‘Bloodbath’ and Beyond: CNN Seems to Have Forgotten Its Own Outrage

 
Brad Slager
Opinion
CNN Headquarters Riot

CNN becomes comfortable with “Bloodbath”

There is a recurring theme appearing in the press at times. Call it Pathological Media Amnesia, if you will. Members of the press corps and even the outlets themselves will come out with a bold stance on a topic, forgetting entirely that they held the exact opposite position on the very same matter.

One standout example I can throw out occurred at USA Today. When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) described basketball players admiringly by using the term “freaks of nature.” Reactive columnist Mike Freeman called this racist.

What Freeman was seemingly incapable of doing was checking to see if his own paper ever used that very common term, in reference to Black athletes, repeatedly over the years. Turns out, Freeman works at a deeply racist outlet, according to his own standards.

Now we see that CNN is falling prey to this very practice, albeit in reverse order. Instead of accusing the use of a hateful term that it had used prior, it is using a term that it, and numerous other outlets, decried as deeply offensive. That this involves not only a Republican, but President Donald Trump, only makes this less of a surprise to those studying the industry.

On the campaign trail, in March of 2024, the then-candidate Trump gave a speech where he referenced adverse influences on the auto industry and the upcoming election. He dropped a commonly used term that the press and his opponent latched onto (pounced???). It was spun to mean something else.

“Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it.”

CNN, reporting on the speech and its aftereffects, dutifully ran with the spin from the Joe Biden campaign, and managed to make the worst of the use of that economic cliché.

President Joe Biden’s campaign latched on to Trump’s use of the word “bloodbath,” saying the former president “wants another January 6.” “This is who Donald Trump is: a loser who gets beat by over 7 million votes and then instead of appealing to a wider mainstream audience doubles down on his threats of political violence,” Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said.

Real subtle, gang. But this is to be expected. This was followed up when Dana Bash brought on Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to lambaste Trump over this perceived threat against the nation.

So when Trump was referencing the dire fortunes of the auto industry, he conflated the negativity with the election that year, and Biden’s camp and CNN used that as a claim that threats of violence took place. They could hardly contain themselves in the reporting on this dire utterance that shook the nation. (I’m picking up on their vibes at the time.)

Well then, by that metric, what can be said of the same news network employing that same threatening (their standard) term in describing candidates and a political party? After all, if describing cars is bone-shaking in its use of “bloodbath”, then what can be said when used towards actual people?!

Oh dear Harry Enten, you apparently were not brought up to speed on the dire use of the term. So upsetting to see and hear. But wait, there was White House correspondent Kevin Liptak, also dropping the “bloodbath” reference in regard to the Republicans.

Huh, this is beginning to almost sound like a trend. In fact, it is more than that. CNN appears almost obsessed with describing the midterms as a bloodbath for the GOP.

In doing a cursory search on the media monitoring service SnapStream, the use of “bloodbath” on CNN delivered over four dozen returns in just the past month. These were almost exclusively applied to the upcoming election.

How insensitive and threatening, CNN — I say this according to your own prior positions on the use of the term.

There were some other instances where “bloodbath” appeared at the network, and this was in reference to…itself. When discussing the possible/probable impacts of the recent media merger between Paramount and CNN’s parent company, Warner Brothers, bloodbath was used in a troubling fashion, in reference to possible layoffs ahead that may deliver a result worse that the 2020 riots outside its headquarters.

So if Trump’s use was said to be a call to violence, then what do we say about this?

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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