Are You High? CNN’s New Boss Implies CNN Isn’t an ‘Advocacy Network’ Like Fox, MSNBC

In this headline, Mediaite summarised Tuesday’s earnings call by David Zaslav (new CNN boss) to investors:

David Zaslav Tells Investors CNN’s New Mission Will Be ‘Journalism First’ While Jabbing at ‘Advocacy Networks’

Are his levels high? He seems to be unaware of the five years worth of CNN anchorman bomb-throwing lectures and “Reality Checks”, which he has been a part of for 5 years. Are their loaded and sexy liberal “town halls”, such as Parkland, suggesting that they are just “Facts FIRST”?

We could try to understand corporate heads and claim that Zaslav wants to promote CNN’s brand before investors. Brian Stelter was pleased to report Zaslav praised CNN at length on Tuesday’s call, calling it “the best journalistic organization in the world” and saying “we’re fully committed to it.”

That’s happy talk after they quickly dumped out CNN+, but that writing was on the wall before foolish executives launched the doomed streamer. 

 “The ability to provide journalism and facts are the foundation of a civilized society,” he closed his comments during the Q&A. “Networks for advocacy [Fox News, MSNBC]CNN, while a fantastic business, is first in journalism. And it’s a really good business. It’s our property.It is possible to rent sports. Ted Turner’s goal was to make something meaningful. 

CNN is not doing journalism first. In a study on cable news, we found that 72 percent spent their “news” time last August on opinions or panel discussions. This is slightly higher than Fox and MSNBC but not as high as “journalism”!

Zaslav spoke about the same things two weeks back in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. He said that CNN should be focused on reporting, truth and fact. “If we get that, we can have a civilized society,” he said. “And without it, if it all becomes advocacy, we don’t have a civilized society.”  

It would be more civilized to listen to CNN’s hot take on Trump, Stalin, Hitler and Mao. We could be optimists and say Zaslav is nudging CNN toward a more-news/less-opinion approach. It’s a bit ridiculous to claim that Zaslav is an all-news hero.

Zaslav also raved about CNN’s coverage on Ukraine. “Eventually, when there are war trials. Exhibits B, B, C and D [from Ukraine] will be from the great work CNN has done.”  There’s a pretense in there that CNN is America’s news leader on global news. However, viewers’ habits have not changed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Fox News is twice as popular as CNN and has correspondents on the ground in Ukraine.