Global Courant 2023-05-12 07:21:27
For the third time today, a prominent figure at CNN attempted to reframe the network’s widely criticized Town Hall with former President Donald Trump on Wednesday night, an event moderated by Kaitlyn Collins.
Collins anchored CNN’s 9 p.m. Tonight and opened the show by stating that City Hall was “a major turning point in the Republican Party’s search for its next nominee and possibly the starting line for America’s next presidential race.” She noted that Trump is the Republican front-runner.
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“About last night,” Collins began. “The 70 minutes I spent on stage in New Hampshire with former President Donald Trump marked a major turning point in the Republican Party’s search for its nominee and possibly the starting line for America’s next presidential race. It’s important to remember that he’s the GOP front-runner right now, a race he’s running, as noted, as he faces criminal charges, civil liability, and investigations for everything from his handling of classified documents to his business empire.
You can view Collins’ address below.
Earlier in the evening, the network Anderson Cooper devoted part of his primetime program to the resistance against the network.
“You have every right to be outraged and angry and never watch this network again,” Cooper told viewers. “But do you think if you stay in your silo and only listen to people you agree with, that person will disappear?”
Cooper’s comments were a defense of the network’s decision to go ahead with City Hall, plans that drew criticism in the week leading up to the event, as many predicted that Collins would not be able to fully monitor Trump in real time. Although she tried to bring out some of his misinformation, especially Trump steamed over Collins’ objections
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Installed new this morning CNN Global CEO Chris Light defended the City Hall. Speaking on the network’s morning editorial call, Licht said: “I believe absolutely unequivocally that America has been very well served by what we did last night, because it exposed and caused, in the words of Joe Scarborough, a political earthquake, and people woke up and they know what’s at stake in this election in a way they didn’t know the day before Deadline obtained audio of the call.
Rather than a political earthquake, former CNN correspondent Keith Olbermann saw the event as a different kind of disaster. on the network itself.
Others argued that the event was not so much a turning point for the presidential race, according to Collins’ argument, but rather a turning point for CNN. MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan live-tweeted City Hall sharply criticizing CNN not only for platforming Trump, but also for its approach to challenging him.
In response to Licht’s comments today, Hasan tweeted, “I’d say ‘making news;’ is not our job; to hold power to account is. And in that respect City Hall was a complete and utter failure last night.”
Another critic was U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called CNN’s City Hall “a disservice to democracy, but also a great harm to women, survivors and those who depend on reproduction rights.” CNN allowing sexual assault to be treated as a joke to an applauding audience is blatant. Right now it’s not about Trump, we know him. It’s about the programming.”
City Hall had one viewers of 3.3 million, enough for CNN to win the time slot against its rivals and the night itself. But given the heavy promotion and buzz in the political press, audiences were still below six other similar events on Fox News and behind a town hall audience featuring Joe Biden in 2020.
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