CNN's Problem

Full disclosure: the image above is a satirical manipulatiion, not an actual photo of CNN's Dana Bash. But this just makes my point stronger: every time I see her, I get the inescapable impression that she's everyman's ex-wife. Other headline figures are just as bad: Kaitlan Collins has such a permanent self-satisfied smirk that I keep wondering if her mother used to tell her, "If you keep making that face, one day it's going to stick that way", and that finally happened. No problem, CNN put her in front of the camera anyhow.

So I think Axios is being really, really polite in this story:

Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company to cable channels such as CNN, TBS and TNT and the streaming service HBO Max, announced Monday that it plans split into two publicly traded companies, parting its television networks from its streaming business.

. . . WBD Streaming & Studios will include HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Studios, while WBD Global Networks will include CNN, TNT Sports U.S. and Discovery.

. . . Global Networks will take on most of the company's debt, but will retain an up to 20% stake in WBD's stand-alone streaming and studios business, helping to "enhance the deleveraging path for global networks," Wiedenfels said on an investor call.

. . . WBD was formed in 2022 when [David] Zaslav's Discovery, which was made up mostly of cable networks and some smaller streaming services, merged with WarnerMedia, which housed the Warner Bros. Pictures movie studio, a general entertainment streaming service and several cable networks.

The merger created more than $50 billion in debt, of which nearly $20 billion has already been paid off.

So basically, Warner Bros Discovery decided it had two kinds of business, winners and losers. The losers included CNN and Discovery, which it plans to spin off, along with most of the debt, leaving basically Warner as the winner company, freed to expand into other fields. The Washington Free Beacon is less circumspect:

Liberal television networks are increasingly viewed as declining assets nobody wants to own. Their audiences are getting smaller, older, and deader. Viewership rates among Americans who don't currently reside in an assisted living facility are plummeting to zero. Nobody wants to invest. Media companies are desperate to get these failing networks, and the exorbitant paychecks of their vainglorious anchors, off their books as soon as possible.

. . . Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN, made a similar announcement earlier this month. CNN and other declining television assets will be split off into a new company called "Global Networks," while the conglomerate's more promising assets, such as the Warner Bros. film studio and the HBO Max streaming service, will form another company investors might find attractive. . . . CNN and its celebrity anchors are in for a rude awakening courtesy of new CEO Gunnar Wiedenfels, a notorious figure in media circles known for his ruthless cost-cutting.

. . . Morale is "really grim," one CNN employee told Fox News, a much more successful network.

So what seems to be happening in the latest controversy over the "fake news" CNN report of ineffective results of the bunker buster attack on Fordow is an attempt by fading CNN headliners to double down on same old-same old.

BREAKING: CNN discloses "top secret" information on live TV, claiming the strikes on Iran left their nuclear sites "largely intact."

The claim has since been refuted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

"Based on everything we have seen, and I've seen it all, our bombing campaign… pic.twitter.com/rqTcDzT8Eh

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 24, 2025

The difference with Trump 47 is that he and his people see problems and create a situation where, as Wittgenstein would put it, the solution to the problem occurs with the disappearance of the problem.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: Whoever leaked to CNN "should go to jail."

"The FBI is investigating." pic.twitter.com/CXlSANPMWI

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 25, 2025

The administration right new has a deep bench of spokespeople who can take advantage of legacy media's business disadvantage. A big part of this strategy is that the administration figures are simply more attractive than people like Dana Bash or Kaitlan Collins, which legacy media noted with discomfort after the election:

There’s a common trait that President-elect Donald Trump is clearly prizing as he selects those to serve in his new administration: experience on television.

Trump loves that “central casting” look, as he likes to call it.

. . . It’s also true that those seeking positions in Trump’s orbit often take to the airwaves to audition for an audience of one. Tom Homan, Trump’s choice for “border czar,” is a frequent Fox contributor. Ohio Sen. JD Vance was chosen as Trump’s running mate in part because of how well he comes across on air.

So it's no surprise that attractive figures are leading the counterattack against CNN, and they're doing it effectively. Look at the performances of Vice President Vance and Secretary Hegseth below:

To recap, an out of context, “low confidence” and incomplete intelligence report was selectively leaked to the media. The media reported on the findings without any real effort to figure out whether they represent any part of (much less the full) truth. The way the media has presented the report is contradicted by the IAEA, the Iranians themselves, and the administration’s political and defense leadership. More importantly, the media’s reports are contradicted by common sense.

. . . There is actually an interesting story here, if the media was interested in telling it. Why are members of the intelligence community leaking incomplete reports against the elected leadership of the country? Why have the same reporters who have gotten so much wrong learned so little? What is the purpose of these leaks–who is behind them, and what are they trying to achieve?

The media won’t investigate that story, though it would be in the public interest to do so. So pay attention to the reporters who are laundering talking points from junior careerists in the intelligence community.

President Trump has obliterated the Iranian nuclear program. The American media seems destined to obliterate their own credibility on this fake story.

These are young, attractive people making powerful arguments. Dana Bash, Kaitlan Collins, Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, and Wolf Blitzer aren't in that league. The great Rush Limbaugh frequently observed that politics is Hollywood for ugly people. At some point, CNN seems to have decided it needed to have ugly people on screen to get credibility with politicians, when Trump recognized he needed Hollywood types -- not the pretty-boys, though, the solid male leads like John Wayne or James Stewart -- to talk over the heads of the politicians.

This is just one part of Trump's innovation.