Once hailed as the pioneer of 24-hour news coverage, CNN (Cable News Network) began in 1980 with the promise of neutral, fact-based reporting delivered straight to the American people. Founded by Ted Turner, CNN emerged during the Cold War as a vehicle for bringing fast, global coverage into living rooms across the country. For years, it was known for its breaking news alerts, live warzone coverage, and straight-laced anchors.
But something shifted. Especially in the years following the Obama presidency and the rise of Donald Trump, CNN underwent a noticeable transformation—not just in tone, but in its ideological orientation, its choice of stories, and the moral assumptions embedded in its coverage. While still branding itself as a “trusted source” and “The Most Trusted Name in News,” CNN now stands as a textbook case of how a media outlet can be overtaken by partisan ideology, narrative construction, and the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) influence of Cultural Marxist categories.
This article is the first in a series titled Hall of Shame – Exposing Leftist Media. Each entry will examine a prominent news outlet from the vantage point of a conservative Christian American who believes in truth-telling, journalistic integrity, and respect for the American founding. We begin with CNN—not just because of its influence, but because of the starkness of its descent.
Ownership and Worldview
CNN is currently owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a multinational media conglomerate formed from the merger of AT&T’s WarnerMedia and Discovery, Inc. This corporate structure places CNN within a vast entertainment portfolio that includes HBO, TNT, Discovery Channel, and a host of scripted programming with progressive social messaging. While this ownership is technically non-partisan, it incentivizes CNN to lean into cultural narratives that align with its entertainment division’s audience: socially liberal, urban, educated, and increasingly ideologically progressive.
Internally, CNN is not governed by a publicly declared ideology, but newsroom leaks, whistleblowers, and former insiders have repeatedly described the culture as hostile to dissent from the progressive line. In 2022, CNN underwent a leadership shakeup with the ouster of Jeff Zucker and the brief appointment of Chris Licht, who attempted to recalibrate the network’s tone. However, internal pushback from progressive staffers and poor ratings led to Licht’s departure and a return to business as usual.
The worldview of CNN, then, is shaped less by direct orders from corporate overlords than by a peer-driven ideological monoculture. This monoculture leans heavily into themes of identity politics, intersectionality, climate alarmism, and opposition to traditional American values—core ideas consistent with the intellectual stream of Cultural Marxism.
Typical Claims and Outlook
CNN’s programming consistently advances narratives aligned with the progressive worldview. It embraces the language of “equity,” “lived experience,” “systemic oppression,” and “climate emergency.” News stories and opinion panels often showcase liberal voices as authorities while portraying conservative viewpoints as outdated, extreme, or dangerous. Even when Republican guests are featured, they are frequently of the “moderate” or “Never Trump” persuasion.
The network routinely portrays American institutions—law enforcement, religious conservatives, the military, and the Constitution itself—as being in need of reform to reflect more “inclusive” values. CNN’s coverage of race, gender, and sexuality is framed by academic concepts like critical race theory and queer theory, even if those terms are not explicitly named. This worldview assumes that power imbalances must be rectified through social engineering and that moral authority rests not in enduring truths, but in victimhood status.
CNN rarely gives moral weight to conservative Christian viewpoints, treating biblical ethics on issues like abortion or sexuality as relics of a bygone era—or worse, as dangerous to democracy. When covering religious voices, CNN often features liberal clergy who affirm progressive causes, while portraying more orthodox Christians as reactionary or intolerant.
Issue-by-Issue Breakdown
The position of a media outlet on these twenty issues serves as good litmus tests to determine whether the outlet belongs on the woke, left, “Progressive” side of the political aisle or the right, conservative political side of the aisle.
It is evident that this media outlet belongs on the left side of the aisle.
1. Election Integrity and Voter Laws
CNN frequently characterizes Republican-led efforts to implement voter ID laws or clean up voter rolls as voter suppression tactics, often invoking the Jim Crow era to imply racial animus. Concerns about election security raised after the 2020 election were labeled “The Big Lie” with little attempt to separate legitimate procedural questions from conspiratorial extremes.
2. Abortion and Reproductive Rights
CNN’s coverage post-Dobbs v. Jackson was deeply sympathetic to abortion providers and activists. The network often used emotionally charged language—such as “forced pregnancy” or “abortion care”—while ignoring or minimizing fetal development science or the ethical reasoning of pro-life advocates.
3. Gender Identity and Transgender Policies
CNN has become a champion of gender ideology, consistently affirming the legitimacy of “trans women” in women’s sports, gender-affirming care for minors, and legal recognition of self-declared identities. Dissenters—including doctors, parents, and detransitioners—are rarely given airtime unless to be critiqued.
4. Race and Systemic Racism
The network pushes the concept of systemic racism as a defining characteristic of American society. Events like the George Floyd riots were covered with emphasis on police brutality and “racial reckoning,” while violence, looting, and property destruction were often downplayed or justified.
5. Climate Change and Energy Policy
CNN treats man-made climate change as an existential threat requiring drastic government action. Stories regularly include apocalyptic language and dismiss alternative views as “denialism.” Little attention is given to the economic costs of green mandates or the role of nuclear energy.
6. Immigration and Border Security
CNN typically frames immigration enforcement as cruel and xenophobic, frequently using emotionally loaded images and interviews to highlight the suffering of illegal immigrants. Border Patrol agents are scrutinized harshly, and the humanitarian crisis at the border is often blamed on Republican policies rather than on the pull factors created by lax enforcement or sanctuary policies.
7. Israel and the Middle East Conflict
CNN has increasingly adopted a “both sides” approach that often slips into moral equivalency—or worse, favoritism toward the Palestinian narrative. During the 2021 and 2023 conflicts between Israel and Hamas, CNN gave heavy coverage to Gaza civilian casualties, while often failing to contextualize them with Hamas’s use of human shields or indiscriminate rocket fire. It has promoted commentators who frame the conflict in terms of settler colonialism and apartheid, aligning with progressive academic rhetoric.
8. Second Amendment and Gun Control
The network is consistently hostile toward gun rights, emphasizing mass shootings with emotionally driven segments and survivor testimonials, while largely ignoring stories of lawful self-defense. Gun control legislation is typically presented as rational and overdue, with gun rights advocates portrayed as ideologically rigid or influenced by the NRA.
9. LGBTQ+ Rights and Religious Liberty
CNN heavily promotes LGBTQ+ issues as civil rights struggles, and often presents religious objections to same-sex marriage or transgender policies as bigotry. Legal cases involving Christian bakers, florists, or adoption agencies are usually framed in terms of “discrimination” rather than religious freedom. The moral claims of traditional Christians are rarely given airtime without derision or counterbalance.
10. COVID-19 Policy and Mandates
CNN was among the most aggressive proponents of lockdowns, masking, and vaccine mandates. It often equated skepticism or alternative views with misinformation or conspiracy theories. Coverage of side effects, natural immunity, or the failures of cloth masks was sparse and delayed. Government agencies like the CDC and WHO were treated as near-infallible.
11. Policing and Criminal Justice
CNN heavily emphasized police misconduct, especially in cases involving black victims, and adopted much of the “Defund the Police” movement’s framing during the 2020 riots. The broader rise in violent crime in major cities was underreported, or attributed to socioeconomic causes rather than declining enforcement or progressive prosecutors.
12. Education and Parental Rights
The network has largely taken the side of teachers’ unions and progressive education officials. Coverage of parents objecting to Critical Race Theory, gender theory, or explicit materials in schools often implied they were intolerant or part of a “far-right” movement. The Virginia gubernatorial race in 2021 revealed how out-of-touch CNN was with the parental rights movement.
13. Censorship and Big Tech
CNN has openly called for more aggressive content moderation by tech platforms, especially on COVID and election topics. The network often frames online misinformation as a “threat to democracy” and treats critics of deplatforming (including Elon Musk) as reckless or irresponsible. CNN itself was involved in advocating for the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, repeating the now-debunked “Russian disinformation” claim.
14. January 6 and Political Violence
CNN has treated the January 6 Capitol riot as a near-apocalyptic moment in American history, comparing it to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. At the same time, it gave far less scrutiny to the hundreds of violent riots in 2020, framing them as “mostly peaceful.” The double standard is glaring to any objective observer.
15. Corporate Wokeness and ESG
CNN consistently promotes DEI initiatives, ESG frameworks, and “inclusive capitalism” as moral imperatives. It rarely investigates the negative impacts of these policies, such as their correlation with poor financial performance, employee backlash, or infringements on shareholder rights. BlackRock and other firms implementing ESG are discussed favorably.
16. Hunter Biden and Political Corruption
CNN was a leading outlet in downplaying or ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop story in the crucial days before the 2020 election. The network often repeated claims that it was “Russian disinformation” and has yet to offer a full accounting of its failure. Only recently has CNN cautiously begun covering the Biden family’s financial entanglements.
17. Trump and the Republican Party
CNN’s hostility to Donald Trump has been all-consuming since 2016. Coverage of his presidency, legal battles, and post-presidency influence is framed almost exclusively in alarmist tones. Even traditional Republicans who support Trump’s policies are often smeared as “election deniers,” “extremists,” or “white nationalists.”
18. Affirmative Action and Racial Preferences
CNN mourned the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down race-based college admissions. Its coverage emphasized the perspectives of minority students and progressive legal scholars while largely ignoring arguments in favor of colorblind meritocracy or Asian-American plaintiffs.
19. International Institutions and Sovereignty
CNN generally favors global governance institutions like the UN, WHO, and WEF, portraying them as authoritative, cooperative, and essential to progress. Nationalist critiques of these institutions—especially those involving American sovereignty or unelected bureaucratic overreach—are portrayed as paranoid or anti-scientific.
20. Culture War Issues
CNN supports drag queen story hours, transgender inclusion in sports, critical theory frameworks in education, and expansive definitions of hate speech. The network portrays critics of these movements as regressive, intolerant, or tied to white supremacy and Christian nationalism.
Cultural Marxism and Ideological Influence
Though CNN does not openly identify as Marxist—nor do its anchors cite Antonio Gramsci or Herbert Marcuse—the network increasingly embodies the categories, priorities, and rhetorical tactics of Cultural Marxism. That term, once dismissed by progressive intellectuals as a right-wing scarecrow, has become a helpful lens to describe a real ideological pattern: the application of Marxist “oppressor vs. oppressed” dynamics to culture, rather than economics.
At CNN, this shift is most evident in its treatment of identity. News is not just about facts—it’s about power structures. Racial minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and women are cast as oppressed; white, male, Christian, heterosexual, and nationalist groups are implicitly (or explicitly) cast as oppressors. This binary underlies CNN’s coverage, even when not stated outright. The language of “lived experience,” “systemic oppression,” and “structural inequity” replaces older journalistic ideals like objectivity, evidence, and the presumption of innocence.
In this sense, CNN doesn’t need to quote Karl Marx to advance Marxist assumptions. The framework is embedded in how it chooses stories, what voices are amplified, and how it frames moral authority. Intersectionality—originally a legal theory advanced by Kimberlé Crenshaw—now shapes panel discussions, candidate evaluations, and narrative construction. Christianity, especially when expressed in traditional, masculine, or pro-American tones, is viewed with suspicion or treated as a cultural relic.
This transformation didn’t happen overnight, but it reflects a broader leftward drift in media and academia over the past two decades. CNN, once a middle-of-the-road source for nightly news, now functions as a conveyor belt for progressive cultural priorities, many of which flow from the neo-Marxist turn in elite institutions.
Specific Incidents of Bias and Scandal
CNN has not only been criticized for ideological bias but has also weathered a number of scandals and credibility crises in recent years.
- The Russia Collusion Narrative
CNN led the charge in promoting the Trump-Russia collusion theory, devoting over 1,000 primetime segments to the topic between 2017 and 2019. Many of its most breathless predictions collapsed when the Mueller Report failed to find evidence of criminal conspiracy. CNN issued no formal retractions and only modestly changed its tone after the fact. - Project Veritas Undercover Video (2021)
An undercover video by Project Veritas captured a CNN technical director boasting that the network’s coverage during the Trump era was driven by the goal to “get him out.” The same director called their COVID coverage “propaganda” designed to boost ratings. CNN never addressed the revelations publicly. - Chris Cuomo Scandal
Prime-time anchor Chris Cuomo was suspended and later fired in 2021 after revelations that he had used his position to aid his brother, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, during a sexual harassment investigation. CNN initially defended Cuomo but eventually terminated him under pressure. - Jeffrey Toobin Incident
Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was caught exposing himself on a Zoom call with colleagues from The New Yorker (he was later rehired by CNN after a brief suspension). Though technically a private act, the decision to reinstate him raised questions about CNN’s judgment and professionalism. - Don Lemon’s Decline and Departure
Don Lemon, a longtime anchor and visible face of CNN’s cultural commentary, was removed in 2023 after a series of missteps, including sexist comments about Nikki Haley’s age, reported tensions with co-hosts, and persistent viewer decline. - Settlement Over Nicholas Sandmann Coverage
CNN settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann, whose viral confrontation with Native American activist Nathan Phillips was mischaracterized by the network. Sandmann was falsely portrayed as an aggressor based on selectively edited footage. The settlement amount remains confidential but is widely believed to be substantial.
These incidents—ranging from partisan activism to journalistic malpractice—reveal a pattern: CNN is willing to sacrifice factual precision and public trust in the service of ideological goals.
Key Journalists, Hosts, and Ideological Figures
- Jake Tapper – Once seen as a moderate, Tapper increasingly aligns with liberal orthodoxy, especially in his framing of Republicans as threats to democracy.
- Anderson Cooper – A seasoned anchor with a globalist perspective, Cooper is openly gay and has consistently pushed for progressive positions on LGBTQ+ rights.
- Van Jones – A former Obama administration official, Jones brings a social justice activist’s perspective to CNN, though he has occasionally offered honest critiques of left-wing excess.
- Don Lemon – Until his departure, Lemon was among the most overtly ideological hosts, known for racially charged commentary and open disdain for conservative values.
- Brianna Keilar & Jim Acosta – Known for their combative approach toward Republicans during press briefings, often editorializing under the guise of questioning.
- John Avlon & Fareed Zakaria – Intellectual figures who frame globalist, secular humanist values as the enlightened alternative to “populism” or “nationalism.”
While not every CNN journalist is overtly partisan, the dominant tone of the network reflects their worldview. Those who dissent from this tone either leave quietly or are reassigned.
Conclusion: CNN’s Role in the Crisis of Truth
CNN’s transformation is not merely a matter of tone—it’s a matter of trust, truth, and trajectory. From its early days as a pioneer of global journalism to its current role as a megaphone for progressive ideology, CNN has forsaken the middle ground in favor of narrative control. Its influence remains vast, especially among moderate liberals who trust it without realizing how far left it has drifted.
From the perspective of a conservative Christian American who values this nation’s founding ideals—truth, liberty, moral law, and objective justice—CNN now represents a cautionary tale. It has become an engine of misinformation, not because it prints lies, but because it frames every story through a lens of power, victimhood, and secular moralism.
In a cultural moment defined by moral confusion, CNN is not a neutral observer. It is a participant—a high priest in the new civic religion of equity, inclusion, and endless progress. And that religion, for all its emotional appeal, is fundamentally at odds with Christianity, with patriotism, and with truth.
S.D.G.,
Robert Sparkman
MMXXV
christiannewsjunkie@gmail.com
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