CNN would have hoped to make headlines when it determined to do a primetime city corridor with Donald Trump, however the community didn’t anticipate to develop into the story — not to mention to supply blow-by-blow protection of its personal dealing with of the interview.

In its Dependable Sources publication, columnist Oliver Darcy took his employer to process for permitting Trump to “abuse” the platform CNN had given him. “It’s exhausting to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday night,” Darcy wrote after the published.

Darcy additionally linked to greater than a dozen reactions from journalists and media commentators concerning the Trump interview, most of them crucial. “That is CNN’s lowest second as an organisation,” stated one, by veteran journalist James Fallows.

Then, after a information cycle dominated by the CNN-Trump story, veteran presenter Anderson Cooper took to the air on Thursday night to supply withering criticism of the previous president — whereas additionally providing a defence of the community’s choice to cowl him.

“Lots of you suppose CNN shouldn’t have given [Trump] any platform to talk and I perceive that anger about that,” Cooper stated. “You might have each proper to be outraged right now and be indignant and by no means watch this community once more. [But] do you suppose staying in your silo and solely listening to folks you agree with goes to make that individual go away?”

The extreme public soul-searching at CNN this week additionally mirrored the interior battles which have been raging on the community for the previous yr.

Following Discovery’s $44bn acquisition of CNN mother or father Warner Media final yr, chief government David Zaslav has sought to reposition the cable information pioneer as a much less “activist” community than it had been within the Trump years — a stance that has left some staff questioning the place the brand new traces had been.

“After we do politics, we have to characterize each side,” Zaslav informed CNBC final week as he defended the choice to have Trump on the community. “I feel it’s essential for America.”

On Wednesday, presenter Kaitlan Collins sought to fact-check Trump as he rolled off plenty of false or inaccurate statements, together with assertions that the 2020 election was stolen from him and that he had tried to cease the January 6 assault on the US Capitol. “The election was not rigged, Mr President,” she informed Trump.

However different community presenters, who gave the impression to be shocked when the city corridor was over, admitted that it was not possible to fact-check the whole lot Trump stated in actual time.

After Collins requested Trump about his elimination of categorised paperwork from the White Home, Trump referred to as her “a nasty individual”. He referred to as the author E Jean Carroll, who efficiently sued him for defamation and assault, a “whack job”, drawing laughter from the gang.

Critics have attacked CNN for the composition of the largely Republican or Republican-leaning viewers, saying it typically felt like one in all Trump’s combative rallies. “CNN didn’t must have an viewers, and they didn’t must do it stay,” stated Marty Kaplan, a professor of Communication and Journalism on the College of Southern California. “Under no circumstances may CNN have anticipated something completely different from that set-up than what they bought.” 

In feedback to employees on Thursday morning, Chris Licht, the community’s chief government and former head of Stephen Colbert’s Late Present, countered by saying that “America was served very effectively by what we did final night time”.

The community additionally bought a modest enhance within the scores. In response to Nielsen, 3.3mn viewers tuned in to the Trump city corridor — a lot better than the 535,000 it averaged throughout primetime within the first quarter. Nonetheless, it was decrease than a city corridor CNN held with President Joe Biden final yr that reached 3.7mn viewers.

CNN’s viewership reached a yearly common of 1.7mn within the election yr of 2020, however the community has misplaced floor since then. By final yr the determine had dropped to 687,000 viewers in prime time, in comparison with 2.2mn for Fox and 1.1mn for MSNBC.

Kaplan says CNN could also be searching for to succeed in some “persuadable” Fox viewers to extend its scores, however he stated this could possibly be a “silly” mission given the partisan divides within the US.

There was perennial hypothesis that CNN could also be placed on the block, particularly as extra US viewers reduce the cable “twine”. However Zaslav and John Malone, the billionaire cable pioneer who sits on the Warner Bros Discovery board, have rejected the notion that CNN needs to be offered or spun off.

Malone has been a champion of repositioning CNN, saying in 2021 that he needed to see the community “evolve again to the sort of journalism that it began with”. Zaslav and Licht have spent a lot of the previous yr making an attempt to perform that objective whereas additionally performing some heavy cost-cutting.

CNN didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Licht’s tenure has been marked by difficulties. His first large task was killing CNN Plus, a $300mn streaming mission that had been conceived below the earlier proprietor, AT&T. Extra just lately, his expertise shuffles — shifting the Trump critic Don Lemon from a night-time slot to a morning present — have typically been fraught. Lemon was fired final month.

Now Licht’s critics can level to a different flashpoint whereas he stated the backlash was “completely anticipated” in his feedback to employees on Thursday.

“I’m conscious that there have been folks with opinions [and] backlash, and that’s completely anticipated,” he stated, pointing to the upside of the Trump city corridor. “Folks wakened they usually know what the stakes are on this election in a approach they didn’t the day earlier than.”