The Other McCain

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‘Fake News’ Network CNN in Third Place? Did Russia Hack the TV Ratings?

Posted on | March 7, 2017 | Comments Off on ‘Fake News’ Network CNN in Third Place? Did Russia Hack the TV Ratings?

Primetime cable news ratings for Thursday, March 2:

8 p.m.
FOX The O’Reilly Factor …………………………….. 4,114,000
MSNBC All in With Chris Hayes ………………….. 1,744,000
CNN Anderson Cooper 360 …………………………. 1,381,000

9 p.m.
FOX Tucker Carlson Tonight ……………………….. 3,489,000
MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show ………………. 2,532,000
CNN Anderson Cooper 360 ………………………….. 1,327,000

10 p.m.
FOX Hannity ………………………………………………. 2,824,000
MSNBC Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell … 2,160,000
CNN Tonight With Don Lemon ……………………… 1,055,000

You that CNN, dubbed the “Clinton News Network” for its one-sided bias during the 2016 campaign, has slumped down to third place, with MSNBC pushing into second place. Liberal viewers trust MSNBC’s lineup of avowed leftist hosts more than they trust the phony “objective” personalities at CNN. The network that was in the tank for Hillary Clinton last year, and which has been excoriated by President Trump as a purveyor of “fake news,” has a credibility problem even with liberals.

What happened? Well, you might say, the Russians hacked the ratings.

Nothing has captured CNN’s attention more in recent months than the idea that the claim that the presidential election was somehow stolen as a result of computer hacking and other sinister activities by Russian agents in collusion with the Trump campaign. Over the weekend, however, this conspiracy theory was exploded to smithereens after Trump took to Twitter to suggest that the alleged “investigation” of this Russian scheme was, in fact, an illegal effort by the Obama administration to help Clinton win by spying on the Trump campaign.

This was Trump calling the media’s bluff. The media kept claiming anonymous “intelligence officials” and “law enforcement sources” were telling them about the supposed investigation of the Trump-Russia “scandal.” If it was true, as the media reported, that Obama administration officials had sought warrants to conduct surveillance about the suspected illegal contact between Russians and the Trump campaign, couldn’t this be construed as a Watergate-type abuse of power? Certainly it could, if the media’s reporting was accurate.

Andrew McCarthy at National Review:

Now that they’ve been called on it, the media and Democrats are gradually retreating from the investigation they’ve been touting for months as the glue for their conspiracy theory. It’s actually quite amusing to watch: How dare you suggest President Obama would ever order surveillance! Who said anything about FISA orders? What evidence do you lunatic conservatives have — uh, other than what we media professionals been reporting — that there was any investigation of the Trump campaign? . . .

Read the whole thing. It’s amusing to see the media walk into a trap like that. The “Russians hacked the election” story always looked suspiciously like the 2016 version of the 2000 Florida recount, i.e., whenever Democrats lose an election, they claim Republicans cheated.

 

Category: CNN, Media Bias

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