By Brian Lowry

While it’s difficult to distill the challenges CNN faces down to a single hour, “NewsNight” encapsulates the inherent puzzle that the network and other legacy media must solve, and the elusive quest to find a toehold in that shrinking space known as the political middle.

“Americans with different perspectives aren’t talking to each other, but here they do,” host Abby Phillip says, by way of introducing the nightly program.