An extraordinary stretch of news with the coronavirus pandemic and racial reckoning triggered by George Floyd’s death has led CNN to its biggest audience for any three-month period in the network’s 40-year history.
The news is welcome at a network that has been relentlessly attacked for four years by President Donald Trump and his allies, who often mocked CNN as “failing.”
“All of our research shows we are the most trusted name in news,” Jeff Zucker, chairman of WarnerMedia News and Sports and CNN chief executive, said Wednesday.
But when politics is the dominant story, that plays more to the strength of Fox and MSNBC, said news consultant Andrew Heyward, a former CBC News president.
CNN, meanwhile, can tap a wider network of news affiliates in the United States and has a much larger reporting staff overseas, and that has been invaluable for the pandemic and racial stories, he said.
