Originally Posted by Guest

CNN Chief Says Network Will ‘Recommit’ To ‘Attempt To Be Independent’

BOOMBy Andrew Kerr
on June 16, 2017 at 9:50am

CNN CEO Jeff Bewkes came under fire Thursday during a Time Warner shareholders’ meeting for his network’s overt bias against President Donald Trump.

David Almasi, vice president for the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, happens also to be a shareholder of CNN’s parent company, Time Warner.

The shareholders’ meeting occurred one day after a gunman opened fire on GOP lawmakers at an Alexandria, Va., baseball field. Almasi said he felt compelled as a shareholder to take Time Warner executives to task for “CNN’s contribution to the increasingly uncivil environment in Washington.”

“Mr. Bewkes, we have urged you many times to make CNN more objective,” Almasi told the CNN chief. “But bias is apparently worse than ever. As shareholders, we are concerned about the reputational risk to our investment in Time Warner, as CNN appears to be a key player in the war against the Trump presidency.”

“Are you concerned about advertisers leaving CNN?” Almasi asked. “Will you continue to ignore appeals for objectivity at the risk to our investment in Time Warner?”

Bewkes defended his network against the accusations of bias, but did “recommit” to “an attempt to be independent.”

“We will recommit — I’ll do it to you now — for an attempt to try to be independent,” the CNN chief said in response to Almasi’s questions. “I do understand from your questions that you’re skeptical that we’re achieving that. You think we haven’t.”

“I don’t want you to be skeptical of our effort, and we’re very sincere to try to achieve that, that’s what we are trying to do,” he continued. “The decision on whether we’ve failed — you’re right — will be made by the viewer.”

“But we are trying to keep it balanced and fair, and I understand that you’re thinking that we haven’t succeeded, but we are still trying,” Bewkes added.

Almasi, who believes it’s important for the news media to promote “vigorous debate that looks at all sides,” took issue with the claim that CNN was keeping things “balanced and fair.”

He cited a May study by the Media Research Center, which found that CNN devoted nearly every minute of its programming on May 12 to covering the Trump administration in a negative light.

“The vast majority of all of CNN’s guests that day (96, or 78 percent of the total) were Trump critics, compared to a handful of pro-Trump guests (just seven, or 6 percent of the total),” the study found.

“On this particular day there was hardly a single person for Donald Trump,” Almasi said. “That only feeds this problem.”

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