Last night, CNN chose to bump Anderson Cooper's 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina special in favor of covering Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
The network was billing the special as a deeply personal journey where "Cooper observes the tenacity of the survivors who continue to struggle every day, grieving for loved ones while trying to rebuild their lives." The report was scheduled to air at 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday, but was postponed to Wednesday night instead.
The #Katrina special report, Katrina: The Storm That Never Stopped has been moved to tomorrow. Wednesday 9pm
— Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) August 25, 2015
CNN and MSNBC broadcast the press conference and speech in Iowa, where presidential candidate Trump kicked out Univision reporter Jorge Ramos. Fox News broadcast part of Trump's speech but then cut away to the O'Reilly Factor.
Not everyone was pleased by the decision to keep Trump on the air.
@allinwithchris I’ll tune back into MSNBC and your show when you don’t cram Trump down my throat, or when you put Bernie’s rally up live too
— Rosemary Roberts (@WordGirlRed) August 26, 2015
@CNN and @MSNBC are both covering @realDonaldTrump live as breaking news but there's no news here- just an ignoramus #trump #gop #idiot
— Ed Rosenthal (@EMRosenthal) August 26, 2015
Does the extended Trump coverage have anything to do with partisanship? Probably not, it's just a ratings move.
Trump is currently leading in the polls and is a TV ratings sensation — and the two are likely related. The networks that led with Trump coverage saw a sharp increase in viewers over the weekend. The Associated Press called him "catnip for news programs" that "wins a level of coverage that feeds on itself."
"When he speaks, he’s given something no other candidate gets. That’s wall-to-wall coverage," CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter said on "Reliable Sources." "He sucks up all the oxygen.”
