CNN Finally Airs the Truth; It Took A Comedian, Not A Journalist, To Do So
Comedian Whitney Cummings keeps CNN honest on live television.
IT’S finally happening! Corporate news networks like CNN are finally living up to their functions as trustworthy news outlets, choosing to report critically on some of the most consequential stories of the 2020’s. Perhaps it’s the promise of a new year, or the incoming presidential administration, or maybe it’s the results from the 2024 Gallup poll that revealed that Americans’ trust in the news media is at a new record low.
Spoiler: It’s none of those.
Corporate news networks like CNN are finally choosing to report on many of the most consequential stories of the 2020’s because a stand-up comedian pushed her jokes into the truth territory that the likes of CNN rarely venture into, on live television. To ring in the New Year, CNN invited American stand-up comedian Whitney Cummings on the network’s New Year’s Eve Live special this past Tuesday night. What followed can be best described as a surreal moment of “keeping them honest.” Ironically, Anderson Cooper (along with Andy Cohen) was present.
In just five minutes, Cummings delivered a rapid-fire series of roast-style jokes—the genre revitalized in 2024 by the success of The Roast of Tom Brady on Netflix—while tackling a wide range of topics. She skewered CNN’s record-low ratings, America’s demoralized state and obsession with figures like Luigi Mangione, Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal, the Democratic Party’s coronation of Kamala Harris over holding primaries, and the irony of the “pro-choice” party denying its own constituents the right to choose a candidate. She also took aim at Biden’s physical and mental fitness, Big Pharma’s collusion with the government to impose COVID-19 vaccine mandates, Boeing’s mechanical failures, and the lack of a comprehensive profile on Donald Trump’s shooter in Butler, Pennsylvania, among other issues.
Reflecting on her performance during an appearance on The Jimmy Dore Show, Cummings shared her fear of performing political material on live television. “I think the only thing scarier than censorship is self-censorship,” she remarked, highlighting the tension between opposing censorship publicly while censoring oneself out of fear of backlash or cancellation. Drawing on her experiences growing up in Washington, D.C., and referencing moments like the Clinton era and the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Cummings spoke of the courage she’d never felt until now. She seemed more poised to begin addressing the deeper issues facing the country. “We let a lot slide. We let a lot slide, and this is just too much to let slide,” she said. “For me, I just was like let me take an opportunity to say some things. I have a kid now, I’m sort of thinking in different ways, I’m sober, I’m just thinking more clearly. I’m just going like what do I care about? What do I want to say that would matter?”
What mattered to her became the driving force behind the topics she tackled during her brief segment on the New Year’s Eve Live special. Unsure how much she could cover before being cut off or ushered offstage, she chose her opening jokes carefully. In her interview with Jimmy Dore, she explained wanting to “do something to show mainstream media that what they’re doing is not working anymore, and show them the reaction of how many people do want to know the truth, even if it’s inconvenient; that don’t want pharmaceuticals paying their journalists.”
It’s fair to say that Cummings accomplished her mission. And there’s arguably no platform more in need of that reality check than CNN—currently grappling with plummeting ratings—whose poster-boy Anderson Cooper appeared visibly stunned throughout her entire segment.
As Musk aptly declared on his on-again, off-again “free speech” platform Twitter/𝕏: “You are the media now.” The comedian, the 9-to-5 worker, the hobbyist writer and photographer—the role is yours to claim. The question is: what will you do with it?
Watch Whitney Cummings’ New Year’s Eve Live roast in full here.
Nothing CNN could do- no mea culpa, no amount of groveling, no journalistic standards being adhered to, could make me ever watch, let alone trust them again.
We must always be wary of established powers reinventing themselves through the media they own or control