Every child knows intuitively that losing is not fun. Toddlers will steal a coveted toy right from the hands of an unwitting playmate in the ultimate power move; grade-schoolers will weep openly on the soccer-field sidelines after the usual 1-0 loss; and just try to console a sophomore girl whose latest crush asks someone else to the Homecoming dance. The need to win and get what you want is as basic a human instinct as breathing and shoe shopping.
So, it must really hurt the tender feelings of the puerile talent pool at CNN that the Investigation, Discovery, and Hallmark channels have more viewers than they do. They must really want to pout and kick their little sister over the fact that Fox News had more than double the number of viewers than they did in 2017, and their right-wing rival has been the most watched cable news network for 194 months in a row. To make matters worse, the biggest bully in school, Donald Trump, keeps giving them social-media wedgies on Twitter every week. Even when they try to fight back by explaining how an apple is really a banana or something, everyone makes fun of them.
Being unpopular really stinks.
The CNN roster of reporters and anchors is loaded with some of the most immature whiners in television news. The network’s White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, is Arnold Horshack to Sarah Sanders’ Mr. Kotter, the annoying (but not nearly as loveable) class dunce trying to get attention from his eye-rolling teacher. On Monday, Acosta tussled with Sanders about whether Trump would have run into Stoneman Douglas High School to “save the day” during the February 14 shooting and worried that schools will become like “the Wild West.” Alisyn Camerota pouted that NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch was using explosive rhetoric against the media: “How dare you?” she wailed.