Mediaite’s Colby Hall Says CNN is ‘Trapped’: ‘They’ve Painted Themselves Into an Anti-Trump Corner’

Mediaite Founding Editor and NewsNation contributor Colby Hall told Mediate owner and NewsNation host Dan Abrams that CNN has “trapped” itself with an increasing reliance on resistance-style commentary.

Mr. Abrams scored an exclusive interview with Mr. Hall on Thursday night’s edition of NewsNation’s Dan Abrams Live to discuss Hall’s recent column, entitled “Jeff Zucker’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year: A Tumultuous 2021 Was Key to His Ouster.”

Abrams summarized his longstanding critique of the network, that “the biggest problem is not that CNN was doing left-leaning commentary, but that they didn’t admit that they’re doing left-leaning commentary,” and asked Hall “What does a CNN reset look like?”

Hall told Abrams that hard news “works well for CNN when there’s big news stories like, I don’t know, like the pandemic or the Iraq War or impeachment hearings,” but wondered “Can a pure news play work? You know, how do you strike a voicey show that is still true and honest to viewers?”

Abrams wondered if there will be a true reset, and whether that could occur without a sweeping purge of hosts who do “left-wing” commentary.

Hall’s prescription was for new blood:

I think you got to something when you said, “I think there’s a bit of a bubble there at CNN.” They …it was a very happy place, even though the ratings were down. Jeff Zucker did a good job of creating an environment that was the opposite of toxic, which is incredibly rare.

But as a result, I think the issue the biggest issue at CNN you sort of speak to is a total one. I think over the past few years, they’ve painted themselves into a corner of sanctimony. And, you know, after a while, you get tired of smugness and there’s a lot of sort of nutritional eat your broccoli finger-wagging.

But I think turns a lot of people off, particularly because they’re not as transparent with their angle and their view. And I think they painted themselves into an anti-Trump corner, but they don’t know how to get out.

So what would I do? I don’t know if I would clean house completely. I would work foremost on changing tone. And there’s a few people, I think, who are guilty of the smugness that should be on TV, I think, a lot less. I think that would be the first step.

Watch above via NewsNation.