When newly-installed CNN chief Jeff Zucker hired Jake Tapper and Chris Cuomo away from ABC News, there was reason to hope the incredible-disappearing-cable-news-network was serious about rebuilding a brand tarnished by a leftward lurch and increasingly obnoxious anchors. When Soledad O’Brien, Roland Martin, and Jack Cafferty were shown the door, things looked even brighter.
But now the smart decisions seem to have come to an abrupt end. When a sinking ship like CNN reaches out to a tired, obnoxious leftist like Donny Deutsch (formerly of MSNBC) for rescue, you know the swirl is only getting closer to the drain. Deutsch was such a ratings disaster, his show was cancelled after only one week.
How could a smart guy like Jeff Zucker not know Deutsch would crash and burn? I don’t know anyone who couldn’t have predicted that … except the guy in charge of CNN.
Once upon a time, CNN was a go-to network for serious news. But now it is a network littered with anchors just as unappealing as Deutsch, who have turned the “most trusted name in news” into a national joke.
How else to explain how the hyperbolic, intellectually-challenged, hard-core left-winger known as Piers Morgan becoming the face of the network? And according to a full-page ad Zucker took out in the New York Times yesterday, that is not going to change. In fact, it is only going to get worse…
Tuesday morning Carol Costello (yet-another unappealing left-wing CNN anchor) announced that Wednesday will be something akin to “Background Check Day” on the network. In other words, CNN will spend a full day doing the Obama Administration’s bidding on gun control — an issue poll after poll shows the American people do not consider a priority.
The entire network is becoming The Piers Morgan Channel.
If CNN is actually interested in ratings, why not cover the issues polls show Americans are most concerned with — like jobs, the economy, the jump in poverty, and the deficit?
That is a rhetorical question. It is becoming increasingly obvious that CNN is not going to cover any story that might offend the New York Times’ crowd Zucker is so desperate to impress with full page ads.
But if Zucker thinks CNN can out-MSNBC MSNBC — especially with MSNBC cast-offs like Deutsch — his reign was over before it began.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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