Not even liberals can pretend CNN had a great New Year’s Eve.
The network is likely to go down in television history for anchor Don Lemon’s inexcusable failure to catch the all-important countdown of the final seconds of the old year in the Central Time Zone.
And fellow anchor Anderson Cooper was making news for all the wrong reasons.
At one point during the festivities, Cooper and his security team traipsed straight through a New Year’s Eve segment by rival Newsmax — on live television.
WATCH: Anderson Cooper and his CNN security team barged through the Newsmax live shot on New Year’s Eve, pushing people out of the way pic.twitter.com/Xkjku0RyxI
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) January 2, 2023
There’s no way to know if the grotesque discourtesy was intentional, of course. Given the crowded conditions in New York’s Times Square, it’s entirely possible that just finding a space in the crowd to move was hard enough.
But still, even a pompous personality like Cooper should be expected to follow basic rules of decorum. Even if he and his team put on an air of apologetic civility, walking through a rival’s camera zone should be a taboo supreme in the world of television.
For many social media users, the episode was one more reason to poke fun at CNN (to go with its currently chaotic personnel state, chronic dishonesty, and, of course, its dismal ratings.)
That’s the most people that watched people on CNN, maybe ever. lol
— The 3-7 Chris (Eppolito) (@ohjersy) January 2, 2023
He really thinks he is better than everyone else
— The Great Sanfordo (@sanfordo) January 2, 2023
ALLLLL class…
— CogInMachine™ (@topher0313) January 2, 2023
The only way cooper can get views now is by walking through other stations broadcast
— Design 2 Live (@design2live) January 2, 2023
There’s no doubt some of the criticism was over the top, since the network still has a faithful core of viewers. Even CNN employees have families, after all.
And there’s no doubt some at least had to be watching the network, if only to see how Lemon and Co. screwed things up again.
Is CNN fake news?
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But there’s also no doubt that CNN, the network that has spent more than half a decade at war with Americans who voted for former President Donald Trump and with Trump himself, has some serious reworking to do if it wants to regain its relevance — and come anywhere close to its obscenely inaccurate motto of “the most trusted name in news.”
If the performances by Lemon and Cooper on Saturday are any indication, the network isn’t off to the right foot in the new year at all.
