The great political sage (and former Texas agriculture commissioner) Jim Hightower once said, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” A progressive Democrat in a state that was rapidly turning hard-red Republican, Hightower knew whereof he spoke.
And yet, that’s exactly where CNN sits, alongside stinky armored not-rats and sun-blasted paint, trying to find a durable and lucrative audience amid a serious ratings swoon, while also attempting to avoid that speeding semi-truck called industry-wide transformation. Short-term decisions made for financial exigencies may already be having long-term consequences. Like a five-day-old dead armadillo, CNN is starting to smell a little.
