As they continue to watch their ratings plummet and viewership vanish, dying mainstream media outlets like CNN and MSNBC are scrambling to come up with solutions to stay afloat. The Common Sense Show‘s Dave Hodges says that such solutions will likely involve dinosaur media groups trying to co-opt alternative media personalities to their side, and possibly even launching their own faux “independent” media brands in the process, in a desperate attempt to regain lost credibility.

While pre-election anti-Trumpism might have been somewhat faddish when liberals assumed that Hillary would win, it isn’t doing failed networks like CNN any favors post-inauguration. The fact of the matter is that nobody is buying the fake news being dispensed by the likes of CNN anymore — everything from blatant lies about the president’s inauguration numbers to Red Scare anti-Russian propaganda baselessly alleging election tampering has completely destroyed all credibility at this once-respected network. (RELATED: Follow more fake news from the mainstream media at NewsFakes.com)

But you can bet your bottom dollar that CNN won’t be going down without a fight, and it’s already becoming a strong possibility that the network, along with others in a similar position, will try to mimic the success of the alternative media by pretending to be a part of it. It’s the classic, “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” tactic, and one for which truth advocates everywhere need to be on the lookout.

“With plummeting ratings, and a skeptical public who is running from the main stream media, they are on the ropes,” writes Hodges. “If they are to survive they have no choice but to merge with the Independent Media. However, it will not happen in the form that most would predict.”

Fox News inauguration viewership more than triple that of CNN and MSNBC combined

Evidence of this can be seen with the pathetic viewership numbers of both CNN and MSNBC during the inauguration. According to figures provided by Nielsen Research, 11.76 million people tuned into Fox News‘ coverage of the inauguration, while only 3.375 million and 1.487 million people watched the inauguration on CNN and MSNBC, respectively.

From noon to 12:30 p.m. during the oath and inaugural address portions of the coverage, Fox News saw nearly 3 million viewers compared to CNN‘s 521,000 viewers and MSNBC‘s 315,000 viewers. Overall, Nielsen Research estimates that Fox News had more than three times the number of viewers that CNN and MSNBC had combined.

The free fall of CNN in particular, though, began many months before this, as the failing cable news network continually lambasted everything that President Trump was doing and saying on the campaign trail while giving a free pass to failed candidate Hillary Clinton and her barrage of corruption and possible treason — an intrinsic and obvious bias that ultimately earned CNN the acro-pun of being the “Clinton News Network.”

The American public just isn’t falling for the mainstream media’s lies anymore, thanks in large part to the free flow of information on the internet that counters the prevailing media narratives. People want truth, not propaganda, so you can expect all the “fake news” kingpins with the most to lose to start pretending to be the good guys in order to stop all the bleeding. (RELATED: More on mainstream media “fake news” is available at Disinformation.news

President Trump, just prior to being inaugurated at his first press conference as president-elect, called out CNN directly and dubbed the organization “terrible.” He refused to answer a question by CNN‘s Jim Acosta, telling the reporter in no uncertain terms, “I am not going to give you a question; you’re fake news.”

Sources for this article include:

TheCommonSenseShow.com

TheHill.com

IJR.com

CNBC.com