CNN Just Cracked Open Pandora’s Box That’s Worse Than Any Fake News Hoax

A grim new trend is hitting TV news...

Dec 08, 2025

Image credit: Marcus E Jones, Shutterstock.com

This article originally appeared on the Daily Caller News Foundation and was republished with permission.

Guest post by John Loftus

CNN has opened up a Pandora’s box that’s worse than any fake news hoax the outlet could ever possibly peddle.

On Tuesday, the network announced an “official partnership” with the online platform Kalshi, which allows users to wager on anything from a sports game to whether J.D. Vance will be the GOP nominee in 2028, to how much money Darth Vader’s lightsaber will fetch at auction. Kalshi is a “prediction market,” and users are trading “contracts” on future events. So, somehow, it is legally distinct from gambling.

“As part of the partnership, CNN will get access to Kalshi’s data through an API, or backend interface, that automatically updates in real time,” Axios reported. “That data will be featured on CNN’s air through a real-time data ticker and can be referenced across CNN’s platforms when journalists discuss news predictions.”

Of course, neither CNN nor Kalshi has addressed the ethics elephant in the newsroom, as of publication. CNN anchors, reporters, and commentators do not determine events throughout the country and world. But they certainly influence them, enough to move markets. For example, if CNN published a story that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had a terminal illness, but that story later turned out to be false, Nvidia’s stock would have likely plummeted regardless, and billions of dollars could have been wiped out in a matter of minutes.

How will this power affect their coverage now that they are partnered with a betting platform? CNN will likely get a cut of the Kalshi gambling revenue, so how will that affect which events they choose to cover? Will the popularity of bets on Kalshi’s platform drive their coverage? Are they going to do segments on Darth Vader’s lightsaber because it drives the most wagering? Will all these CNN employees, from the executives to the bookers, be barred from betting on people or events they cover in the news? Where are the guardrails? What if anonymous sources, whether in government or working for a sports franchise, leak them stories to drive betting markets in a certain direction?

It’s quite an ethical quagmire, to say nothing of the pure degeneracy of it all. There is so much room for insider trading and manipulation that it boggles the mind.

Here’s a good example: As former Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Andrew Kerr pointed out, Kalshi has a market on whether CNN host Fareed Zakaria will say the word “democracy” at some point during his show Sunday. How many CNN employees are quietly wagering some money on this? If I were a betting man, I would say somebody is.

The grim trend is already catching on in TV news. A couple days after the CNN news broke, CNBC announced its own “exclusive partnership” with Kalshi.

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“Starting in 2026, CNBC will incorporate exclusive Kalshi predictions market data into its programs, including ‘Squawk Box’ and ‘Fast Money’, offering viewers a unique perspective on how event forecasts and probabilities are shifting in real time. A Kalshi ticker will run alongside segments of CNBC’s on-air programming. Kalshi will also launch a CNBC page on its site, featuring CNBC-selected markets,” the network said in a press release.

Worse yet, Kalshi’s co-founder, Tarek Mansour, recently told a panel at Future of Global Markets 2025 Conference that the ultimate goal of his company is to “financialize everything” and “create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.”

Yes, because if there’s anything America needs more of, it’s complex financial instruments that extract wealth from people without actually producing anything tangible in the real world. Our public infrastructure will crumble, but at least we can bet on where Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce will honeymoon.

Corporate media is already corrupt enough as it is. But adding Kalshi into the mix is a death sentence. CNN, CNBC, and all the other networks that may follow suit are throwing away their last shreds of credibility and integrity (not that they had much of any before).