Random Samplings 11: CNN post-Trump and post-Zucker

Sorry folks, the subject matter today starts with CNN.  (The world’s most BORING network.) 

It’s Random Samplings of a Logical Mind.

ISSUE ONE: CNN post-Trump and post-Zucker

Understand that CNN is not a news network. It is a medium through which CEO Jeff Zucker has promoted his personal political viewpoints. So when Zucker announced that he’d leave at the end of 2021, a lot of questions pop up.

First, why wait a year? What if he changes his mind? Was Zucker pushed out by Dallas-based AT&T, CNN’s parent company?  Was Zucker’s constant anti-Trump approach embarrassing to AT&T? And there’s this one: Can CNN regain its former glory and actually report news again?

CNN 6-1-20. Photo by Lynn Woolley for WBDaily. Anti-Trump all day every day.

To that last one – not likely with the current on-air and production staff. Think about it. What talking head on CNN could actually report facts about a political story? Wolf Blitzer, maybe? But not Dana Bash, Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon, Jim Acosta, Jim Sciutto, or Anderson Cooper. After Zucker, CNN may have to start over.

ISSUE TWO: The many obsessions of CNN.

In my 25 years of talk show hosting and in my current position in Austin, I try to cover a lot of ground. But that’s not the CNN way.

Media watchers first observed this with the O.J. Simpson murders and later the “Missing Malaysian Jetliner” back in 2014. Zucker apparently thought this story was worth hours of airtime every day with large panels repeating the same copy points. Then came Trump, and CNN went into full obsession mode.

For two years, the network promoted the now-debunked Russian Collusion conspiracy theory. When that collapsed, the anti-Trump panels continued and COVID-19 became a secondary obsession.  

Lately, CNN is focused on white supremacy and a little known Congresswoman named Marjorie Taylor Greene who follows QAnon conspiracy theories. You know – like CNN and Russian Collusion.

ISSUE THREE: What is gaslighting?

The term comes from a 1938 Patrick Hamilton stage play called Gas Light and two movies in which a man attempts to convince his wife that she is insane. He does this by convincing her that what she sees and hears is not true.

An anonymous online column claims this is what the Left is doing to the rest of us. The Left says we are a racist country even though we are the land of opportunity. The Left tells us Andrew Cuomo did a wonderful job with COVID in New York, even though he sent infected people to nursing homes. The Left insists that violent inner-city riots were peaceful.

“Cuomo Prime Time” 6-1-20 on CNN promoting “peaceful protestors.” Photo by Lynn Woolley for WBDaily.

When murder, assault, rape, and burglary go up, the Left blames the police. The left says we are xenophobic even though we take more immigrants than any other country. Gaslighting occurs when they succeed in making us believe these things.

Screenshot from CNN via Fox News.

Stay tuned for more Random Samplings of a Logical Mind! I’m Lynn Woolley.

Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter. Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us. Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoolley. Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site. Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.