US news media: A station is looking for its center

CNN is perceived by many in the US to be as opinionated as Fox News. The television station recently drew attention to itself through personnel decisions. Now he wants to go back to the middle.

The news channel CNN seems to be in a pretty bad place at the moment. A renovation is underway, which not everyone likes. Two well-known journalists have left or were left, no one knows. A well-known television program was cancelled. There are calls for a boycott of CNN online.

Its new boss, Chris Licht, has announced that the broadcaster will again focus more on its core business – and on neutral reporting.

news instead of opinion

Frank Sesno was with CNN for 21 years and welcomes the realignment. He is Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University in the US capital.

He says CNN should be a news channel, not an opinion channel. “That would be good for CNN, it would be good for journalism – and it would be good for American democracy,” explains the media professor.

In his estimation, CNN has often overshot the mark, especially in reporting on Donald Trump – whether as president or now as ex-president.

Sesno has long observed that many American news channels have moved towards reporting that focuses on emotion and outrage. This is widespread on US television, according to Sesno.

Favorite enemy of Donald Trump

Ex-President Donald Trump has long declared CNN to be his favorite media enemy. “CNN is totally a lie – CNN and all the other fake news,” Trump regularly rants at his campaign events. In fact, CNN is one of the US media that has so far reported the most critically about Trump.

Moderators go – or are gone

CNN’s prominent White House correspondent, John Harwood, said in his last live ad for CNN in early September that the Republican Party was “run by a dishonest demagogue.”

With such statements, CNN speaks from the heart of many. For others – including those on the CNN boardroom – they go too far. Whether John Harwood had to leave or left voluntarily is not known.

The same applies to the well-known presenter Brian Stelter. Stelter moderated the CNN media magazine “Reliable Sources” and repeatedly criticized Trump harshly, as did Fox News, for many of Trump’s home and yard stations.

When the CNN leadership shut down the media magazine last month after three decades, Stelter left the station. Inform, not alarm, is the motto of CNN boss Licht. Back to the center.

Lies should also be named as such

But what does that mean? Media professor Sesno explains: “Back to the middle doesn’t mean – and this is often misunderstood – that you always have to cover 50 percent of both sides.” If someone lies, according to Sesno, you have to call it a lie and untruths have to be uncovered. That is exactly the job of journalism. “But in a reasonable tone, without siding with one side or the other,” says Sesno.

With his new course, CNN boss Licht also wants to regain lost trust in the media. And by the way, there will definitely be more viewers again. Because CNN, the world’s first 24-hour TV news channel, is only third in the USA, behind Fox News and MSNBC.