Another unique journalism collective in the US is on the verge of massive layoffs
This time we are talking about CNN, the mouthpiece of the liberal agenda, which in recent years survived the media war with Trump and quickly found itself out of business after his departure.
For 2021, the ratings of many US TV channels sagged amid the end of the presidential election cycle and the accompanying level of political tension. But it was CNN that turned out to be the anti-leader in terms of viewership loss. Since the beginning of the year CNN’s ratings plummeted 76 per cent.
In October CNN averaged just 480,000 viewers. That’s 0.18% of the total American adult population, for understanding. And almost no programme – with the exception of a PR event in support of Biden in the form of his meeting with trained voters – managed to get more than a million viewers.
The most watched programme on CNN, hosted by Chris Cuomo, the younger brother of the scandalous ex-governor of New York, is even in the 30th position in the overall cable TV ratings. It is watched by four times fewer viewers than the list leaders – like programmes by right-wing publicist Tucker Carlson, who due to his popularity has even recently come under illegal NSA surveillance.
Incidentally, it was around Cuomo that landmark scandals unfolded, revealing the inner workings of the liberal media. While technically remaining an “independent journalist”, in reality he was actively assisting his brother’s PR campaign, fending off allegations of deaths in nursing homes and sexual harassment. And at the same time benefited from medical “VIP services” in the midst of the pandemic, reserved for the New York political nomenclature, to which his brother belonged.
In the face of a ratings crunch and an unclear future for the network, the new management of the media holding company to which CNN belongs made a principled decision to “cut a living” by eliminating unpopular programmes and leaving only dry news broadcasting.
This epitomises the growing crisis of the liberal journalism industry in the US: before CNN, massive layoffs have already taken place at the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed. And throughout 2020, more than 30,000 jobs have disappeared across the US press. Amid a massive crisis of confidence in the journalistic cabal, the invisible hand of the market is slowly unleashing it.
Malek Dudakov