When I first heard about this, I did sit on the story for a bit. I was laughing so hard, that after going to bed, I actually dreamt that I was laughing.

Suppose that you had a service that almost no one would accept for free. Then, someone had the idea of charging money for it. Such a plan would make about as much business sense as lighting a pile of money on fire. But so it was when CNN had the idea to make their own subscription-based streaming service, by the name of CNN+.

When you think of CNN’s typical audience, you’d imagine that they’d be about as warm to the idea of subscription-based streaming services as they would be towards cryptocurrencies, exercise, and thinking for themselves.

So, how do you imagine CNN+ is doing? If you imagine that they’ll be shuttering the platform by the end of this month, you won’t be disappointed. But then, your boomer dad probably wasn’t disappointed either, in spite of all the nostalgia he might be feeling about the days in which corporate news outlets provided people with their center for viewpoints that were considered societally acceptable.

But gone are the days when most adults turned to the television as their only source of information, like a hamster to a feeder. People today are using the internet, where the likes of CNN is surrounded by information sources and commentary that people would much rather prefer, such as one-man studios with larger followings than corporate news outlets that have been around for decades.

I don’t feel bad for CNN, at all. It’s been a long time since they’ve ditched all pretense of impartiality in favor of pandering to the drones with their political ideology of choice. CNN is much of the reason why most people don’t trust corporate news outlets, and though they call themselves “the most trusted name in news”, the opposite is true.

Though it doesn’t help them that they ran with a defamatory story against the Covington kids. The Dershowitz defamation case didn’t make them look good, either. Then there’s CNN’s defamatory story about Joe Rogan. Kyle Rittenhouse might have a case for defamation, too.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to watch CNN is for the potential for drama when it comes to any high-profile, politically-charged story. But even then, you’d have to wade through piles and piles of bullshit. And for what? Just to say that you got to see another story that contributed to CNN’s decline as it aired? I’d rather preserve my sanity and hear about it secondhand from my peers.

Nothing says that CNN is packed with witless toadies quite like one of them suggesting that people might want a subscription-based CNN news outlet, and them pushing it all the way to market without them realizing that it might be a bad idea. Maybe they could take that same innovative instinct and use it to develop an armpit-flavored breath mint.

Or maybe resurrect 4kids Entertainment.