“If something can’t go on, it won’t,” goes the paraphrase of economist Herb Stein. This reality could explain a shocking and, some would say, unbelievable story:
CNN, the poster boy for left-wing activism posing as journalism, may be poised to become more conservative.
This is according to lawyer extraordinaire, ex-U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and well-connected savant Joe DiGenova. In a recent interview on WMAL radio in Washington, D.C., DiGenova provided his explanation for what many pundits are theorizing about: the real reason CNN fired its highest-rated performer, Chris Cuomo.
DiGenova claims the reason may be one man, Jon Malone, who’s a major shareholder in a company that’s currently acquiring CNN. Reporting on the sale, The Wall Street Journal informs, “AT&T Inc. T 1.78% and Discovery Inc. DISCB — 11.57% reached a deal to combine their media assets into a new, publicly traded company, unwinding the telecom company’s big bet on entertainment after less than three years.”
As for Malone, DiGenova characterizes him as a “robber baron” who strips down and remakes entities he assumes control of. Regarding CNN, Malone has made his passions known, too.
As Fox News reports, Liberty Media chairman Malone, “who sits on the Discovery Communications Inc. board of directors, wants to see left-wing CNN revert back to nonpartisan journalism following the completion of a merger that would put the liberal network under the Discovery umbrella.”
“‘I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,’ Malone said in an interview that aired Thursday on CNBC,” Fox continued.
“I do believe good journalism could have a role in this future portfolio that Discovery-TimeWarner’s going to represent,” Malone also stated.
Adding to the story, commentator Thomas Lifson writes that for “those unfamiliar with his name, John Malone is a major media player, having built a fortune estimated at over 9 billion dollars acquiring and developing media properties, including extensive cable television operations.”
Moreover, according to DiGenova, Malone “is a loud enough voice that [CNN head] Jeff Zucker’s job is far from secure in a new CNN, and the firing of Cuomo is directly related to Malone’s intent,” Lifson also relates. “Given Malone’s track record of shaking up acquisitions, DiGenova spoke confidently of major changes ahead at CNN.”
This really may be likely because at work aren’t necessarily ideological considerations. After all, “CNN’s ratings have collapsed over 50% in the past year and [the station] may be suffering from a credibility gap with viewers,” Newsmax reported November 21.
In addition, Fox had informed two days earlier that “CNN’s most popular program for the news-heavy month was the scandal-plagued ‘Cuomo Prime Time,’ which averaged 811,000 nightly viewers to finish behind 15 Fox News and seven MSNBC programs. Despite being the most popular show on CNN, ‘Cuomo Prime Time’ had its worst month since it launched in 2017.”
“Fox News topped CNN by more than 240% in primetime viewers and 150% among the primetime demo to finish with its largest win over the liberal network since 2014,” Fox continued. “In addition to ratings struggles, CNN has been faced with a serious [sic] of embarrassing scandals and controversies including legal analysts Jeffrey Toobin’s infamous Zoom incident and Chris Cuomo being named in a state investigation as a member of a team of outside, loyal confidants to his big brother — former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who contributed to a culture allowing the governor’s ‘sexually harassing conduct’ to ‘flourish.’”
Yet even this pales in comparison to the violence CNN has done to Truth, to how it has consistently peddled misinformation to the public. Given that this is as feeding bad data into a computer — garbage in, garbage out — it greatly increases the chances that people will make bad decisions on what candidates and policies to support. Of course, when you’re pushing what’s bad, this is the whole idea.
In fact, along with the rest of the mainstream media, CNN has completely jumped the fake-news shark in recent years. In 2017, station figures were caught on hidden video admitting that the Trump/Russia/collusion narrative was nonsense. They still pushed it, anyway.
And in early 2020, the outlet was forced to settle a $250 million lawsuit with Covington Catholic school student Nick Sandmann, whom it viciously defamed as a bigot (video below).
Given such malpractice’s role in CNN’s bleeding of viewers and revenue, the station could “add hugely to its shareholder value by aggressively seeking the center, rather than being just another Democrat propaganda outlet — one less popular than MSNBC,” opines Lifson.
None of this means CNN would become One America News, let alone The New American. But as Lifson astutely observes, it
could signal sea change in American media. The so-called “mainstream” media have functioned to completely block conservative opinions, relegating them to a ghetto that can be dismissed by the majority of Americans who do not read conservative websites or watch Fox News, much less Newsmax or OANN. If CNN, which is a constituent part of the MSM, starts presenting both sides, it would legitimize stories like the Hunter Biden laptop that the media otherwise is able to suppress. It could, in other words, tear down the wall surrounding the conservative ghetto. In essence, a giant red pill would be dissolved in the water supply of the MSM-heeding public.
Quite true. Watching mainstream media is, for someone imbibing Truth-oriented media, like entering an alternate universe. Up is down, left is right — and Left is right (even though it’s wrong) — and fantasy is reality. If even a little Truth snuck into its broadcasts, it could act as a virus in the mainstream-media machine.
