Day After Trump Calls Out Fake News, Devastating CNN News Leaks
In spite of a lack of media coverage of the fact, the economy is doing great.
Jobs are being added, housing is doing fantastic, unemployment is at all time lows — things are actually pretty rosy.
Well, unless you’re at CNN, that is.
Just one day after President Trump tweeted about one of his favorite subjects — the “fake news media,” of which CNN is usually the best example — the liberal Vanity Fair reported that the Clinton News Network was undergoing a bit of “rightsizing.”
For those of you not up on your modern corporatespeak, that’s the pleasant-sounding euphemism for layoffs these days. Apparently, the synergistic win-win paradigm of all-Trump-bashing, all-the-time programming wasn’t thinking far enough outside of the box.
Well, actually, the reasons behind the layoffs at CNN are slightly more complicated than that, as Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo — who broke the story — points out. In spite of the boost in news interest that the Trump campaign and administration has caused, CNN still has issues regarding its parent company’s pending merger with telecom giant AT&T.
Pompeo reported that “despite the so-called Trump Bump, CNN appears to be re-thinking at least some elements of its digital strategy.”
“I’ve learned that CNN, a key property in AT&T’s planned takeover of CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, is targeting big savings on the digital side, with as many as 50 jobs around the globe scheduled to be eliminated this week, according to people familiar with the matter, who noted the exact number could still be in flux,” Pompeo reported.
“The cuts will affect employees who work in premium businesses including CNN Money, video, product, tech and social publishing, these people said.”
Pompeo also noted that several digital projects were being “scaled back.” Its presence on Snapchat and on virtual reality platforms are going to see cuts, and a live daily webcast is getting axed after just four months in existence.
Another “team that works on the digital extensions of documentary-style TV shows, such as Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Parts Unknown’ and Lisa Ling’s ‘This is Life,’ as well as the Brooke Baldwin series ‘American Woman,’ is also being reorganized,” Pompeo wrote.
So apparently, if you want to see digital extras involving an aging New Jersey-born cook getting insanely sloshed in a remote Upper Silesian village all while tasting a rare local dish of rotted pork cured in formaldehyde you’re going to be out of luck. Sorry.
The news of the layoffs broke one day after the president took aim at the “fake news media” again on Twitter.
So many positive things going on for the U.S.A. and the Fake News Media just doesn’t want to go there. Same negative stories over and over again! No wonder the People no longer trust the media, whose approval ratings are correctly at their lowest levels in history! #MAGA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2018
4.2 million hard working Americans have already received a large Bonus and/or Pay Increase because of our recently Passed Tax Cut & Jobs Bill….and it will only get better! We are far ahead of schedule.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2018
Of course, the genius of Trump’s tweeting in this case is that it forces the networks to talk about the economy, all while they bewail the fact that anyone could have the temerity to call the mainstream media “fake news,” much less the president.
In other words, it’s been nearly three years since Trump announced his candidacy and the legacy media still don’t get how he’s able to work them over via social media, at least when he’s not using it to bypass them entirely to speak to the American people.
It’s interesting how the two events aren’t connected at all on one level, and yet are totally connected at another. No, the president calling CNN “fake news” isn’t going to lead directly to layoffs. It also isn’t going to directly reduce trust in the media.
What it does, instead, is call attention to the fact that the media is doing a good enough job reducing public trust in their product on their own. Trump isn’t the only person in the country who thinks CNN is full of fake news.
The “Trump Bump” that Pompeo is talking about has come with a price, given the fact that CNN hasn’t acquitted itself particularly well in the objectivity department. The layoffs may be part of “rightsizing” as Time Warner — CNN’s parent company — prepares to integrate itself into AT&T.
It could be a sign, however, that the network’s strategy is reaching the point of diminishing returns. Pompeo notes that it’s an open question how long network head Jeff Zucker, who’s crafted the network into what it is today, will stick around post-merger.
If that’s the case, “rightsizing” couldn’t happen to a better bunch of people.
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