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Let’s rewind the tape. In the summer of 2015, CNN had a roster of standard GOP panelists for its shouty shows, but there was a problem—they all thought Trump was bad. So at Trump’s personal recommendation, CNN hired Jeff Lord to come on and defend Trump. vox.com/2016/4/4/11348…
Lord would become the first of a bunch of Trump defenders to populate the cable airwaves. It was a bad phenomenon because there was no principled reason for these people to be on television except to defend trump. They had no flexibility to break with him and keep their place.
CNN, in effect, designed their 2016 on air presentation so that Trump would always have an advocate—no matter how outlandish, misogynist, and racist his campaign became. And they also went to extraordinary lengths to promote him, showing empty lecterns and the like.
That context of having watched CNN rig its panel shows to favor one candidate in 2016, is how people approach news that CNN hired a spokesperson for Trump’s DOJ, not as a panelist, but as a *newsroom editor* to design the news coverage of 2020 (despite zero qualifications).
Building new “viewpoints” into your newsroom by hiring people whose sole purpose is to advocate for a candidate or a party is a pale mockery of ideological diversity. It fails to demand any intellectual honesty and smothers any possibility for consensus or change.
(I fear I’ll never be able to say this as well as @tomscocca, so please do read him.)
