In 2004, when liberals wanted to escape reality, they watched “The West Wing.”
Now, they watch CNN — and the network is raking in the dough.
New studies show that the Cable News Network spends nearly every waking moment of the day bashing President Donald Trump. And the non-stop Trump-trashing set its ratings — and its profits — soaring.
The conservative watchdog Media Research Center studied the network and found it was biased, big league.
They reviewed nearly an entire day of CNN programming on May 12 – everything from “Early Start” at 4 a.m. to Don Lemon’s show that signs off at midnight, a total of 20 hours. It found that 92 percent of all CNN news coverage was about Donald Trump. And it wasn’t exactly “fair and balanced.”
The study found that 96 of the experts and guests CNN featured that day were anti-Trump.
Compare that to the people CNN invited to defend the president – all 7 of them. That’s about one every three hours. And they were outnumbered more than 13-to-1 … not counting the Trump-hating hosts! (Another 13 guests gave the president mixed reviews.)
CNN’s anti-Trump agenda is way out-of-touch with the American people. Only 6 percent of its experts supported Trump, even though 40 percent of Americans approved of the job President Trump was doing on May 12, according to the Gallup polling organization.
Why is CNN so far out on a limb here?
For one thing, no candidate has ever exposed media bias like Donald Trump and his administration. The president branded CNN “fake news” and said, when it comes to biased reporters, “maybe we’ll take their press credentials away from them.” In February, he even barred CNN, the New York Times, the L.A. Times, Politico, and BuzzFeed from attending a White House press conference. Instead, he opened up his briefings to conservative media outlets that had been shut out for years, or decades, like Breitbart, The Washington Times, and the One America News Network.
CNN and the New York Times complained. Of course, they said nothing when President Obama boycotted Fox News and brought left-wing bloggers into the White House press corps.
But there’s another reason CNN may be so incredibly biased: cold, hard cash.
The one-sided coverage is bringing CNN a rating boom like nothing it’s seen in years. On Tuesday, CNN actually came in first in the ratings with advertisers’ most coveted demographic, viewers aged 25 to 54.
CNN pumped out allegations that President Trump fired Jim Comey to cover up his ties to Russia round-the-clock. That landed CNN 719,000 viewers in that age group. Fox News had only 539,000 in that demo.
Polls show young people are more likely to be part of the Never Trump brigade. 70 percent of them oppose Trump, according to the Gallup poll. And the study found that 78 percent of CNN’s guests tried to destroy the president of the United States. Coincidence?
Maybe CNN saw that it had an opening to be the news outlet of choice for the generation raised to think Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” was real news. All it had to do is be the one network that confirmed what liberal Trump Haters want to hear. And it worked.
The snowflakes have found their safe space. It’s on CNN.
More viewers means more sponsors – and more money. CNN is laughing at Trump all the way to the bank.
Don’t cry for Fox News, though. It’s still doing fine. In fact, all the cable news networks saw their viewership increase since Trump has been elected president.
And part of the reason Fox News is losing viewers is because of its own programming choices – like network bigwigs caving in to liberal pressure groups.
Bill O’Reilly, the highest rated host in cable news, was abruptly thrown off the air after a campaign organized by Hillary Clinton’s cronies and funded by George Soros. The man who picked O’Reilly to anchor the prime time spot, Roger Ailes, died this week after being forced out of the network he built. He was the subject of a different set of unproven sexual harassment allegations.
That shake-up hasn’t helped Fox News’ ratings. Tucker Carlson is finding his legs at 8 p.m., although he’s not yet as dominant as O’Reilly.
But “The Five” can’t seem to fill Megyn Kelly’s high heels. Fox News is losing out to Rachel Maddow during the 9 o’clock time slot.
In fact, MSNBC had its second-highest quarter in 20 years, and the ratings keep growing. Maddow is the highest-rated program on the network, even with her flop over Trump’s tax returns.
Everyone’s engaged in the Trump presidency. His supporters want to know more about him. His haters want to hear more lies about him. And CNN seems happy to oblige.
— The Horn editorial team