CNN has always been slimy.
I was stationed overseas during Desert Shield/Storm. AFN (Armed Forces Network) preempted all TV programming and ran nothing but CNN 24/7.
During Desert Shield, they had all these "experts" explaining that all of our weapons systems were designed with Europe in mind and would fail miserably in the desert. They had absolutely nothing good to say about any of it. It was going to be bad and the US military was going to get our collective behinds kicked.
After the balloon went up and those systems demolished Saddam's military, they suddenly had a whole new batch of "experts" singing our praises.
Their only saving grace was that they were using their (in Iraq) broadcasts to secretly pass a lot of good intel.
CNN was nothing but a tiny little thing with almost no viewership before DS/S. That conflict made them but they've done nothing but whiz on the US ever since.