The Scoop
CNN’s leadership says it doesn’t want to go back to its wall-to-wall 24-hour coverage of Donald Trump when he returns to the White House in January. But the network is considering shifting its lineup in a way that would lean into the spectacle of the president-elect’s new administration.
CNN is considering making network anchor Kaitlan Collins its chief White House correspondent, two people familiar with the discussions said. As part of the change, Collins and her show would relocate, at least part of the time, to Washington, D.C. from New York.
The move, which has not been finalized and is currently still being discussed by the network’s leadership, is intended to better tap into Collins’ network of sourcing within Trump’s White House, which she covered both at CNN and as a White House reporter for the conservative news site the Daily Caller during the president’s first administration. Over the last several weeks, Collins has been camped out in West Palm Beach near the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago compound, hosting her primetime show from a setup nearby and breaking major stories about the president’s transition efforts
Despite some internal buzz within the network’s D.C. bureau about a shakeup of CNN’s White House team, multiple people familiar with the situation cautioned that the network hadn’t officially made any decisions yet about any programming changes or staffing beyond the appointment of its new D.C. bureau chief, David Chalian.
CNN declined to comment.
Max’s view
At 32, Collins may be the last star minted by cable news.
The cable landscape is rapidly unraveling as more viewers opt out of cable in favor of streaming options. The news networks — Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN — remain some of the last channels creating daily, round-the-clock original content for viewers, making them more valuable to cable providers. But cable news viewers, too, are scratching the news itch on platforms like YouTube or on news podcasts.
Unlike many in her age cohort of media peers, who have more often made names for themselves as podcasters, news influencers, or online personalities, Collins rose through the ranks the old-fashioned way — first as a down-the-middle reporter and then as an anchor, reading broadcast scripts and attempting to shake loose newsy bits from live and taped interviews.
She’s proved to be one of the network’s best at breaking Trump-related stories and skilled at convincing a wide range of guests, including CNN-skeptical Republicans, to appear on the show, making her one of the few new cable news personalities to get name-checked in pop culture.
CNN has shuffled Collins between a handful of roles and timeslots over the past several years that have elevated her profile, even if none have resulted in ratings gold. The ratings for Collins’ show have occasionally dipped below those of CNN NewsNight, a raucous panel show hosted by Abby Phillip at 10 p.m. ET, which has become one of CNN’s few ratings bright spots.
Still, despite Collins’ potential promotion, CNN is attempting to walk a tightrope when it comes to Trump coverage. During Trump’s first term, coverage of the president drew record nightly ratings for the network; for its competitor, MSNBC; and even at conservative Fox News. Following the good ratings and his own dim view of Trump, former CNN president Jeff Zucker leaned into more critical coverage of the first Trump administration, highlighting the daily chaos within the White House and emphasizing the norm-shattering elements of his presidency.
But in the years since the network’s parent company was absorbed in a merger with Discovery, its leadership has attempted to file down the roughest edges of its Trump-critical coverage, jettisoning Zucker and some of the more outspoken personalities and making overtures to allies of Trump.
During an internal meeting with staff earlier this month first reported by the Status newsletter, CNN boss Mark Thompson emphasized that he did not want the network to default to leaning into anti-Trump coverage ahead of another four years of Trump in power (though he did not mention the president-elect specifically). He told CNN staffers that there would be numerous important stories outside the Beltway that should not be pushed aside.