CNN has a love-hate relationship with Trump. They hate Trump, but love the ratings. CNN President Jeff Zucker admits 'Trump dominates' ratings: Last 3 years 'most successful' ever CNN President Jeff Zucker said his network’s 24/7 news coverage of all things President Trump has been a major boon for ratings, making 2018 the network’s most successful year ever. In an interview with Vanity Fair for the magazine’s December issue, released online Thursday, Mr. Zucker said CNN’s ratings tend to dwindle every time they venture away from coverage of the administration, so they try to stick to giving viewers what they want. “People say all the time, ‘Oh, I don’t want to talk about Trump. I’ve had too much Trump,’ ” he said. “And yet at the end of the day, all they want to do is talk about Trump. “We’ve seen that, anytime you break away from the Trump story and cover other events in this era, the audience goes away. So we know that, right now, Donald Trump dominates,” he said. CNN’s prime-time lineup, which features anchors extremely critical of the president, including Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo, and its strategy of covering the administration on a near-constant basis has been a major ratings booster. Mr. Trump routinely criticizes the network for its coverage of him. While CNN still trails right-leaning Fox News and left-leaning MSNBC in prime-time audience size, the average number of people watching on a given day has been above 700,000 each year since 2016, compared to around 400,000 from before Mr. Trump was elected, Vanity Fair reported. CNN is also expected to see 2018 as its most profitable year ever. “When I came on, someone made a joke that I was starting at the best time, because things couldn’t get worse from a ratings perspective. We did not have a news cycle to ride,” Erin Burnett, who joined CNN’s prime-time lineup in 2011, told Vanity Fair. Now, she continued, “we’ve become a character in this story.” Mr. Zucker argued that “the nature of the news cycle, the nature of the current president, and the nature of the world we live in” has dramatically changed the media landscape and given a major boost to cable news channels across the board. But will it remain once Mr. Trump is out of office? “It’s a question we think about a lot,” Mr. Zucker said. “Just looking at the past 25 years, these last three are among the most successful in CNN history. My view is this: Obviously our audience numbers will not stay at this level when he’s not president, either in two years or six years. Nobody should be pretending otherwise. I do believe, though, that we have reset the playing field so that our audience levels will be significantly higher than they were.” CNN anchor Jake Tapper added, “I don’t take any joy in saying this, but I would like to disabuse you of the notion that things are ever going back to normal.” https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/2/jeff-zucker-cnn-president-admits-trump-dominates-r/
Yup. CNN is on the Trump tit. As I said in an earlier post: If Trump does not run, and Steady-Eddy Mike Pence is elected, then CNN is El Fucko. He is not going to provide the World Wide Wrestling events that CNN depends upon, or the Don Lemon led group therapy sessions.
Tucker is not Fox News. In fact, he's the exception. The Murdochs are corporatist globalists and NeverTrumpers. Murdoch's sons are even more leftwing. The fact they supported CNN and went against Trump doesn't surprise me. Their rationale would be that their reporters could suffer a similar fate in a future democrat administration, but that assumes that courts would be even-handed. We know from bitter experience that different rules apply to republicans and democrats in all sorts of things. Like lying to the FBI in an investigation, for example.
Fox probably feels that they owe cnn on this one. You may recall- maybe it has already been discussed, dunno- that the other networks rallied round Fox and stood against Obama when he tried to blackball Fox. Might be an alignment of the planets once every ten years or so where the different camps stand together to protect each others arses. I also think Fox is on the defensive somewhat because so many of their hosts are in the tank for Trump. The Murdochs were clearly pissed that Hannity got on campaign stage with Trump a couple weeks ago and went out of their way to denounce that type of thing. Siding with the other networks against trump on the Acosta issue probably helps them to pretend to have the appearance of not being in the tank for Trump.
You mean the guy who wrote about Trump's incompetence, ignorance and pettiness in his book Fear? You mean that Woodward?
WALL STREET JOURNAL Donald Trump’s White House is entitled to ban CNN’s Jim Acosta President Donald Trump and CNN journalist Jim Acosta during last week’s news conference in the East Room of the White House. By JAMES FREEMAN 11:11AM NOVEMBER 14, 2018 436 Facebook Twitter Email The US District Court for the District of Columbia will soon have to consider what America owes to a CNN television correspondent named Jim Acosta. Today he and CNN filed a lawsuitasserting that unlike almost every other person in the country, Mr Acosta has a constitutional right to a “hard pass” allowing him to enter and exit the White House unescorted and uninvited. Whatever one thinks of his novel legal theory, both in his lawsuit and at his appearance last week at the White House, Mr Acosta has mischaracterised recent events. Today’s lawsuit, which names the President and various government officials as defendants, arrives after the White House revoked Mr Acosta’s pass following his boorish breaches of protocol at last Wednesday’s presidential press conference. Here’s how the lawsuit describes the scene as the President showed up to share his thoughts on Tuesday’s midterm elections: President Trump delivered opening remarks and then invited questions from the media in attendance. Acosta, sitting in the front row, raised his hand. President Trump called on Acosta to “[g]o ahead” with a question. Acosta was one of the first reporters the President called on for questions. Speaking through a hand-held microphone, as did all the White House journalists who asked questions, Acosta asked a question about one of President Trump’s statements during the midterm campaign — namely, whether a caravan making its way to the United States from Central America constitutes “an invasion” of the country, a significant feature of the President’s messaging during the just-ended campaign. US President Donald Trump criticises CNN journalist Jim Acosta (circled) during the post-election press conference in the East Room of the White House last week. This is not an accurate rendering of what happened. A video recording of the event (you can watch it above) shows that after four reporters took their turns asking questions, the President called on Mr Acosta, who made it clear that he would not simply be asking questions and seeking information as reporters do but intended to provide a rebuttal to recent comments made by the President. “I wanted to challenge you on one of the statements that you made in the tail end of the campaign — in the midterms,” said the CNN commentator. Mr Acosta mentioned Mr Trump’s characterisation of the immigrant caravan making its way through Mexico as an “invasion.” At this point Mr Acosta did not ask a question but simply issued a declaration. “As you know Mr President, the caravan was not an invasion. It’s a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the US,” said the CNN correspondent. 0:00 / 2:37 Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% Trump Calls CNN Reporter ‘Rude, Terrible Person’ So instead of simply serving as a reporter Mr Acosta chose to offer commentary — and according to standard dictionaries he was wrong. The large group of immigrants had crossed illegally into Mexico and plainly intended to illegally enter the US. Mr Acosta may think that an invasion must include a military force but Mr Trump’s use of the word is common. Merriam-Webster defines invade as “to enter for conquest or plunder,” but also “to encroach upon” or “infringe.” Other dictionaries have similar definitions, such as “to intrude” or “violate.” Having wrongly asserted that the caravan could not be called an invasion and wrongly asserted that Mr Trump knew he was saying something untrue, Mr Acosta then asked why Mr Trump had done so and if he had “demonised” immigrants. Yes, Mr Acosta was now asking a question, but doing so while demanding that the President accept a false premise. Mr Acosta then interrupted the President as he tried to answer. Then Mr Acosta editorialised again: “Your campaign had an ad showing migrants climbing over walls and so on. But they’re not going to be doing that.” Donald Trump looks on as a White House intern attempts to take away the microphone from CNN journalist Jim Acosta during the news conference. Is Mr Acosta now a spokesman for the caravan? After another interruption, Mr Acosta insisted on continuing to talk after the President called on a reporter. Then Mr Acosta fended off a White House intern as she attempted to retrieve the microphone to allow others to ask questions. The First Amendment prevents the President or anyone else in the federal government from restricting the ability of citizens to report and publish. Does it also require the President to listen to ill-informed lectures for as long as the lecturers choose to speak? Obviously if everyone had the right to refuse to surrender the microphone at press conferences the result would be fewer members of the press corps having an opportunity to ask questions, not more. But there’s something special about Mr Acosta and about CNN, at least according to the lawsuit. The suit argues that special White House access not available to the general public is “essential” for reporters like Mr Acosta, and that CNN is suffering from his absence, even though many other CNN staff still enjoy such access. There are no doubt myriad online producers and reporters who would love to have the privileges enjoyed by CNN and its star commentator. But are Mr Acosta and his network entitled to such privileges? CNN correspondent Jim Acosta does a stand up before the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington. The Journal’s Jacob Gershmanreports: “A similar question confronted a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. more than 40 years ago. That case was brought by a Washington correspondent for the Nation who was denied White House press credentials for vague security reasons. The appeals court in the 1977 ruling, Sherrill v. Knight, said the public doesn’t have a right of access to the White House and that a president can grant one-on-one interviews to whomever he chooses. But the court said there were “important First Amendment rights implicated by refusal to grant White House press passes to bona fide Washington journalists” and that at minimum, a journalist shut out of the White House has the right to a lodge a formal protest and get a written explanation for a denial. UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh said the White House doesn’t necessarily need to have a powerful reason to keep Mr Acosta out. More recent First Amendment case law suggests that the president could win by convincing a judge that the decision was merely reasonable, according to Mr Volokh. The key for the White House, he said, is showing that it took action against the CNN reporter not based on his reporting or critical views about Mr Trump but because of his conduct at news conferences.’’ His conduct last week was reason enough. Yet again and again the suit demands special constitutional treatment for Mr Acosta. How exactly does one qualify as a member of the entitlement estate? The Wall Street Journal
Yet again and again the suit demands special constitutional treatment for Mr Acosta. How exactly does one qualify as a member of the entitlement estate? An interesting question because if this court rules that Acosta has a constitutional right to enter a press conference simply because he's a journalist, then anyone claiming to be a journalist has a constitutional right to a press pass. This holds true regardless of the size and scope of the media agency, if any, that they work for. No matter how small or obscure, anyone, everyone who says they're in the news business get s press pass. It's their constitutional right. If not, why not? Only the elite, corporate owned organizations have the right for their employees? That isn't constitutional if this court declares that Acosta has a constitutional right to a press pass. If one individual has the right, all have the right. Maybe I'll start up a youtube channel, voice my political opinions, call myself a journalist and demand my press pass. I would be within my constitutional rights to demand one.