell did his part to destroy what was left of the credibility of progressive cable news." . . .
. . .
"CNN host Sally Kohn and her roundtable panel raised their hands on air to emulate the “hands up, don’t shoot” fake narrative that had followed the Ferguson shootings. However, an Obama Department of Justice investigation later found that Michael Brown neither stopped and put his hands up in the air, nor cried out “hands up, don’t shoot” but instead charged the Ferguson police officer with an intent to renew their earlier struggle. The CNN newsroom was perpetrating an inflammatory lie on the air — again with no consequences for their cheap street theater. . . .
"CNN anchor Don Lemon, currently being sued for allegedly making an obscene sexual advance to a bar patron, claimed on the air that “the biggest terror threat in this country is white men” — a false assertion given that Lemon conceded that more Americans have been killed in ideologically driven terrorist attacks by Islamists since 2001 than by “white men.” . . .
“ 'If we made any mistake last year, it’s that we probably did put too many of his campaign rallies in those early months and let them run,” the contrite Zucker conceded in October 2016, at a talk at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Yet Zucker admitted that Trump had been a “publicity magnet” as a primary candidate, and, more important, “Trump delivered on PR; he delivered on big ratings.”
"So CNN’s Zucker gave copious coverage to Apprentice-star Trump both to win ratings and to ensure the nomination of a candidate who was polling anemically against Hillary Clinton — with the intention of then reversing course and destroying Trump in the general election."The ratings gambit worked; the second aim, of aiding a Clinton victory, did not. And now CNN is focused on another strategy: to destroy the perceived Frankenstein monster that Dr. Zucker helped to create.
"Just recently, MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell broke a story based on a single unnamed source who said that Deutsche Bank documents (which the source had not seen) would soon prove that Russian oligarchs had co-signed a loan application for Donald Trump — O’Donnell was apparently trying to resurrect the Russian-collusion zombie. The story was discredited within 24 hours by denials from the bank — as O’Donnell did his part to destroy what was left of the credibility of progressive cable news." . . .
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| Tony Branco |
"CNN host Sally Kohn and her roundtable panel raised their hands on air to emulate the “hands up, don’t shoot” fake narrative that had followed the Ferguson shootings. However, an Obama Department of Justice investigation later found that Michael Brown neither stopped and put his hands up in the air, nor cried out “hands up, don’t shoot” but instead charged the Ferguson police officer with an intent to renew their earlier struggle. The CNN newsroom was perpetrating an inflammatory lie on the air — again with no consequences for their cheap street theater. . . .
"CNN anchor Don Lemon, currently being sued for allegedly making an obscene sexual advance to a bar patron, claimed on the air that “the biggest terror threat in this country is white men” — a false assertion given that Lemon conceded that more Americans have been killed in ideologically driven terrorist attacks by Islamists since 2001 than by “white men.” . . .
What is strange about CNN is neither the incompetence nor the bias, but its sanctimoniousness and cluelessness about its own suicidal trajectory into oblivion. When Donald Trump at his rallies points to the media cameras and hoots, “Fake news,” often directly referencing CNN, many claim that his antics are a crude attack on the press that has repeatedly lied to destroy Trump, his family, and his presidency.
Perhaps. But the better question is whether CNN — which has ruined its reputation and profits in an Ahab-esque effort to destroy the Trump white whale — is any longer a media organization at all, or a failing entertainment channel, or a boring Orwellian Ministry of “Truth.”American Pravda Part 3: CNN Selectively Edits, Hates Trump, and Think Voters Are Stupid
