It is difficult to figure out the true motives of CNN’s media reporters, Oliver Darcy and Brian Stelter. On the face of it, they appear to just be attack dogs meant to knock right-wing sources of information. That’s their whole act on social media and on television. But, what motivates them to do so with the passion that they bring to the job?

Perhaps it is lack of awareness? Do they not realize that while Fox News does have several opinion hosts, Bret Baier plays it far more straight than several of the so-called “straight-news” guys at CNN.

Guys like Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, for example. Or Brian Stelter.

Yet, attacking Baier is exactly the route that Darcy took last night on Twitter after Mollie Hemmingway made an appearance on Baier’s show.

How can @BretBaier be hosting a supposed "straight-news" show while allowing @MZHemingway to appear on the program and push this "OBAMAGATE" stuff unchallenged with no opposing point of view?

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) May 12, 2020

Maybe Darcy is doing this out of jealousy? CNN had incredible growth in April’s ratings, upwards of 150% in viewership, but it still wasn’t enough to top shows like Baier’s. CNN just can’t seem to top it, and since Darcy works for CNN, that’s what he has to do. Attack Fox News.

Can you imagine that being your job? Spend all day watching a network you hate and tweet about it, with the occasional television hit reminding you that focusing on them is your job and you hate them? It doesn’t seem all that great for one’s mental health, but that is almost entirely what Darcy, Stelter, and the gang are reduced to.

Jealousy explains part of it, but it’s much darker than that, really. CNN simply cannot compete in the ratings with Fox News, especially right now, because they have spent so much time making themselves out to be The Resistance rather than a straight-news network. While there are folks at CNN that are better at being news guys than others, overall, the editorial lean of CNN has become far more obvious than it ever has been before.

So instead of trying to correct the ship from a journalistic perspective, they want to force the other ship – Fox News – to impose impossible standards on itself.

The network that employs Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, and Brian Stelter wants everyone to think that Bret Baier, one of the most straight-news guys on any network, is a biased hack. That doesn’t scream of honesty and integrity. It screams of pettiness. They scream for Fox News to play it straight, and when Baier does, they go after him for having anyone with a bias on. Meanwhile, they amazingly trot out all sorts of biased characters out there with no real challengers and call it journalism.

Rather than compete with guys like Baier, they would rather try to drag him, and it plays very poorly. It is disappointing, even from someone like Darcy, whose entire act has been this little petty game since he got to CNN.