Malone said he wants the news portion of CNN to be more centrist, but
I am not in control or directly involved.
Have you been reporting this out?
I know that's strange for me.
I think that's a good question that people are asking is john Malone responsible for
axing your show, turns out that reliable sources,
which is hosted by brian Stelter over at CNN has been canceled.
And there are some pretty important questions about the direction
CNN is headed for, especially because it's under new ownership and
the owner wants to move it.
I would argue in reality to the right,
although he argues that he wants to move it to the center.
In fact, according to media, he said, quote, I would like to see
CNN evolved back to the kind of journalism that it started with and
actually have journalists Malone said last year,
citing Fox News is get a load of this bret bear and brit hume as positive examples.
Now, let's hear a little more from this exchange on reliable sources.
And just to give you a note,
Claire Atkinson is the individual on the panel who is asking,
I think the right questions, She's the chief media correspondent for
Insider, let's watch is john Malone responsible for axing your show.
I don't know the answer to that.
I think people might suspect it's political.
He is a libertarian who believes in not paying taxes if he can avoid it.
But the question is, you know, he said, he's not directly involved.
But then I think he's a businessman.
He's looking at where the money is, where the audiences and
the viewership on the left is split between CNN and MSNBC.
And the viewership on the right is all at Fox News.
They have a bigger audience lots of money.
And perhaps he's saying, you know, what, if we shift a little bit this way,
maybe we'll get that too.
But he acknowledged in the meantime, there's going to be the possibility
of people leaving CNN and the possibility that ratings go down.
So, I mean, look, jake, whatever Malone's strategy is here,
it's stupid and you're not going to out.
Fox, Fox CNN was already the,
in my mind closest to centrist cable news network.
Whereas MSNBC just pays lip service to Democratic voters who absolutely
love the establishment and never want to question it or criticize it.
And so I don't really know what the play is here.
But if it's to further destroy CNN, I think Malone is doing a great job and
I don't know, maybe that's his overarching goal here.
No, So I think I have a sense of what the play is.
So, first of all, I think both john Malone and the reporter that you just
heard both genuinely believe the things that they are saying,
although they are both completely wrong about their perspective.
So let me explain.
So, john Malone is a appears to be a lifelong Republican.
And he's been involved in media forever.
I've been reading about him for my entire career, 25 years.
He's a very bright guy, a great businessman.
But as with most incredibly wealthy businessman, not all, but most,
he thinks, yeah, well, of course, the republicans are right about taxes,
tax cuts and deregulation, etcetera.
It's a mindset set, it's a group think that they have.
So they don't view that as radical.
They don't view that as one end of the political spectrum.
They view that as the center give rich people tax cuts and
deregulate their companies.
That's the center.
And he's, in his mind, the democrats always confirm that because The binds
the schumers will go along with Republicans and
give them the tax cuts that they wanted.
It happened for the last 40, 50 years.
They give them all the deregulation, including in media,
including the companies that John Malone owns and deals with.
So he thinks that's the center of the country.
In reality, it's the center of his country club and it is a massively right wing,
especially on economic issues, by the way the reporter is also wrong.
So she says, well, maybe they're splitting the viewership
between santa and MSNBC for viewers on the left.
What Are you talking about? What viewers on the left?
So I know that there are people who vote in democratic primaries that watch both of
those channels for sure, right.
But they are older and the demographic information is indisputable on that.
They both average around 68 years older audience.
And but they're not on the left at all.
And this idea that Brian Stelter was fired because he's on the left.
I mean look we too often all of corporate media agrees a neoliberal
that is a little like not draconian on social issues but
is far right on economic issues.
Is is on the left.
No brian still just not on the left.
MSNBC is not even on the left, let alone CNN CNN is nowhere near the left.
What john Malone is telling you is I'm gonna take a socially somewhat
progressive channel and an economically conservative and
I'm gonna turn into massively economically conservative and
on social issues will call everything a tie.
Should you be racist?
She did not be racist.
I can tell it's a tie.
Should hate gay people or she did not hate gay people.
I can't tell it's a tie.
But we all know tax cuts for the rich and deregulation for everybody.
So anna to the second point that you made.
Is it a good strategy?
No, they're gonna get obliterated.
So that's the good news.
That's the silver lining in all of this.
So like shelter.
I've had agreements.
I've had disagreements.
I think he's mainly a corporate media guy.
I don't care right but for him to get fired because he's too far left
shows you the CNN is gonna go into a so called B.
S neutrality business which means I take Attila the hun I take
a reasonable position and I say Attila the hun is 80 percent right.
And I call that bipartisan centrist and neutral.
No you're not doing news gathering anymore.
All you're doing is playing politically correct games.
Hey republicans don't hate me, democrats don't hate me.
I'm going to plead politically neutral and neutral to the truth.
I swear I'll never share that with our audience.
I'll only share news that basically filets both of the parties.
I mean that's that was what the most infuriating aspect of CNN was and
continued like honestly continues to be.
But during the trump europe after maybe a year or so
of his administration, CNN finally started questioning
the legality of what trump was up to started covering him in a negative
light because he deserved to be covered in a negative light.
And it's amazing to me that now you have this libertarian come in
who only seems to care about what's in his pockets and
like it starts correcting CNN on the one thing that kind of started
to do correctly but didn't really go in all the way you get what
I'm saying like they were still so afraid to seem biased.
So like on one hand you have trump breaking the law and
on multiple occasions putting this country in jeopardy with the rhetoric.
He was using openly online in regard to nuclear weaponry and stuff like that.
And you're supposed to pretend like that guy is
an equal to democrats and what they're up to.
It's just insane.
Absolutely insane.
Yeah.
And by the way, they'll never criticize corporate democrats either.
And if you're neutral, how come there are no progressives on there?
Come on.
Funny how all of a sudden MSNBC and CNN can't find it progressive.
And so they all neutrality, neutrality might ask your purposely lying to
the american people to manufacture consent for corporate rule.
So look what john Malone and chris licht,
who is the new head of CNN I got question is super easy questions.
I mean if you're in the journalism business, these are all softballs,
hit them out of the park.
Right?
When Donald trump says that you should inject bleach into your lungs.
Are you supposed to say, I can't tell 50 50 maybe you should and no, no, no.
It's disinfectant and not necessarily into the lungs.
So maybe it's a good idea.
I can't tell, I'm not, what am I a reporter.
When donald trump says that win causes cancer?
Are you supposed to tell people that?
Maybe when donald trump says, hey, I won the election without a shred of evidence
and after losing 60 court cases in a row, are you supposed to say maybe?
And that one they've already answered yes.
They say you're not allowed to see there's a new edict
at CNN you're not allowed to say the big lie anymore.
You have to say that the 2020 election apparently you're not sure you're
not sure.
But I know that just means you're gonna lie to your audience.
So from going forward, chris likes job is to tell every anchor.
You either lie to your audience and you cover for the republicans and
donald trump, or we're gonna fire you and then they'll pretend to be neutral and
objective.
It's a goddamn joke.