If anyone is about 50 or so, and older, obviously, you’ll remember Wolf Blitzer reporting from Operation Desert Storm, the military mission to push Iraq out of Kuwait (very similar to Ukraine pushing Russia out of its own country, but Americans are war wary and a war with Russia brings in dangers that one with Iraq most certainly did not). Anyway, who can forget Blitzer reporting by phone, with the camera showing anti-aircraft fire seemingly going everywhere above Bagdad.

CNN seemed to have cemented its place as “The most trusted name in television news,” according to the booming voice of James Earl Jones, assuring us, “This is CNN.”

Well, things are a bit different now. The fact that absolutely no one was fired after the disastrous town hall with Donald Trump forces one to conclude that CNN was… fairly happy to host a disastrous town hall with Donald Trump. Yes, the ratings were good that night. People turn in for Trump. For all we know, he’ll take his pants off in the middle of an interview to… never mind.

But it would seem as though much of the public has – like me – chosen to swear off CNN for good. From The Daily Beast:

Two days after the network pulled in more than 3.3 million viewers for its widely criticized town hall with former President Donald Trump, CNN found itself in fourth place among cable news networks in primetime. Worse yet, it finished behind MAGA channel Newsmax, which until recently was barely nabbing a nightly audience of 100,000. According to Nielsen, CNN averaged just 335,000 total viewers and 87,000 in the key 25-54 advertising demographic during Friday night’s 8-11 p.m. time slot.

I don’t care if CNN is showing a re-run of “The 80s,” there is no excuse for it not outdrawing Newsmax.

Newsmax drew 357,000 viewers and 45,000 in the demo in primetime on Friday. The right-wing network has experienced a ratings boost since Fox News fired Tucker Carlson last month, seizing on conservative anger over the shocking ouster. While Fox’s viewership has dropped precipitously since then, especially in primetime, it still easily led cable news ratings on Friday night. CNN is coming off of one of its worst-rated quarters in recent history, though it did see year-over-year gains last month. At the same time, though, viewers have expressed their anger over the town hall fiasco lately and even vowed to boycott the channel.

Forget Newsmax and Fox for our purposes. CNN coming off one of its worst-rated quarters in recent history is the news here. CNN made a considered decision to go further right, attempting to come off as “completely neutral.”

The problem is that if one is going to be halfway between the Trump party and the rest of the world, one is going to appear insane, as CNN did last week and that is going to cause ratings problems as demonstrated Friday night.

One has to choose a lane these days. If you are going to accept Trump as legitimate, you really have to accept him (Newsmax). If you are going to accept reality as legitimate, well – reality has a left-wing bias, and thus it’s not available for one wanting to be in the middle.

The only thing left to conclude is that CNN is in major trouble, under new management with a new mandate. They could run the “Most Trusted Name in Television News” into the ground. James Earl Jones is 92 and may not have the power, nor desire to save CNN from itself.

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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman