This morning, CNN fired its CEO Chris Licht, after only one year at the network. All available indicators suggest it is a good move.
Even looking from the outside, it has been clear that CNN has been kind of a mess over the past few months — at least partly due to Licht’s new leadership. This becomes particularly true in light of a 15,000-word Atlantic profile that was “devastating” to him and “essentially dealt a fatal blow” to his tenure. It “painted Licht as aloof and completely disconnected from his staff.”
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He came into the CEO job with a mandate to bring major change, and stability, to the network after the scandal-filled tenure of Jeff Zucker.
CNN was rightly seen as a partisan network awash with corruption and hypocrisy — see Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon, Zucker himself — and hostile to conservatives. Licht wanted to win back the trust of conservatives. At the time, the Washington Free Beacon reported that “The CNN chief spent between 45 minutes and an hour cajoling GOP lawmakers who no longer appear on the network to come back on the air — and assuring them he'd praise producers for inviting them and communicate his displeasure if he doesn't believe they are treated fairly”
So far, so good. Also, over time, Licht fired some of the worst personalities at the company, like Don Lemon and Brian Stelter. Where, then, did he go wrong?
In two places. First, as suggested by the Atlantic profile, he just wasn’t a great boss. That will create a general sense of discontent among employees that — particularly when one is also not getting results — will lead to termination quite quickly.
But second, and more importantly, there are more foundational problems at play here with CNN.
Fox News and MSNBC are basically both open about their partisanship. They have partisan hosts who use partisan talking points. Evidently, there is an audience for that. Their ratings are great. Based on the rise of independent media and podcasting over the past few years, we can also conclude that there is a real appetite for fact-driven, non-partisan media.
What appeals to many about independent media is that they are not beholden to a particular political party or agenda; they call it how they see it and undermine both left-wing and right-wing narratives.
Where does this leave CNN?
Well, in today’s world, there is almost no appetite for a corporate press outlet that, on one hand, says its objective but, on the other, won’t question the ideas and narratives of the liberal political establishment. In other words, there is simply no appetite anymore for the kind of outlet that CNN is.
If one has any doubts that this is what CNN does, then one need only look at their coverage of COVID-19. They did nothing but repeat talking points from the CDC and liberal politicians over and over again, painting politicians like Gov. Ron DeSantis as killers while providing cover for Andrew Cuomo. There is a reason they lost public trust over their coverage.
So, based on reporting, it seems true that Chis Licht was bad at his job. But the problems also run much deeper for CNN.
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The issue is that few people at the network probably even realize this.
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.