Former Darlings of Liberal Cable News Can't Hack It on Their Own

Back in the days of silent films, some of the best-known movie stars were Douglas Fairbanks, Lillian Gish, and John Gilbert. But as soon as “talkies” took over the silver screen, many of those silent film stars’ careers were over. They had small weak voices, voices that didn’t match their onscreen persona, or heavy foreign accents. In the era of new media, the mainstream media, particularly cable news, are suddenly finding themselves to be failing silent movie actors. Their narrative no longer matches what the American people want to hear. Maybe put better, it doesn’t match what the American people know to be true.

So, what becomes of former liberal cable news hosts when viewers become hip to their fake news grift, and the head honchos of the corporations they work for know it and promptly fire their butts? Well, they end up in places like right here at Substack, and trying to break into the world of podcasts, that’s what. While it can’t be said that there are no successful podcasts or Substack pages that lean left, as far as the podcasts go, liberals may have as about as much success as they did with liberal talk radio.

CNN seems to have the most “formers” out there. Don Lemon was let go from CNN in 2024 and started his “freelance” career doing man-on-the-street interviews. What he mainly did was harass black Trump supporters and tried to disguise them as interviews. When he wasn’t needling black Trump supporters, he told people in that infamous Don Lemon condescending way, that they were stupid. One man commented that he made “a lot more money” under Donald Trump than he did under Joe Biden. Lemon’s response, “I know you feel that way, but that’s not actually what the record shows. It shows the economy is actually better under Biden.” The man’s reaction, he began laughing. Another man comes up to Lemon and says others around think he’s “nuts.” He adds, “We were all just standing around watching the show.” I don’t think they meant “the show” the way Don Lemon wishes they meant the show. At that point, he was probably rethinking the whole thing. Since then, Lemon has been spotted in New York, accosting subway riders and showing them memes on his phone. Quite a come down for one of the guys who not too long ago, occupied prime time at CNN.

Don Lemon’s former colleague, Jim Accosta, is really not adjusting to post-spotlight life either. Famous for his attempts at verbal slap fights with then-White House Press Secretaries, now Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Kayleigh McEneny, and even an attempt at a few with Trump himself, all of which he lost. In January of this year, when CNN tried to move Accosta’s time slot from 10 a.m. to midnight, Accosta took his toys and went home. His parting words of wisdom for his tens of viewers, “hold onto the truth,” and “don’t give in to the lies.” Guys like Accosta who are partisan hacks, don’t realize they are partisan hacks. Theirs is a noble cause. Accosta now sits alone in his apartment with his dying plants and has managed a decent Substack subscriber base of about 270,000. He recently did an hour-long podcast where he had two guests, an independent journalist, and former Trump fixer Michael Cohen. So, just so we are all on the same page, for 30 minutes, you got Jim Accosta…and Michael Cohen. I remember reading “Dante’s Inferno” in college, and that is surely one of the circles of hell. Others must have thought so too because it got under 27,000 views.

Chris Cillizza was canned by CNN in 2022. He has also been relegated to Substack, where his subscribers number around 30,000, even less than Accosta. The only one of CNN’s former golden boys that appears to have bounced back somewhat is Chris Cuomo. Cuomo made sure to make things easy at the network for his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was the first to be let go in 2021. He has since resurfaced on the new NewsNation network that has hired people from both sides of the aisle. The most recent recipient of a hatchet job is former MSNBC host Joy Reid. Reid, whose job was to apparently call anyone and anything she disagreed with racist, reserving the Hitler moniker for Donald Trump, was shown the door in late February. She has turned up here and there with videos on the internet, still trotting out the “everything is racist, especially Donald Trump” card. I guess once you have found your niche…

The bottom line is these people are not attracting anyone they wouldn’t have attracted during their television days, but far fewer of them. While more conservative leaning journalists like Michael Shellenberger and former Fox and CBS investigative reporter Catherine Herridge are racking up hits and views in the millions. The American people stated very loudly on November 5, that they were well aware of what the mainstream media is and what they do. Like those leaving blue states for the greener, more tax-free pastures of red states, people have let their feet, and in the case of the media, changing channels, do their talking. With all the alternative sources for Americans to get their news and information now, the mainstream dinosaur legacy media is dying a slow, painful death, and not only do they not realize it, if they did, they would spin it or not cover it altogether.

You have to wonder if all these liberal cable TV news rejects will try to warn their colleagues that soon, they too will be broadcasting live from their apartment.