Since Donald Trump left office, it seems, not even liberals are buying what CNN is selling.
Continuing a trend that’s only getting more dismal for Chris Cuomo & Co., Nielsen ratings released Tuesday showed the “most trusted name in news” has lost almost 70 percent of its viewers in the past few months, according to the Daily Caller.
It’s the kind of drop that should alarm even the most committed progressive at Jeff Zucker’s network. And it isn’t hard to see why it’s happening.
During former President Donald Trump’s four years in office, CNN abandoned even the pretense of journalism, devoting itself entirely to becoming the mouthpiece of the anti-Trump left.
Then-CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s regular buffoonery basically personified the animus that animated the mainstream media’s approach to covering the Trump administration.
The stars of CNN’s evening programming — Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon — regularly engaged in self-aggrandizing attempts to smear the duly elected president of the United States.
Lemon would brand Trump a “racist” on the air, as though he were bravely speaking truth to power, rather than pandering to his largely liberal audience (the kind that probably get their real dose of news from “comedians” like Stephen Colbert).
Cuomo, CNN’s resident tough guy, would call Trump witty names like “Dirty Donald” – while getting his own feelings hurt for being referred to as “Fredo.”
His latest disgraceful role in the scandals surrounding his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and his lame apology for it, hasn’t helped the network’s credibility, either.
CNN's @ChrisCuomo apologizes: "I put my colleagues here, who I believe are the best in the business, in a bad spot. I never intended for that, I would never intent for that, and I'm sorry for that." pic.twitter.com/IeLtmcUT8g
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 21, 2021
Now, the circus has left town, and CNN’s audience has left the network.
CNN has lost about 67 percent of its total viewers since January, the Daily Caller reported, citing Nielsen figures. In the demographic of 25-to-54-year-olds, coveted by advertisers, the network was down by 71 percent, according to the Daily Caller.
The fellow-traveling MSNBC also posted a steep decline of almost half — 49 percent, according to the Daily Caller.
Fox News meanwhile, also saw a drop, but not nearly on the scale of its liberal competition, losing about 12 percent of its total viewers and 15 percent in the 25-54-year-old demographic.
This week’s reports aren’t an outlier. CNN’s troubles have been on view since the network that devoted itself to ousting Trump from office actually got its wish. MSNBC ratings have been in a similar decline.
In a Twitter post, independent journalist Glenn Greenwald summed it up succinctly:
“Because the political/media class cares about cable news, I don’t think it’s sunk in how the audience for MSNBC & CNN has disappeared almost completely. On the weekend, there’s basically *nobody* under 55 watching MSNBC,” he wrote.
“They barely get 50,000 people! Any YouTube video gets more.”
Because the political/media class cares about cable news, I don't think it's sunk in how the audience for MSNBC & CNN has disappeared almost completely. On the weekend, there's basically *nobody* under 55 watching MSNBC. They barely get 50,000 people! Any YouTube video gets more. pic.twitter.com/6OQ7NG1wUG
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 25, 2021
Maybe that’s because the average YouTube video — no matter what the subject — contains more truth than the deliberately deceptive “news” being spewed by media outlets like CNN and MSNBC, ostensibly journalistic organizations that burned their creditability with any sensible viewing public long ago.
Without sensible viewers, CNN could get away with dangerous nonsense like the reporting on “mostly peaceful” riots as American cities burned only while the left’s greater enemy — Donald Trump — was in political power.
Trump’s not in the White House anymore, and the dwindling audience of networks like CNN and MSNBC show how politically driven their coverage has been.
Instead, the United States is saddled with a doddering, almost certainly corrupt political hack in the presidency. It has a vice president who was so weak as a presidential candidate she never even got a single vote — Democratic or Republican — because her presidential campaign ended in December 2019, before a single primary or caucus.
Those unfortunate facts might not be entirely the fault of biased, lying outlets like CNN and MSNBC (there are millions of liberal American voters to blame, too), but no honest person can say it wasn’t the result they were looking for.
And now they’ve got it.
And thanks to that staggering journalistic and moral bankruptcy, it seems, not even liberals are buying what they’re selling.
