CNN has had a strong presence in the presidential debates in the past two elections cycles as its anchors landed the coveted honor of being selected as a debate moderator but the network's drastic shift towards opinion-fueled coverage towards President Trump may prevent them from even being considered as a serious selection in the upcoming debates this fall.
Anderson Cooper, who co-moderated the 2016 town hall debate alongside ABC News' Martha Raddatz, appeared to have taken a page out of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's playbook on Tuesday mocking Trump's weight while slamming his widely condemned tweets about the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis, a staffer who died in Joe Scarborough’s office when the now-MSNBC host was a Republican congressman.
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“He doesn’t have the guts to say, ‘You know what, I don’t care what they think because this serves my political purposes.’ That’s why he’s doing it. He doesn’t have the guts to say that because he is just a little man despite his girth and size,” Cooper said. “He’s a little man inside and he knows that.”
The Hill media reporter Joe Concha told Fox News, "Opinion working its way into news programs — and Cooper’s title is ‘anchor’ — so viewers are led to believe its a newscast like similar to a Bret Baier or David Muir, is a leading cause in mistrust in media," referring to the Fox News and ABC News anchors respectively.
"If [Cooper] wants to be a guy providing provocative opinions, the title needs to be changed and the guise of objectivity dropped," Concha explained.
Debate moderators are chosen every presidential election cycle by the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). According to its website, the CPD relies on three criteria when selecting moderators: "familiarity with the candidates and the major issues of the presidential campaign, "extensive experience in live television broadcast news," and "an understanding that the debate should focus maximum time and attention on the candidates and their views."
Progressive journalist Walker Bragman expressed concerns with both "objective" and "opinion" journalism since the two contribute to the troubling "direction" the industry is going. However, the bleeding of the two becomes "problematic" since there are only "a handful of mega outlets that exist solely because they are profitable," which ultimately limits the marketplace of ideas.
"The conglomeration of media has made the national discourse less robust. It has been particularly problematic with the blending of news and opinion," Bragman explained to Fox News. "Anderson Cooper pointing out when the president is lying is good. But ad hominem attacks on his weight? That's embarrassing."
Bragman acknowledged that everyone, even journalists, has opinions but for them, "our first commitment is to facts."
"I don’t think political preference should necessarily disqualify a journalist from moderating a debate," he continued. "That seems to be the new norm across the industry. I do think we’re increasingly going to have conversations about the usefulness of feigned objectivity."
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Cooper is certainly not alone among those at CNN who have been blurring the lines between straight news anchor and opinion host.
Former CNN digital producer-turned-media critic Steve Krakauer said during a recent interview with Townhall Media that CNN has become a "competitor on the left to MSNBC" and pointed to the "monologues" that occur "on pretty much every show" that airs on the network.
"Anderson Cooper, who I think is an excellent journalist who would travel the world for every natural disaster and war zone- you know, now he's basically confined to a studio- and this is before the coronavirus, is in the studio every night talking to pundits and included in that is a monologue, essentially it's his opinion on some anti-Trump thing," Krakauer said. "That's just a very clear difference from the way things were before. Jake Tapper does it, Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo... It's clear that there's no longer this idea of pure objectivity. And it's not 100 percent across the board, but it's a very big difference there."
Jake Tapper, who the network heavily relied on this election cycle to moderate several Democratic primary debates, recently condemned President Trump and his supporters for launching a "smear campaign against rivals" and referred to the targeted surveillance of the Trump's team as a "crackpot conspiracy theory" amid the recent revelations surrounding the unmasking of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The "State of the Union" anchor was also blasted after he admitted that he didn't fact-check Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who falsely claimed during his show that Trump had referred to the coronavirus as a "hoax" when the president was actually conflating the uproar of the virus to the uproars of the Russia and Ukraine investigations, which he referred to as "hoaxes."
CNN's prime-time anchors, including Cooper, were also used as moderators in various Democratic debates and town halls.
Chris Cuomo has dedicated much of his airtime to profusely condemn Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak while refusing to address the criticisms he himself has received for breaking his own quarantine while recovering from the coronavirus and staging his own reemergence from the basement in his house.
The network has also been slammed for Cuomo's softball interviews with his politician brother, Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, opting to do prop comedy instead pressing him on the growing nursing home controversy in his state.
Don Lemon, meanwhile, urged CNN not to cover Trump's coronavirus briefings live, which the network began rolling back its coverage that week. Lemon, who has repeatedly accused Trump of being racist, blasted the president for saying that he wanted to be the "cheerleader" for the country.
Earlier this year, the anchor was under fire for laughing uncontrollably while his panelists cruelly mocked the intelligence of the president's supporters.
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In 2016, CNN's Cooper and ABC News' Raddatz were selected as moderators by the CPD along with NBC News' Lester Holt, Fox News' Chris Wallace, and CBS News' Elaine Quijano, who moderated the vice presidential debate.
In the prior election cycle, CNN also landed a presidential debate moderator slot. Candy Crowley, the former "State of the Union" anchor who left the network in 2014, drew plenty of criticism for intervening in an exchange between President Obama and Mitt Romney when the GOP candidate attempted to challenge the president's handling of the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck suggested that CNN shouldn't be given another chance in the upcoming presidential debates between President Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
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"Even with just their collective rhetoric during the coronavirus pandemic, CNN's entire roster of hosts have disqualified themselves from being any serious, sober, and respectable choice to moderate a 2020 presidential debate," Houck told Fox News.
Houck elaborated, "It would be a bad sign for the 2020 presidential debates if any CNN host is granted the opportunity to moderate the debate. The days of trusting CNN to call out falsehoods across the political spectrum have long side ended."
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.