CNN is an American news organization that appears in The Bob Zadek Show not as a topic in itself but as a recurring example of mainstream media conduct. Across five episodes the network is named in arguments about self-censorship, viral news coverage, the public standing of economists, and the reach of the press. The excerpts do not describe CNN’s ownership, founding, corporate structure or internal operations; they record only what the host and guests said about it.
Self-censorship and the Charlie Hebdo cartoons
In a January 2015 episode with Jonathan Rauch, Bob Zadek raised CNN’s decision not to publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. Zadek said the network was publicly criticized by many public speakers and other networks for refusing to publish them, and that CNN defended its behavior by saying it had a duty to protect its employees and its physical plant from violence. Zadek described this as self-censorship, and said he equated it to a form of the Heckler’s Veto in which the heckler is a terrorist rather than somebody shouting in the audience Jonathan Rauch on the New Attacks on Free Thought (2015).
Rauch, a professional journalist, responded that terrorism and the threat of violence go well beyond heckling. He said his heart went out to the New York Times and its editor Dean Baquet, who declined to publish any of the Charlie Hebdo images, and that he agreed with critics of that decision. He called the news value of publishing the images extremely high, and said that the more places publish them, the less the risk is for any particular one. Rauch said he was proud of the people of France and of the many publications that did reproduce the cartoons, and that he thought there was some stiffening of the spines culturally. Zadek framed the decision not to publish as a balancing of safety and liberty, invoking Benjamin Franklin, and said the decision not to publish gives up a little liberty for a little short-term security. Rauch said it was not his place to condemn someone for not stepping up to publish in an arguably risky situation, but that the better way is to praise the heroism of those who do step up Jonathan Rauch on the New Attacks on Free Thought (2015).
The Covington coverage
In a January 2019 episode on crowds and tribalism, Zadek described a video showing what he called three very different elements of society caught in a confused, perhaps obnoxious, but certainly non-violent event. He said mainstream media was instantly and unquestioningly on top of the story, naming David Brooks of the New York Times and saying CNN was all over it, as if it were a major event. Zadek said none of the media questioned the story and that it fed the polarization in which everybody in America instantly picked sides On Crowds and Tribalism (2019).
Robbie Soave, a journalist, said that for almost a full 24 hours nobody could get enough of the story, and that in the Trump years the media increasingly viewed everything through a lens of Trump, with only two positions and two tribes. He said the mainstream media had to be entirely against Trump, so people in red hats had to be entirely for him, and therefore the media had to be entirely against them. Soave said his own piece, published Sunday afternoon, argued that the media had wildly mischaracterized the event, that Nick Sandmann was not doing anything wrong, that the students were engaged in pep-rally-type behavior as a form of opposition to a hate group, and that Nathan Phillips had misrepresented what happened. He said his article became the most-read piece he had written at Reason, and that many in the media reversed course, including Jake Tapper of CNN, who tweeted the article, and Meghan McCain, who discussed it on The View. Soave said others doubled down, naming Jonathan Capehart in the Washington Post and Adam Serwer in the Atlantic, and a widely read piece in Deadspin that called him a professional contrarian On Crowds and Tribalism (2019).
Economists on CNN
In a September 2022 episode with Thomas DiLorenzo, CNN appears as the venue where economists offer explanations of inflation and recession. DiLorenzo said Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary who taught economics at Harvard and served as its president, went on CNN and, asked what caused the inflation then being suffered, said it was the January 6th protests in Washington, D.C. DiLorenzo called Summers a smart guy who knows better, noted that he had two uncles who were Nobel Prize winners in economics, and called him the poster boy for an economic prostitute. DiLorenzo also said Paul Krugman, who taught economics at Princeton for many years, went on CNN and, asked whether the economy was in a recession, said no, even though the Commerce Department had just said that real GDP had fallen for six months in a row and the textbooks had defined a recession that way for generations. DiLorenzo said Krugman knows better too, and called the two the most egregious examples of what he was talking about Lies, Damned Lies & the Inflation Reduction Act (2022).
Zadek, in the same exchange, said the country had just gone through two years of “follow the science” during COVID, and that in economics those who follow Keynesian economists would say they are just following the science. He described the dispute as a battle between competing opinions of different scientists, each defending an interpretation of the data, and said the same thing applies whether the subject is COVID or inflation Lies, Damned Lies & the Inflation Reduction Act (2022).
CNN as an employer and as scale
Two episodes mention CNN in passing rather than as a subject of argument. In an October 2018 episode, Zadek introduced Stephen Moore, describing him as one of Donald Trump’s chief economic advisors, a free marketeer, founder of the Club for Growth and its president from 1999 to 2004, a former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board who had worked closely with the Heritage Foundation, a former Fox News commentator, and now the chief economic commentator on CNN Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018).
In a September 2021 episode, Vít Jedlička described the wave of media interest that followed the founding of Liberland. He said that after the initial interest from ordinary people, there was an enormous wave of interest from world media, naming Russia Today, the Metro, Time Magazine and CNN, and that everybody wanted to do an interview. He said he was probably one of the few presidents who did not reply to the Washington Post for an interview because he had more than half a million emails in his mailbox Founding the Free Republic of Liberland (2021).
In a February 2023 episode on foreign policy reporting, Ted Galen Carpenter discussed the changing meaning of “the press.” He said that in the early decades of the republic it meant pamphlets and newspapers, that magazines were added, then radio and television, and most recently blogs, the internet and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. He said the reach is still dominated by large-scale entities in newspapers and television, and that something like CNN and the New York Times reaches millions, whereas a blogger may have a dedicated audience numbering in the thousands or tens of thousands at most. Carpenter said the entities with the greatest influence all tend to have groupthink, think alike, see the world the same way, and see it the same way government officials do, and that meaningful dissent is rare Taking the Lapdog Press to Task on Foreign Policy Reporting (2023).
Across episodes
The excerpts show no development in how CNN is treated. In 2015 it is an example of self-censorship over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons; in 2019 it is part of a mainstream media rush to judgment on a viral video; in 2022 it is the platform where Larry Summers and Paul Krugman give accounts of inflation and recession that Thomas DiLorenzo rejects; in 2018 and 2021 it is mentioned only as an employer and as one outlet among many seeking an interview. The topic is touched in Jonathan Rauch on the New Attacks on Free Thought (2015), Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018), On Crowds and Tribalism (2019), Founding the Free Republic of Liberland (2021), Lies, Damned Lies & the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) and Taking the Lapdog Press to Task on Foreign Policy Reporting (2023), and the excerpts show no argument advanced in one episode and answered in another.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts say nothing about CNN’s founding, owners, headquarters, ratings, or internal editorial process, and nothing about its coverage beyond the specific broadcasts named. No guest or host in these excerpts defends CNN’s decisions at length or describes the network’s institutional position. The article therefore records only the uses to which CNN is put in these conversations, not the organization itself.