Screen Test Is Trump Getting The Scrutiny He Deserves?

It claims to be the most trusted name in news

- David Smith

But CNN's live Q&A this week with Donald Trump, the former US president, has been condemned by critics as a marriage of convenience: an ailing network looking to boost ratings and a disgraced 76-year-old candidate seeking rehabilitation.

For millions of voters not yet paying attention to the 2024 election, the show is likely to be a wake-up call: Trump is back and the current favourite for the Republican party nomination, despite two impeachments and one criminal indictment.

And for the US media, it could be a warning from recent history: will Trump exploit cable news's insatiable thirst for outrage, dominate political discourse and surf a wave of free publicity all the way to the White House?

"It's clear that CNN and many other mainstream media outlets have not learned their lessons from covering Trump in 2016," said Tara Setmayer, a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump and pro-democracy group. "This is once again giving him legitimacy at a time when he is more extreme, more out of control and his lies are more dangerous than ever."