Chad Thiele via Flickr

Don Lemon, the once top-tier nighttime opinion show host for CNN, has been moved to sipping coffee on the couch in his new morning talk show. This fall from grace for Don Lemon isn’t due to a controversy, like Chris Cuomo, but rather due to declining views. CNN has seen a decline in young viewership, and their occasional spikes in viewership are typically due to large breaking news stories, such as the Derek Chauvin trial, George Floyd, or Russia-Ukraine updates.

CNN has been sued or accused of lying by several individuals in recent years, and their lies seem to be in an attempt to push a political narrative. They’ve even gone after children in the past, including the famous incident of lying about Covington Catholic High School Student Nicholas Sandmann.

Brian Stelter, Don Lemon, and Chris Cuomo, used to be raking in views and having viral takes on many of the country’s largest issues, however, their points have grown stale, or they’ve turned their audience off as a result of their repetitive talking points or due to deteriorating credibility. Now, Don Lemon has been demoted to a morning show as opposed to his primetime spot, Brian Stelter’s program has been canceled by CNN, and Chris Cuomo was fired – leaving a vacant hole for the 9:00 pm time slot where a full-time host has yet to be found.

CNN famously drifted from a just-the-facts news organization to a partisan network loaded with liberal opinion hosts under former boss Jeff Zucker. But a long-planned merger put CNN under the control of newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery earlier this year – only a few months after Warner Bros. Discovery John Malone declared CNN should “evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists,” during an interview that sent shock waves through the network’s newsroom. 

“It used to be a very important network. It used to be a very important platform, I think they’ve actually gotten worse… they lost tremendous credibility, and they lost a lot of money in terms of brand value, but I have not seen any sign that they’ve changed,” Trump told Fox News Digital last month. 

“Firing unwatchable anchors like Brian Stelter and demoting Don ‘Low Ratings’ Lemon is just good business — it is not an actual shift towards honesty and truth in their coverage. The network remains plagued by champions of fake news, including the former Hooters spokesperson, Jake Tapper, among others. Until there is an actual shift in reporting and accountability, CNN will remain a cable news disaster,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich told Fox News Digital when asked about the network’s recent moves. 

“How does Don Lemon rehabilitate himself into a straight news person again? How does Anderson Cooper do that after some of the things that they’ve said on the air over the years? That’s just two I think of who are high-profile figures who I’ve done interviews with in the past when they were at least tried to pretend that they were, you know, journalists or commentators that tried to give both sides a fair shake, but now it’s an unwatchable network,” Rubio said. 

CNN isn’t the only news organization, however, with new ownership that believes a nonpartisan approach is essential. “We want to prove that being nonpartisan is actually the more successful positioning,” Döpfner said. “In an increasingly polarized media environment, POLITICO’s success is built upon the fact that it attracts influential readers from across the ideological spectrum who visit POLITICO.com throughout the day for deeply sourced political reporting,” a Politico spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

Liberal critics pointed to an email sent by Döpfner, “Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?”, which made the audience raise an eyebrow, wondering is Döpfner was supporting then-President Donald Trump. Döpfner, Trump supporter of not, Döpfner likely would want Donald Trump in the White House. Trump’s Presidency was good for business, and the Joe Biden Presidency is everything that Döpfner and Warner Bro’s feared it would be. People aren’t clicking or turning on the news to watch a 24/7 live coverage where defending a President with an approval rating in the 30% range isn’t entertaining, as opposed to coverage surrounding President Donald Trump, which was highly entertaining.

Döpfner sent this email before the 2020 Presidental election, and it was mainly in response to President Trump’s administrating gearing up to file an anti-trust lawsuit against Google, one of the largest companies in the world. The ensuing political change facing Politico worried left-wing users on social media, fearing that Politico would shift right-wing and mirror Fox News or the Daily Wire.

These changes to CNN and Politico appear to be isolated to left-leaning news organizations. While CNN and Politico are attempting to change the identity of their brands, Daily Wire and Ben Shapiro are doing well, and Ben Shapiro has among the largest political podcasts in the world. Along with this, Fox News hasn’t reported issues in viewership, and Tucker Carlson is still at the top of the prime time slot for any news channel.

CNN and Politico have been struggling, and while initially, their left-wing aim didn’t spell disaster, after the hyper-partisan approach CNN and Politico have taken since the rise of President Donald Trump and their defense of President Joe Biden have grown stale. CNN’s reputation as a top-tier news source with reliable journalism is a reputation of the past, and their main outlet has turned into establishment liberal talking points.



Comments

  1. “Don Lemon, the once top-tier nighttime opinion show host for CNN” when was this moron ever a top-tier anything? He is garbage.

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