Study: CNN, MSNBC took sharp left turns during Trump’s presidency

Former CNN boss Jeff Zucker made waves at the outset of the Trump era by hiring commentators willing to defend the real estate mogul as he mounted his campaign for the presidency. The result was many embarrassing and awkward moments on and off the air.

Now, it appears the Jeffrey Lords and Scottie Nell Hugheses of the world have grounds to argue that they actually deserved more airtime! According to a study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, both CNN and MSNBC swerved radically to the left between 2016 and 2021.

A sharp cable-news divergence opened up during prime-time hours, the study found: “Polarization was driven by all three channels, but there was a sharper turn to the left in 2016 among MSNBC and CNN than there was a right turn [at] Fox News,” says one of the study’s co-authors, Yphtach Lelkes, an associate professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, speaking to the prime-time gap under Trump.