Chris Licht Out at CNN

[finnbow]

Embattled CNN chief executive Chris Licht is out at the cable network capping weeks of tumult within the company following a highly-criticized town hall with former president Donald Trump and a scathing article that portrayed the CEO as all but failing at leading the company.

Staff were notified on Wednesday morning that Licht will be leaving the company by David Zaslav, chief executive of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media...hall-atlantic/

Perhaps sucking up to the Cheeto Benito wasn't the smartest move after all.

[donquixote99]

Trumps pending indictment is hurrying up a lot of decision-making.

[Rajoo]

A good summation by The Atlantic of this person of interest, but not for long.

In a roughly 15,000-word profile published last week by the Atlantic, CNN chief executive Chris Licht, who has complained that the network’s journalists were too opinionated when Donald Trump was president, gave a lot of, well, opinions.

He expressed skepticism about defunding the police and about using trans-inclusive language when referring to people who give birth to children. He implied people of color with Harvard degrees don’t add diversity to newsrooms and suggested that the news media should have more reporters who are religious, who own guns and who lived on food stamps as kids. He speculated that covid-19 deaths might have been overcounted by public officials. He said journalists should not “virtue signal” and that it’s hard to have “difficult conversations without being demonized or labeled.”

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/im...sid=rian_photo


And now he gets the well deserved boot in the ass.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...antic-profile/

[donquixote99]

"...and that it’s hard to have “difficult conversations without being demonized or labeled.”"

Judge not, lest thee be judged....

[whell]

Another opinion, which I think might be closer to the mark:

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign...tand-a-chance/

According to the New York Times, Zaslav said “he believes that CNN’s coverage veered too far into ‘advocacy’ journalism under his predecessor, Jeff Zucker. Mr. Licht has sought to include on-air perspectives from commentators and newsmakers across the political spectrum, including conservatives.”

Good idea, but that’s not what CNN viewers wanted. People tune into cable news to get precisely what Zaslav and Licht were trying to get away from — advocacy journalism.

Unless it’s a story about the first shots fired in a foreign war, or about terrorists attacking Americans on 9/11, viewers don’t tune in to get down-the-middle, straight news reporting. They tune in to get their own biases validated by famous people on TV.

And finally, this:

We no longer live in the media world of Walter Cronkite, who was once voted the most trusted man in America. We live in hyper-partisan times, and cable news both reflects that American divide and exacerbates the divisions — for ratings and for advertising dollars.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

Another opinion, which I think might be closer to the mark:

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign...tand-a-chance/

According to the New York Times, Zaslav said “he believes that CNN’s coverage veered too far into ‘advocacy’ journalism under his predecessor, Jeff Zucker. Mr. Licht has sought to include on-air perspectives from commentators and newsmakers across the political spectrum, including conservatives.”

Good idea, but that’s not what CNN viewers wanted. People tune into cable news to get precisely what Zaslav and Licht were trying to get away from — advocacy journalism.

Unless it’s a story about the first shots fired in a foreign war, or about terrorists attacking Americans on 9/11, viewers don’t tune in to get down-the-middle, straight news reporting. They tune in to get their own biases validated by famous people on TV.

And finally, this:

We no longer live in the media world of Walter Cronkite, who was once voted the most trusted man in America. We live in hyper-partisan times, and cable news both reflects that American divide and exacerbates the divisions — for ratings and for advertising dollars.

Put another way:

"I don't know if anybody at this point is capable of doing what Chris set out to do, which is sort of reimagining the mainstream media's relationship with a GOP base that has been sort of systematically manipulated into not trusting the mainstream media for decades."

- Tim Alberta

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by whell

Another opinion, which I think might be closer to the mark:

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign...tand-a-chance/

According to the New York Times, Zaslav said “he believes that CNN’s coverage veered too far into ‘advocacy’ journalism under his predecessor, Jeff Zucker. Mr. Licht has sought to include on-air perspectives from commentators and newsmakers across the political spectrum, including conservatives.”

Good idea, but that’s not what CNN viewers wanted. People tune into cable news to get precisely what Zaslav and Licht were trying to get away from — advocacy journalism.

Unless it’s a story about the first shots fired in a foreign war, or about terrorists attacking Americans on 9/11, viewers don’t tune in to get down-the-middle, straight news reporting. They tune in to get their own biases validated by famous people on TV.

And finally, this:

We no longer live in the media world of Walter Cronkite, who was once voted the most trusted man in America. We live in hyper-partisan times, and cable news both reflects that American divide and exacerbates the divisions — for ratings and for advertising dollars.

Actually finally this:
Chris Licht wanted to make CNN into the ideological successor to FAUXNOOZ. Buh-bye Chris.

Mikey thinks he gets his straight down the middle news reporting at FAUXNOOZ.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by whell

We no longer live in the media world of Walter Cronkite, who was once voted the most trusted man in America. We live in hyper-partisan times, and cable news both reflects that American divide and exacerbates the divisions — for ratings and for advertising dollars.

We don't want the world of Cronkite. What we should want is the world of Murrow. Cronkite supported the commercialization of television news. Murrow wanted advertising during TV news broadcasts minimized, if not eliminated altogether. The major entertainment networks were making a fortune giving us only 42 minutes of program time in every hour long program...22 minutes in every half hour program, a a they still are. Cronkite was a tool of TV advertising, and he used this to convince Paley at CBS that Murrow should no longer be director of CBS NEWS. There was more and more interference in the content of Murrow's segments like "See It Now" and the CBS documentary news series "CBS Reports." If there was one man who saved this country from the scourge of Joseph McCarthy, it was Murrow. It took Murrow to turn the ignorant American electorate against McCarthy, no doubt one of whell's heroes. Cronkite reported on the murder of JFK...big fucking deal.

Murrow was the best.