\n\tThis is the true story\u2026of two strangers\u2026 picked to work together\u2026 and have their lives taped\u2026to find out what happens\u2026 when people stop being polite\u2026and start getting real.<\/p>\n
\n\tA version of those lines, read every week during the opening of MTV\u2019s durable reality show \u201cThe Real World,\u201d might not seem so out of place at CNN\u2019s cantankerous panel show \u201cNewsNight.\u201d<\/a> The series finds itself in the spotlight for something its producers have tried not to feature: a profanity-laced threat made by one of its guests against another.<\/p>\n \n\tScott Jennings, the conservative CNN analyst <\/a>who appears regularly on the 10 p.m. program and often serves as a foil for many of its guests as well as host Abby Phillip<\/a>, on Thursday night told guest Adam Mockler to \u201cget your f\u2014ing hand out of my face\u201d as the young liberal gesticulated about Jennings\u2019 stance on the current U.S. conflict with Iran.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cNo, everybody, calm down. OK?\u201d Philip cautioned the pair. And, to Jennings: \u201cWe\u2019re having a debate. You can respond to the points that he\u2019s making.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tA CNN<\/a> spokesperson did not respond to a query seeking comment.<\/p>\n \n\tThe rising temperatures became noticeable. \u201cFlashback to the war the skinheads had at my studio,\u201d said Geraldo Rivera, another Thursday-night guest, making reference to a 1988 incident on the set of his syndicated \u201cGeraldo\u201d during which white supremacists got into an on-stage altercation with activists. Rivera\u2019s nose was broken by a flying chair. It may not be lost on CNN that Rivera was nodding to another period of heightened emotion TV, one presented by daytime hosts like Jenny Jones, Ricki Lake and Sally Jessy Raphael. <\/p>\n \n\tWhile Phillip is charged with moderating a panel that can in some segments total as many as five different people \u2014 many of them hailing from the worlds of podcasting and influencers \u2014 she has frequently worked as a sort of verbal traffic cop. \u201cPeople should know that I\u2019m always trying to make sure that if I hear something that isn\u2019t right and I know something isn\u2019t right, I\u2019m going to say something about it,\u201d she told Variety in September of 2024.<\/a><\/p>\n \n\tPanelists clearly are told to listen to her. Phillip rarely allows any temper to show, and guests generally don\u2019t challenge her when she refutes a line of argument with facts CNN has reported. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s helpful for an audience for me to add to the cacophony of sound.\u201d she said in the past interview.<\/p>\n \n\tBut they do challenge one another. On Tuesday night, journalist Sarah Ellison, formerly of The Washington Post, was seen telling conservative podcaster Ben Ferguson that his grip on the fact of the discussion at hand were tenuous, but in more direct language. Many of the show\u2019s panelists are pundits or partisans (sometimes both), not professional journalists (though sometimes the show\u2019s \u201cfifth seat\u201d is given to a reporter or expert).<\/p>\n