There is only one thing that has really changed over the last several months, when CNN began closing the gap: the type of coverage that Donald Trump gets. Fox News has decided to cater to a (very) vocal minority in exchange for a brief boost in ratings. Sean Hannity likes to boast of a 40% increase in his ratings, but look at Fox News overall: they are falling in a bad way. And, while the Trump supporters would love to tell you that it is because Fox News isn’t kowtowing to Trump enough, the reality of the situation is a lot simpler: They’ve alienated the legions of conservatives who turned into them to see news.
CNN, meanwhile, has been playing the long game. They’ve slowly been accumulating various right-leaning commentators of actual quality, and really kicked it up this election cycle. Their commentary is a lot more balanced than one would expect of a news channel that is seen as a beltway, liberal outlet for talking points. Granted, CNN is still not perfect, and I don’t expect it to conform to my political views, but I find it much more tolerable.
They have finally discovered the flaw in 24-hour news coverage: you run out of things to say. So, they filled in some gaps with soft-news personalities like Anthony Bourdain and Mike Rowe, focused on documentaries, and have diversified what they offer to the audience. Then, they bring in guys like Jake Tapper, who has been such an aggressive interviewer of politicians on both sides of the aisle that it is very difficult to call him unfair to anyone.
