'What?' - Don Lemon Shocks Stephen Colbert, Claims CNN Was Never Liberal
Don Lemon made a poor attempt on CBS’s “The Late Show” Monday night to claim that his cable network wasn’t “liberal.”
I don’t know whether he actually believes that and is just wrong, which is possible, or whether he was simply lying to host Stephen Colbert — but either way, Lemon’s opinion may quickly become irrelevant if he doesn’t manage to attract some viewers to his new morning show, which is probably what he was doing on “The Late Show” in the first place.
Colbert asked Lemon about changes at the network under new CEO Chris Licht.
“Word on the street is that you guys aren’t allowed to be liberal anymore,” Colbert said. “Is that the case?”
“I don’t think we ever were liberal,” Lemon claimed.
“What?” Colbert said, obviously taken aback. “That’s not me saying that, that’s the people out there saying he’s not letting you be liberal anymore.”
But then Lemon made an argument that would seem to demonstrate that he was either lying or self-deluded about the network’s political and cultural bias.
“Well listen, I think what Chris is saying is that he wants Republicans — sensible Republicans, he wants us to hold people to account, but he wants people to come on and feel comfortable with coming on and talking on CNN and appearing on CNN,” Lemon said. “So if you invite someone to your house, you want to make them comfortable but also by the nature of what we do, we have to hold people to account.”
“And so that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going liberal or conservative or whatever,” he added. “It just means that we are doing what we do and that’s good journalism.”
Uh-huh.
So, not liberal or conservative, but Licht’s concern is only for how “Republicans — sensible Republicans” feel when they appear on the network. That implies that Democrats already do, doesn’t it? And that implies bias, right?
Does that sound down-the-middle to you?
Me neither.
“Look, I don’t think that a conversation on television should be any different than a conversation in person,” Lemon explained. “Listen, I have confrontational conversations with people I love and I have unconformable conversations with people I love and I think it’s necessary. And I think it’s also necessary to do that on television, on CNN, but you can do that without being vitriolic. I think not being vitriolic is maybe a better way of putting it, but you can do that and not have vitriol.
“As people say, you can disagree without being disagreeable,” said. “And so I think that’s what our mission is.”
Hey, look: I agree 100 percent. But forgive me if I react with a certain amount of distrust when the man saying this also claimed that “the biggest terror threat in this country is white men,” and then doubled-down on that comment after given time to reflect.
You can watch the entire episode here. (Those of you who wish to skip some of Colbert’s smugness — which I assume would be all of you — can skip right to Lemon’s segment at the 19:40 mark.)
For whatever it may be worth — and that’s anybody’s guess at this point — Lemon’s comments to Colbert seemed consistent with a level of journalistic maturity Licht himself seemed to be pursuing.
“I don’t, do not, want someone who’s producing an hour of television on CNN saying, ‘You know what? I could lead with this or I could lead with that. I’m going to lead with that because it’ll get a better number.’ I want people leading and stacking their shows in a way based on journalism and what’s important,” Licht told journalist Kara Swisher, according to The Hill.
“Let me worry about the ratings,” he added. “Chase stories, not ratings.”
I hope Licht is sincere about that. If he is, I might actually watch CNN again some day.
But probably not their morning show.
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