Somewhere in the bowels of the CNN Building in Atlanta is a video clip that has been on file since the channel began in 1980. The footage is of a military band performing “Nearer My God To Thee.” The explicit instructions are that this particular tape is not to be released for broadcast “till the end of the world confirmed.”
Morbid perhaps, but Ted Turner can’t be disparaged for thinking of the big picture. His CNN was going on the air with the then-traditional national anthem and would stop for nothing until the apocalypse. This being the dawn of the Eighties it was far easier to imagine the end of history descending with an inevitable conflagration of nuclear holocaust.
Thankfully, those fears abated a little more than a decade later. But the “end of the world tape” still exists, ready to be deployed in circumstances that can not be readily calculated.
CNN might well be broadcasting until the final moments of humankind. But its clout as a prestigious news leader has certainly met its demise. A network that boasted of an audience of millions during the Persian Gulf War is today measured in tens of thousands. It’s not even shown in most airport terminals anymore. CNN is now profusely bleeding staff, particularly in the months since the 2024 election.
CNN and much of the rest of the legacy news media, if not outright dead, are being held aloft by what medical staff would call “heroic measures” to stave off the inevitable. And they have only themselves to blame.
The moment has arrived to vigorously address this.
When the Internet first came into widespread use, it was envisioned that it would bring with it the end of gatekeeping. Never more would the spread of information be controlled by a few “professional” outlets. Every individual could be his own publisher, and even become a live news broadcaster as the technology further evolved.
It has taken more than thirty years, but that time has come. Indeed, it has been with us for a while already. Now at last it is being fully engaged with. When online broadcasters like Joe Rogan command regular audiences in the tens of millions while longstanding network broadcasters struggle to maintain a hundred thousand viewers, there has been a dire sea change that cannot go unacknowledged.
Trump Administration 2.0 has a glorious opportunity before it. And that is to end the mainstream press’s influence as it has come to be known and reviled.
What do outlets such as the New York Times and CNN have besides the weight of their collective history? What have they contributed lately to the great calling of covering the news without favor and letting the chips falls where they may?
theknightshift.com. He has also written for The Western Journal and The Federalist. He has recently finished writing his first book.
Image: White House
Jesus Christ is King
