I recently wrote that the new owner of CNN might be smart to shift the Network more to the center to improve ratings – which are currently in the toilet. Before analyzing the CNN/Lemon strategy of continuing to attack FOX News, we need to see the overview of cable news ratings. According to the recent official ratings:
“Fox News has outdrawn CNN and MSNBC combined in all categories for 17 straight weeks as a heavily promoted CNN special failed to resonate with Americans.”
As far as cable news is concerned, FOX is the people’s choice.
So … what about Don Lemon.
Back in January of 2021, Lemon topped FOX’s Laura Ingraham in the 10 p.m. time slot for a ratings nanosecond. Since that time, his ratings have fallen faster than President Biden’s. A mid-year name change – “CNN Tonight with Don Lemon” to “Don Lemon Tonight” – proved to be a distinction without of difference in terms of viewership. The rationale behind the minimus name change is imponderable.
The other evening, Lemon brought on CNN media critic and obsessive FOX hunter, Brian Stelter, and the alleged conservative member of the CNN family, S.E. Cupp, to go on a frontal attack on the cable news champion Network.
The result was a combination of competitive jealousy, political bias, cancel culture and head-scratching irrationality. It brought on one of those, “what are this people thinking” responses.
I understand that the Network wants to overtake FOX. But it is more than a media ratings war. CNN wants FOX to be destroyed. Why you may ask? Because FOX is the voice of opposition to the left-wing false narratives and political propaganda that CNN and others are deploying in the desperate hope of defeating Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections.
While patting themselves on the back as a paragon of journalist integrity, they are trying to convince viewers that FOX is not a legitimate cable news service. The folks at FOX – the number one by far in cable news — should be kicked out of the Fourth Estate.
Lemon – in his inimitable whiny fashion — questioned why FOX is even allowed to ask questions at White House press briefings. “Why are they even allowed in the room?” Lemon wondered.
That’s right. The number one cable news network – preferred by millions of viewers – should be canceled … censored … shut down. That is not only outrageous, but also downright stupid – and if their opinions had any gravitas with the American people, it would be dangerous.
Lemon, Stelter and Cupp are the voices of authoritarianism. They do not want to engage in open debate on the critical issues – an essential ingredient of democracy. They want critics and opponents to be silenced. As with all authoritarian thinking, you crush what you cannot defeat in the marketplace of ideas.
The second feature of authoritarianism is the disregard and distrust for the opinions of the people – the masses that they see as incompetent, unintelligent, unethical and evil in their judgment. A public that must be controlled and managed by a more noble elite class. People like Lemon, Stelter and Cupp – to name a few.
If you were of the opinion that journalism was about the reporting of various viewpoints with the pole as the judge of what they choose to believe, you are very mistaken. MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski famously blurted out the foundational belief of the elitist media when she claimed that it is “our [the media’s] job to tell people what to think.”
Every day, however, the American people are voting with their remote controls. They are deciding which of the cable news networks they believe are providing them with the information they want and need – the stories that interest them the most from the reporters they trust the most.
For CNN personalities like Lemon to even suggest that FOX should not be allowed to report, is a bit like local merchants telling Wal-Mart that they should not be allowed to sell stuff. That is why I had a good chuckle watching Lemon & Co. trying to sell unhinged bloviating as serious news or opinion.
While I have never seen any empirical analysis of the issue, I suspect that one of the competitive benefits FOX enjoys is the constant harping by CNN … and MSNBC. It is not news. It is not even a good opinion. It is meaningless trash talk – and getting a bit tiresome. That may be what we are seeing in the ratings.
So, there ‘tis.