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In an age where the new administration views media as “the opposition,” CNN on Monday unveiled plans to launch a new investigative reporting unit. The unit, which will include about a dozen reporters, includes Pulitzer Prize winners Carl Bernstein and James Steele, both of whom will serve as contributing editors.
“CNN needs to be an organization that breaks news, not just an organization that covers breaking news or talks about breaking news on television,” Andrew Morse, the executive vice president of editorial for CNN/U.S. and general manager of CNN digital worldwide, told NPR. “There’s no better way to do that than to invest in investigative reporting.”
Plans to expand its investigative reporting team have been in the works for more than a year, CNN told NPR, but Morse admits that the timing is appropriate.
“This effort is not a response to the administration in Washington, but it’s certainly well-timed,” Morse said. “It’s very important for us to do good, solid independent work at a time like this.”
CNN, in particular, has been under fire by Team Trump. Trump was unhappy with the network’s coverage of him several times during the campaign, and the relationship got particularly difficult in early January after CNN and BuzzFeed reported on an unsubstantiated dossier about Trump’s relationship with Russia that was allegedly put together by a former MI-6 agent.
During a pre-presidential press conference, CNN reporter Jim Acosta tried to ask a question, but Trump shut him down, finally saying, “you are fake news.” No one from the Trump team has appeared on the Sunday morning news program of Jake Tapper — who, along with Bernstein and two other reporters, reported on the dossier — since the story was published nearly three weeks ago.
CNN isn’t the only news organization to be expanding in the age of Trump: The New York Times, the Washington Post and Politico all have added to their staff rosters as they work to cover the new administration.
Besides Bernstein and Steele, the new team also will include Sarah Ganim, Drew Griffin, Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken, as well as a team known as the K-File, which includes reporters and fact-checkers.
READ MORE: NPR
[Image courtesy of CNN]
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