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The Ratings Continue to Fall Down an Elevator Shaft as the Networks Continue Their Fractured Reporting

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Nov 15, 2024
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Demo-lition Project – MSNBC - CNN

  • Those New Year’s cards will be delivered in a pink envelope.

We are now one week out from the election, and the ratings at these two news titans are only getting worse. We mentioned how in the days immediately after Kamala’s electoral demise MSNBC saw half of its audience leave, while CNN’s already diminutive numbers shrank by one quarter. Well, looking at Tuesday’s figures — one week out from Election Day — they managed to get even worse.

Both networks have seen ratings that are the lowest in decades.

First Amendment Strike Force – MSNBC

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  • How do the networks get the audience to return? Make alternative media illegal!

Jen Psaki was on a vid-cast and was, unsurprisingly, complaining that people are getting their news from social media and elsewhere:

Local TV is held to a higher standard of accountability than social media platforms, in terms of having accurate information on their platforms. That is crazy. How does it change, how are people held to account? Laws have to change.

Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – CBS NEWS

  • The accusations they ignored with Doug Emhoff are suddenly applicable today.

The choice by Donald Trump to have Pete Hegseth serve as Secretary of Defense continues to roil the media. Here is CBS News pulling up an old story from a time when he was accused of sexual harassment. It is a seven year old story, and one authorities looked into. It led to nothing further taking place. 

But that non-story does not slow down CBS, as they push the narrative while peppering their report with disqualifying details, such as “investigated”; no charges were even filed by police.

Low-Octane Gaslighting – MSNBC

  • Should we ask about the race of the lawyer needed for the defamation suit?

Chris Hayes, to nobody’s surprise, is also bothered by Hegseth’s selection, and as such, spent a segment of his program hashing over this pick. He had on as a guest Sherrilyn Ifill, former NAACP Legal Defense Fund president and currently sitting as a Civil Rights chairperson at Howard University, to discuss Trump’s Cabinet selections, so it is hardly a surprise this would evolve into an intolerant race-baiting visit. 

Hegseth was brought up, and Ifill was far more than critical of the selection, going so far as to resort to slander in condemning Hegseth. In her calling him a “known white supremacist,” the discussion included the nugget we discussed yesterday, about his Jerusalem Cross tattoo once considered to be controversial:

This is someone who, you know, is known to be a white supremacist, known to be an extremist. Whose platform, whose book is basically about his opposition to the advancement of black officers to the top brass, and the military is actually a very important area for black advancement. And so him selecting that particular person– And by the way, the Department of Defense has 3 million employees.

Both Kinds of Standards – THE GUARDIAN

Also taking exception to the announcement of Hegseth, as well as other names chosen by President-elect Trump, is Margaret Sullivan. Writing at the recently departed-from-Xitter outlet The Guardian, we figured it would help to show what is being missed. Sullivan seems to express dismay or contempt that there is a connection between Trump and Hegseth’s network:

The Fox-to-Trump revolving door has been spinning for years. During his first term, Trump hired at least 20 officials who had previously worked at or contributed to Fox, making some of them cabinet secretaries and high-ranking White House aides.

There is, of course, an argument to be made against this close knit relationship and what it means journalistically. We have mentioned this as problematic many times and it is worthy to be questioned. The issue is that Sullivan — and numerous others in the media — have made such argument over the past four years as the Joe Biden administration has had quite a similar revolving door existing between the press and his administration/Cabinet.

Reporting on the Mirror – SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

  • If you do not want to be regarded as a political outlet, refraining from politics may be a good step.

Last week among the shrieking harridans and unhinged leftist meltdowns was one seen from Laura Helmuth, Editor-in-Chief of Scientific American. Her periodical has been noticed to be morphing from a science-based publication to one that pushes social agendas and other activist tropes, under the guise of “proven” science. 

Well, after guiding her outlet to a point of mockery by many, Helmuth came out following the election results with an unhinged dose of hysteria that was — speaking as a non-scientist — rather unscientific in nature. 

While not proven, it would appear she had been called out internally for her ranting, and has announced that she is now abruptly stepping down from her position. Given her public apology, and the scrubbing of her timeline, this feels more like she was dismissed as a result of her posts.