A decision by CNN host Donald Trump for a town hall next week -- despite his efforts to lead an insurrection -- is drawing scrutiny from New Republic analyst Alex Shephard who claimed the press needs to be cautious about giving a forum to the former president who appears to be increasingly "unhinged."
As he noted CNN has already taken a beating over the decision to give the recently indicted Trump a prime-time forum and questioned how the media will handle him as he makes a third run for the Oval Office.
Pointing out that the former president might skip the Republican Party's 2024 presidential debates because he has such a large lead in the polls, that will mean the cable networks will be clamoring for Trump in other venues because he is ratings gold.
"CNN’s decision to air an interview with Trump was, unsurprisingly, met with criticism given—well, you know—Trump’s whole deal. Trump is the undisputed frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president. But he is also dangerously unhinged. He fomented an insurrection. He has spent the last 2.5 years saying that he won an election that he obviously lost. He is an authoritarian. He is now calling his main rival for the GOP nomination [Ron DeSantis] a pedophile," he wrote before adding, " ... the decision to air the town hall nevertheless raises an important, thorny question for all media outlets as the Republican primary begins: Just how should we cover Donald Trump?"
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"Since Trump left office—and lost his Twitter account—the news media had blessedly stopped following his every move like a hungry terrier in search of his favorite chew toy. This required a quality for which cable news is not well known: discipline. The Trump years may have been very lucrative, both in terms of audience and revenue, for most media companies. But the post-Trump period was a much healthier news environment," he explained.
With that in mind, Shephard added the the market for all things Trump has cratered and there is a hope that the networks will consider their past with Trump while considering how much rope they will extend to him.
"While still popular with a significant segment of the Republican base, there is elsewhere a palpable sense of exhaustion with Trump—he simply doesn’t garner the same insane level of interest that he did seven years ago. Networks are also more sensitive to (again, deserved) criticism of the huge mistakes they made during the 2016 election cycle," he wrote before warning, "There is, however, no small amount of concern that the larger headwinds facing many outlets—declining audiences, for a variety of complex and not-so-complex reasons—could incentivize bad behavior again."
He concluded, "In this context, CNN hosting a town hall with Trump is fine—it may not be laudatory, but certainly not journalistic malpractice. Trump is the GOP frontrunner. He is also deranged. As long as CNN holds him to account, the network is simply doing its job. Should they fail, it will not pass without comment."
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