Progressives Win War Against Chris Licht’s Efforts to Tame CNN’s Radicalism
Chris Licht, who was named CNN’s CEO last May, was on a mission to pull the network out of the hole into which it had fallen. His plan for doing so was to distance CNN from the reputation it had established as a liberal firebrand and to reintroduce it as a centrist, mainstream news network.
That attempted shift from leftist opining to centrist reporting was too much for the Left to bear, and so on Wednesday it was announced that Licht was out of a job.
His removal marks the culmination of the Left’s rebellion against his straight-news crusade. Leftists at CNN wanted another leftist warrior in the model of former CEO Jeff Zucker, and now they’ll get one. (READ MORE: Kaitlan Collins, Media Darling With ‘Conservative’ Past, Is Ascendant)
During his tenure at CNN, Licht fired numerous hosts whom he deemed representative of CNN’s foray into 24/7 liberal opining. Those removed included former Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter (who was perhaps example No. 1 of the network’s liberal shills), former legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, former White House correspondent John Harwood, and Don Lemon (who was fired in April).
With each removal, the network’s backbone of leftist employees became angrier and angrier at Licht. His mission to make CNN a straight-news network was, after all, directly counter to their mission.
The anger at Licht spilled into the press and liberal activist circles.
In September of last year, for instance, Justin Peters of Slate wrote that Licht’s strategy would harm CNN’s ability to “tell the truth.” He fretted that the network was “pulling back on direct critiques of the Trumpist right while seeking out voices and perspectives that are equally as critical of Biden and the left.”
“If this is CNN’s best case for pursuing false balance while dissuading its personalities from calling Trumpism by its name,” he said, “it’s not a very convincing one.”
The hashtag “#BoycottCNN” was present for much of Licht’s tenure. Most of the hashtag’s users came not from the right but from the left. The hashtag broke out in popularity after Harwood’s firing in September of last year.
At the time, Jon Cooper, formerly President Barack Obama’s campaign chair, tweeted: “I decided to #BoycottCNN as soon as the network began its shift to the right…. If I wanted to watch right-wing propaganda, I’d watch Fox.”
I decided to #BoycottCNN as soon as the network began its shift to the right. It was a tough decision, since I’ve been a devout @CNN viewer since I was in my 20s.
If I wanted to watch right-wing propaganda, I’d watch Fox. So for now, it’s ONLY @MSNBC for me.
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) August 29, 2022
On Wednesday, Cooper wrote that Licht was fired “after doing horrible damage to CNN’s reputation,” an apparent nod to his belief that Licht shamefully shifted the network to the right.
The final shot in the leftist rebellion against Licht came on Friday when the Atlantic published a tell-all 15,000-word report on Licht’s tenure as CEO. The report painted an ugly picture of Licht’s crumbling the network in his attempt to drive it toward nonpartisanship, which the report contends hurt the network’s reputation. (READ MORE: CNN Is Getting Canceled for Being Too Conservative)
The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta wrote that he had sympathy for Licht’s desire to return the network to nonpartisan hard news but felt that Licht’s execution of his plan was less than desirable.
“Every move he made, big programming decisions and small tactical maneuvers alike,” Alberta wrote, “seemed to backfire.”
Emblematic of this failed execution, the Atlantic article contends, was CNN’s town hall event with former President Donald Trump last month, which the article, and many leftists, contend was a gift to Trump that platformed authoritarianism.
“CNN should be ashamed of themselves,” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the time of the event. “They have lost total control of this ‘town hall’ to again be manipulated into platforming election disinformation, defenses of Jan 6th, and a public attack on a sexual abuse victim.”
The article describes another decision Licht made that crippled the network’s reputation among liberals: He decided to “downplay the first hearing of the January 6 committee.”
Alberta writes of the leftist backlash to this decision: “[T]he incident proved unnerving. Journalists at the network already had reason to question the motives of Malone and Zaslav; now they were wary of Licht, too.”
Alberta claims that all of Licht’s decisions to shift the network away from its reputation as a liberal opinion network resulted in terrible staff morale.
“A feeling of dread saturated the company,” he concluded.
Ratings at CNN, which were terrible prior to when Licht took over the network last year, continued to tumble during Licht’s tenure. Conservatives did not buy that CNN had really shifted to the center, and the Left felt the network was capitulating to the Right. The ratings failures became especially pronounced once right-wing network Newsmax began to occasionally beat CNN in primetime ratings.
Leftists have now found success in rebelling against Licht’s centrist agenda. David Zaslav, the chief executive of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros., said Wednesday of Licht’s departure that “[f]or a number of reasons things didn’t work out, and that’s unfortunate.” CNN mainstays Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley, and Eric Sherling, as well as COO David Leavy, will take over during the search for a new CEO, Zaslav explained.
Licht’s departure makes clear that the Left is not interested in nonpartisan straight news. The only news it will accept as legitimate is that which has an explicitly leftist agenda.
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