Quick update on Chris Licht


Mr Licht is OUT.

Byers notes that the CNN Trump town hall combined with a less-than-flattering profile of Licht in The Atlantic led to “the near-total decimation of staff morale” and left Licht with few defenders at the network.

Pay heed, media people: sucking up to Trump can kill your career.

Comments

  1. cheerfulcharlie says

    ….
    .Byers also reports that “Licht will be replaced for an interim period by Amy Entelis, the revered longtime CNN executive, talent whisperer and CNN Films chief who served as a loyal deputy for years to Licht’s predecessor, Jeff Zucker.”.
    …..

    So, where does CNN go from this disaster now? Having fired real CNN journalists? This will be a little soap opera to watch. How does a major media channel deal with all the right wing crazy the U.S. is suffering from? Obviously not by coddling the GOP crazy.

  2. meson says

    I’ve heard this several times and it’s true: Everything that Trump touches dies.

  3. chrislawson says

    I would just like to reiterate that Licht’s career was not destroyed by sucking up to Trump. He only got the job, a huge step up from show producer to network CEO, by telling the owners that he would make CNN appeal to Republican voters. And he had been destroying CNN’s credibility for months in pursuit of the Republican audience with the full support of the owner. His career was destroyed, like Tucker Carlson’s, for going about the task so stupidly that he exposed the owner to unwanted attention.

  4. Doc Bill says

    CNN town hall with Nikki Haley was just as bad. Human pudding, Jake Tapper, stood mute as Haley spewed lie after lie after lie; she’s a Ronco Word Salad machine. Tapper could have paused her at numerous times to expand on a “policy” position, like so-called gun free zones, but the invertebrate eunuch did nothing.

    Fie on CNN for coddling and perpetuating untruths.

  5. birgerjohansson says

    Doc Bill @5
    Remember the part in “Jackass ” where the protagonist has someone hit his crotch with a baseball bat?
    (looks at Jake Tapper)

  6. hemidactylus says

    Despite my reservations I had stuck with CNN. They seem to have self-corrected a bit now. They were always more center than FOXNews or MSNBC. We’ll see…

  7. wzrd1 says

    It’s interesting to count just how many career fields Trump is toxic by mere proximity to.
    The man has a gift – the inverse Midas touch, for everything that he touches turns straight into shit.

  8. Dennis K says

    Owner of CNN John Malone (who donated a quarter million to the original Trump campaign and is on the board for the disgusting Cato Institute) is the problem. Dumping Licht is a bandaide on an “oopsie.” Ignore the man behind the curtain and carry on.

  9. chuckonpiggott says

    I read the article a couple of days ago. I knew something would come of it. It was not flattering at all.

  10. hemidactylus says

    Here’s another take:
    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/07/chris-licht-out-cnn-column-00100824

    I had already thought CNN was close to dead center before the recent change-up so I don’t get the alleged centering focus. When I had cable I couldn’t stomach Fox News except maybe when Lisa Kennedy had that renegade mostly libertarian Reason mag oriented The Independents on Fox Business which I tried juxtaposing with Maddow on MSNBC. I wound up annoyed with MSNBC too for the whole primetime opinion/editorial orientation instead of news itself. At least Shep Smith on Fox could provide news before he couldn’t stand the stench any longer.

    My news consumption is mostly skimming major apps: CNN, Politico, Google News, Reuters, AP and local stuff. The CNN app has been sufficient still for that, though I knew to treat it with skepticism recently as the scuttlebutt was it was revamping to become more like Fox News.

    I used to like Vox before they lost Ezra to the heavily paywalled NYT. Hated their Such and Such Explained silliness though.

    I had picked up on CounterPunch and Radio Free as alt sites thanks to lefties posting elsewhere. I should read Jacobin more and Dissent. I had been interested in Matt McManus from his appearances on Ben Burgis and Pill
    Pods.

  11. S maltophilia says

    “the near-total decimation of staff morale”

    What’s that 8 or 9%?

  12. wzrd1 says

    BTW, spent all last night snotting. This evening, I went to the store for odds and ends that were necessary. I abbreviated that trip, as less than a block from home, I choked on smoke and pollen, then vomited blood and a fair bit of dinner.
    Canadian wildfires and well, nature.
    The blood, unsure, it was bright red again, came obviously from the esophagus, not expecting doctor, who took weeks to refill beta blockers to address it with any sense of urgency.
    Annoyingly, couldn’t get the foods, such as a small ham or crab cakes, store was out of them.
    I wanted split pea soup, which needs that hambone and some carrots…

    So, why do we still have these shortages, so long after the emergency and now, after the pandemic was declared over?

  13. wzrd1 says

    Oh, CNN killed off Trump townhall idiot, then brought in Mike Pence.
    Fuck CNN, they’re now utterly blacklisted, just another whoring yellow journalism outfit.

  14. hemidactylus says

    @17- wzrd1

    There was an original meaning where decimation was reduction by a tenth.

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decimate

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment)

    “In the military of ancient Rome, decimation (from Latin decimatio ‘removal of a tenth'[1]) was a form of military discipline in which every tenth man in a group was executed by members of his cohort. The discipline was used by senior commanders in the Roman army to punish units or large groups guilty of capital offences, such as cowardice, mutiny, desertion, and insubordination, and for pacification of rebellious legions. The procedure was an attempt to balance the need to punish serious offences with the realities of managing a large group of offenders.[2]”

    Stephen Gould (pbuh) had written about this decades ago. Now people usually mean destruction of a majority of something instead.

  15. Alverant says

    Why is CNN trying to turn right? Does it think it’s going to bring in a Trump audience? Does it think liberals are going away from broadcast news to get informed and to the internet?

  16. wzrd1 says

    hemidactylus, I was unclear in my attempt at sarcasm. 8 – 9% of the staff remaining – of the original 8 – 9% that was remaining.
    Indeed, attrition can go so high as to leave a decimated unit without soldiers. Such as ordering such where there was only 1 survivor, well, other than the centurion, who administered the decimation. And well, Romans did dumber things than that over their history.

    Alverant, follow the money. They’re just following the American god, the Almighty Dollar and the far right is laying down a veritable carpet of cash.

  17. unclefrogy says

    Does it think liberals are going away from broadcast news to get informed and to the internet?

    If they are worried about where their audience is going they might ask why instead.
    Where do you go to find objective news every where you go it is selective information or BS. It seems that the only things that you see are shaped by press releases, bias and the profit motive. If you can’t find the truth and you can see that things are not going quite so well and not many are rocking the boat very much including politicians you might search out the ones who can tell a consistent story regardless of how true it is.
    So the answer seems to be find the most popular story line to tell to attract the audience to make money and maybe advance your own biased beliefs and desire for status. truth be damned