On Sunday afternoon in Hollywood, several thousand protesters assembled outside the city’s CNN headquarters. Most people in attendance were supporters of Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders, who protesters claim is not getting proper coverage on the news network. Protestors decried CNN for downplaying the recent victories of the Democratic candidate with sweeping landslides in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Idaho and Utah.
In fact, many protestors and people across the country have dubbed CNN the “Clinton News Network” during this election cycle, due to their propensity to cover Clinton more and downplay Sanders’ chance to come back in a race he is currently losing.
CNN, unsurprisingly, did not cover the notable protest happening outside their window. While other news networks such as MSNBC, ABC and the online news network The Young Turks gave some amount of coverage of the event, CNN laid low.
The protest in and of itself is of interest, as it says a lot about the divide within the Democratic party as well as the anger of many voters. However, one of the most compelling elements of this story is what it says about cable media. The owners of mainstream news networks such as CNN have a profound effect on their quality of journalism, and people are catching on. Mainstream news networks have been losing viewers for years, and this protest was a manifestation of that change happening on a grassroots level.
In fact, CNN is owned by Time Warner, who is the eighth largest contributor to Clinton’s campaign at $87,835. Many suspect that this fact has much to do with the fact that Sanders has struggled to gain positive coverage, or in some cases any coverage of all, of his sweeping victories, his historic comeback in the Democratic primary and the huge crowds of tens of thousands that come to his rallies across the country.
In 2012-2014, both MSNBC and CNN lost almost half of their total viewers, with its worse loss with people aged 25-54. Fox News, by contrast, was only down 18%. Liberal viewers seem to be moving from networks such as MSNBC and CNN to online news outlets such as Vice News and The Young Turks. Is this the death of the mainstream media?
By Olivia Walker – DontComply.com
1 Comments
James M. Ray
“In 2012-2014, both MSNBC and CNN lost almost half of their total viewers, with its worse loss with people aged 25-54. Fox News, by contrast, was only down 18%.”
It’s amusing when being down almost 20 percent is seen as a GOOD thing. I’m thrilled to see them ALL lose even more viewers, though, because they all deserve it.