Desperate CNN Loses Way With Porn Stars and Acosta
CNN continues to come in a distant third among the three major cable news networks, even as it sought to win over viewers with a dizzying amount of coverage of President Donald Trump’s alleged relationships with porn movie star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal.
According to AdWeek, CNN trailed FNC badly in every prime time hour on Wednesday, in most cases by over a million viewers.
https://twitter.com/TVNewsHQ/status/979462813851807745
DePauw University communications professor Jeff McCall argued in a piece for The Hill that CNN has lost its way with its excessive coverage of salacious stories and with White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s constant attempts to position himself as the Trump administration’s “harshest antagonist.”
The professor noted that CNN scored a rare ratings win among the 25 to 54 demographic recently when Anderson Cooper intensely questioned McDougal about intimate details of her relationship with Trump, but this type of prurient coverage is not what will rebuild a trusted news brand.
CNN has coupled its story about McDougal with a plethora of stories about Daniels over the last few weeks.
“There might well be journalism to be had in the sagas of McDougal and Daniels, but CNN has found little of it,” McCall wrote. “At some point, the sensational must lead to news of substance.”
Fox News host Sean Hannity — who consistently has the top-rated cable news program — found a story in just how excessive CNN’s coverage has been of Daniels and related matters, which pre-date Trump’s presidency by years.
The conservative commentator went so far as to call CNN head Jeff Zucker a “porn king” for how much his network has focused on sexual stories.
Hannity strung together a clip of snippets of recent CNN coverage on Daniels, which gives a good sense just how much the network has addressed the topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGZxC-6LZDA
The Media Research Center’s NewsBusters concluded that “CNN has a porn problem.”
“CNN took it to another level on Saturday, devoting roughly 41 minutes to (Daniels’) Friday performance at a Florida strip club” earlier this month, according to the conservative watchdog organization.
As reported by The Western Journal, CNN seemed to engage in the height of hypocrisy last week when it reportedly nixed pro-Second Amendment Parkland student Kyle Kashuv from appearing on the network after he retweeted a story about anchor Brooke Baldwin.
The Daily Wire piece highlighted how Baldwin appeared to have no qualms about questioning Daniels in detail about her sexual experience with Trump, while only last September she kicked a sports reporter off the air for saying the word “boobs.” She tweeted, “did he actually say that on MY SHOW?! Note to men — that is never okay.”
That was… I just… it was one of those thought bubbles "did he actually say that on MY SHOW?!" Note to men — that is never okay. #smh
— Brooke Baldwin (@BrookeBaldwin) September 15, 2017
Kashuv called into question CNN’s desire to offer balanced coverage.
My friend just got a call from @CNN. They're canceling my interview because I quote RTed a Tweet where @ClayTravis called @BrookeBCNN a "fake news hypocrite" (and was quoted in the title).
But don't worry, CNN really wants to have the other side on, as long as they're complicit https://t.co/t95zexPiF8
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) March 21, 2018
Acosta has been joining right in with his network’s prolific reporting about Daniels.
Sanders has also repeatedly claimed that the President has addressed the controversy surrounding Daniels, which he has never done himself. via @AlliemalCNN https://t.co/ecPmkYfFWi
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 28, 2018
The correspondent often seems bent on trying to create the sensational.
In January, Acosta strongly implied Trump was a racist to his face, questioning him in the Oval Office regarding immigration, “Just Caucasian or white countries or do you want people to come in from other parts of the world where there are people of color?”
When I tried to follow up on this in the Oval Office, Trump told me to get "out." We then went to the Roosevelt Room where WH aides obstructed us from asking questions. https://t.co/vuEIv1jvso
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 16, 2018
Trump and Acosta have had several exchanges over the past year, with Trump labeling him as part of “fake news” CNN January 2017 regarding its unsubstantiated Russian dossier reporting, which the president downgraded to “very fake news” the following month.
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