CNN President Jeff Zucker, rather than apologize for publishing fake news story after fake news story all in an effort, by his own admission mind you, to drive ratings for for his network, has decided to take a play from the 'disaffected liberal" playbook and pretend to be the victim in his rather public scuffle with President Trump. In a new interview with the New York Times published yesterday, Zucker never once apologized for his network's credibility-crushing mistakes over the past several weeks but instead said that Trump "is trying to bully us."
“He’s trying to bully us, and we’re not going to let him intimidate us. You can’t lose your confidence and let that change the way you conduct yourselves.”
“My job is to remind everyone that they need to stay focused doing their job,”
To which we have one simple observation, courtesy of the eloquent Maude Lebowski, you, Mr. Zucker, are most definitely the perpetrator here and not the victim. You can't intentionally pursue a story you know to fake day after day in a crusade intended to take down a political figure with whom you disagree and pretend to be the victim. You can't extort a random American citizen for having the 'audacity' to poke fun at you and pretend to be the victim.
So why does Zucker think he's the 'victim'? Apparently he's convinced that Trump targets his network because of it's unbiased reporting...unlike MSNBC which has an "ideological bent."
“Television is his preferred medium,” Zucker said. “And he knows our viewers can be swayed because they’re not watching Fox or MSNBC” — networks with an ideological bent in prime time."
Meanwhile, Zucker again raised concerns that Trump's bullying could end up getting a CNN reporter hurt. It's almost as if they want it to happen...
One challenge Mr. Zucker has thought about: safety. The level of threats against CNN employees, he said, has spiked this year. Mr. Trump, he said, “has caused us to have to take steps that you wouldn’t think would be necessary because of the actions of the president of the United States.”
On Wednesday, CNN found itself facing another backlash — and additional online threats — after it posted a story about a man who created a version of the wrestling video that was later tweeted by Mr. Trump; it did not identify him but said it reserved the right to do so if he resumed his activities.
So, you can bet your last dollar that the moment some CNN reporter breaks a nail while pounding a table in reaction to reading the latest Trump tweet, that CNN will cover the 'tragedy' on a 24-hours loop as evidence of the harmful consequences of Trump's hate speech. Here, we'll even try to speed up the process to get this over with:
#FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2017