CNN In Crisis Mode As Ratings Continue To Tank

CNN recently announced another round of layoffs as the cable news company continues to lose viewers. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

CNN recently announced another round of layoffs as the cable news company continues to lose viewers by the tons. Do they make it? You know, okay, let's put it in perspective. When we're talking about them losing, all we're, all they're really saying is, gee wiz, we made a billion dollars less than we did the year before. But, and so because of that, they've now put Licht in, in charge of it, who has no, he, he has absolutely zero experience with trying to, to.

He's crazy.

To, to take a company that's failed and put it on its feet again. Only thing Licht does, by the way, he used to, he used to be one of the producers for my ex-law partner, Joe Scarborough. Did you know that?

No, I did not.

Yeah. So that's his, that's his experience. But now what he's done is he said, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna save this, this company, I don't know if it's save-able at this point.

No. And, and they have no idea what they really want to do with it either. You know, they say, oh, well, we're gonna move more to the center, but they don't even know what the center is. Then they say, well, maybe we'll move a little bit to the right. Maybe we'll just move to actual investigative journalism.

Yeah.

Which, that would be great, if you actually wanna be the network of investigative journalism.

Tell 'em, give us, do news again.

Yeah.

Do news again. How about that?

People on the ground in the conflict areas like we used to see in the sixties. I know it's dangerous, but that is news, that is reporting, people in the field.

Okay. Zucker, Zucker came in and he said, we're gonna make, it's called quick profits bad, bad planning. Okay. It was quick profits, bad planning. Quick profits were everybody hates Trump. Okay. Like that's a headline. Yeah. We know everybody hates Trump. But you don't need, you don't need Brian Stellar and Jake Tapper and the same folks every day saying, we hate Donald Trump. The world hates Donald Trump, but give us some news. Give us a reason to tune in. I don't want to hear what's on top of that little freak Stellar's head every day. I wanna report the news.

Well, and, and part of the problem too, is they would just talk about it, make fun of him. You know, talk about, oh, this is just so bad that he says these things.

No substance.

Right, because you can, you can address those things because I do it every day. But you can tie it into bigger issues. And if you can do that and make it a real story, then it could be worthwhile. Of course, you don't wanna oversaturate it. But I think Jay Rosen, professor of journalism, NYU.

Yeah.

We've actually had him on Ring of Fire in the past.

Yeah, yeah.

He had the best point when he said, CNN was enjoying this sugar high.

Yes.

On Donald Trump.

That's exactly right.

And then, uh-oh, you're suddenly outta candy, and then you come crashing down.

Zucker has destroyed this network.

Yeah.

And, and now he's moved on. God knows, I don't know where he is right now, but the, the business, the media business doesn't really care. He was a big name. We're gonna move him to some new position. He'll find a new position. But the big question for CNN is, how do, how do you take a news agency and, and report the news again, when the public is so tribal? They're so polarized that if we even suggest as, as far to the left as we, you and I are, if we suggest there's a story that maybe the Democrats did something wrong, you know, there's pandemonium among our followers. But the point is, how do you ever get to the point where it's, it's almost the, the, it's so polarized that you can't tell a story that this part of the, that this part of the public believes is, you know, offensive.

Well, and the problem is the media created that problem. The media polarized itself and then polarized the country. And now that the media is realizing, uh-oh, we can't sustain ourselves.