C NN’s pivot to serious, hard-hitting journalism is not going so well.

Reporter Dana Bash slipped the familiar confines of the Acela Corridor recently to visit the wilds of Ohio, where she and her team produced a video segment benefiting embattled incumbent Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH). The puff piece even includes input from a hyperpartisan, pro-Kaptur union laborer, whom the CNN video segment attempts to pass off as just an everyday middle-class worker.

Kaptur, who has been in Congress since the year Return of the Jedi was released, is fighting hard to hold on to Ohio’s 9th District. The congresswoman is facing a serious challenge from Republican J.R. Majewski, whom Bash describes in her report simply as “an election denier.”

So in an effort to throw Kaptur a lifeline, Bash and company produced a flattering video segment that says practically nothing regarding the congresswoman's preferred policy positions, her political ideology, etc., but a whole lot regarding Majewski’s problematic social media posts. Bash and company also sought out supposed everyday locals to weigh in on the race. One such local is named Joe Stallbaum, a member of the Sheet Metal Workers Local 33 Toledo district.

Stallbaum told an allegedly “stunned” Bash that his “top issue” going into the 2022 midterm elections is “women’s rights.”

“This time around,” he told the captivated CNN reporter, “it would be women’s rights.”

Stallbaum responded, “Yes. Absolutely. What matters to me is that it’s your decision to make — that person, that woman’s decision to make. Nobody else’s.”

Bash and her team were so "stunned" by his answer that the CNN video segment is even titled, “Voter stuns Bash with his top issue of the midterm elections.”

CNN’s Kate Bennett remarked in reference to the segment, “This is such important and revealing reporting by [Bash]. The man working in the factory who says ‘women’s rights’ is his No. 1 concern is telling.”

And elsewhere on the network, CNN anchor John Berman reacted to Bash’s reporting, saying, “It was so fascinating to hear ‘women’s rights,’ a top issue for a Republican-voting sheet metal worker.”

Bash responded, “You could probably not see the look of surprise on my face … but yeah, to hear kind of a burly guy, married with grown children, tell me — I just asked, generally, what’s your top issue, and he said abortion. And I said, ‘Wow. That is very telling.’”

It certainly seems like a newsworthy interaction! Imagine it: A blue-collar Ohio laborer whose top concern going into the midterm elections just so happens to be the same as that of the Democratic Party. (Remember: Democrats want the midterm elections to be all about the overturning of Roe v. Wade as opposed to jobs and the economy.) What a story!

Well, about that: Stallbaum’s input is not exactly as interesting or newsworthy once you scratch the surface. A brief overview of his social media activity reveals he’s a hyperpartisan union type. His social media posts are filled with “resistance” and “Drumpf”-style nonsense, including cheap Photoshop images of the former president dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Stallbaum’s Facebook feed is chockablock with anti-Republican rhetoric.

His Facebook page even features a photo of him posing with Kaptur at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The photo was taken just last month.

Kaptur has “always been a great friend to Local #33,” read Stallbaum's caption.

A separate article on CNN’s website eventually mentions he’s a “longtime Kaptur supporter” and that “he plans to vote for her again.” These details don’t appear until the story’s 19th paragraph.

In other words, Stallbaum leans hard into liberal-style ideology and rhetoric, and he’s an outspoken Kaptur supporter. He may even be known to her campaign.

All of this raises a series of obvious questions regarding the CNN video segment, which mentions nothing regarding his leanings or even his political support.

First, how did CNN even find Stallbaum? Second, did the Kaptur campaign tee up this interview for CNN? If so, are CNN staffers merely pretending to be surprised by his answer? Knowing what we do now about Stallbaum, the segment can be paraphrased this way: “We asked a Kaptur-supporting ‘resistance’-style partisan about his top issue in the 2022 midterm elections. We were stunned when he answered exactly as one would expect. It's very telling.” That his top midterm concern is the same as the Democratic Party’s is the least newsworthy thing regarding Bash's report! What’s the news item, and why is it “stunning?"

Lastly, why did the CNN video segment present Stallbaum as merely a random sheet metal worker, omitting all mentions of the fact he’s also an anti-GOP, anti-Trump, and pro-Kaptur partisan?

Either CNN simply didn’t do its homework, or it did its homework and decided for some reason to hide its answers from viewers.

NBC may need to hold an all-staff meeting soon to get everyone on the same page regarding what language to use when discussing the unborn.

More specifically, Today's social media team may be in trouble after it published a tweet this week recognizing unborn children are indeed human beings.

“These images from researchers show that babies in the womb can possibly react to flavor,” read a tweet published on the Today account.

However, elsewhere within the same corporation, the folks at NBC News opted to use the dehumanizing term “fetuses” in place of “babies.”

“Fetuses in the womb scowled after their mothers ate kale but smiled after they ate carrots, according to a new study of around 100 pregnant women and their fetuses in England,” NBC News's account tweeted.

Which is it, NBC? Are they “babies” or merely “fetuses?” Good money says Today's social media team has a stern reprimand in its future. Also, for that matter, the person who tweeted from the NBC News account will likely catch heat for saying “pregnant women,” as opposed to the increasingly trendy, but entirely absurd, “pregnant people.”

You can’t win! And that’s part of the point!

Becket Adams is the program director of the National Journalism Center.