From the day he took over CNN in 2022, David Zaslav, head of Warner Bros. Discovery, was clear about what he wanted from the cable news network. Publicly and privately, he has told his colleagues, reporters and other interested parties that he wants the network to move away from what it sees as left-leaning “advocacy” and in a more “balanced” direction. His CNN will not be anti-Trump, it will be a welcome one for Republicans.
Zaslav’s handpicked CNN leader, Chris Licht, seemed to struggle with the task in the months that followed, but Zaslav backed him up with the ultimate blank line: “View ratings suck.” .
Evaluations will certainly continue. cursedSo did Licht’s term, which came to an abrupt end after just over a year when Zaslav reached his breaking point on Wednesday.
Licht’s dismissal immediately raised critical questions, not only in the TV news industry, but in other industries as well. In today’s era of fragmented on-demand media, where viewers have come to seek news on their own terms, does a disjointed and independent approach to news work? And will it work in a very niche area, especially cables?
Ultimately, Licht’s efforts seem to have satisfied no one. And the early opinion of some news commentators was that he failed because: his mission was impossiblea dead idea of a bygone era.
Indeed, Licht’s short tenure does not provide an easy answer. His mission was largely doomed by the peculiar form of his mission, his own failures, and his apparently incomplete understanding of the network that existed before his arrival.
But it made clear how difficult it was to find success where Mr. Licht was sent in search.Polarization is Sky-high, and the Americans are occupying dueling information silos. Cable has been a profit-splitting medium from the beginning, but now it’s competing with social media, where the most successful items tend to be the most partisan and provocative.
But nevertheless, trying to create a media version of a shared public square is a question of what it means to strike a “balance,” or give “both voices” an equal voice. It is especially difficult without a clear concept. As Zaslav says. Especially when former President Donald J. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, continues to falsely claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.
And several current and former CNN staffers say that precisely that clarity of concept was what was lacking under Mr. Licht and his boss, Mr. Zaslav, who followed him. This definition was shaped more by what they didn’t want—everything that happened before them under Mr. Licht’s predecessor Jeff Zucker—more than what they wanted.
Some of them were erroneous responses from upper management that created early mistrust among CNN staff and undermined Licht before the merger of Discovery and CNN’s parent company WarnerMedia was completed. pointed out.
In a November 2021 interview with CNBC, cable pioneer John Malone, a prominent Warner Bros. Discovery board member, spoke about his hopes for CNN under the new corporate structure. It seemed to slander and praise Fox News.
“In my opinion, Fox News news News, that is, real journalism with every opinion embedded in the schedule. ” Mr Malone said. “I would love to see CNN evolve back to journalism as it was supposed to be and actually have journalists, so it would be unique and fresh.”
It was taken as a disrespect for a press that was actually full of high-profile journalists. Many of them looked up to Zucker, who was fired in February 2022 for not reporting a romantic relationship at work.
“His suggestion that the thousands of journalists on CNN weren’t real was extremely insulting,” said Brian Stelter, a former top media correspondent for the network and former New York Times reporter. . (Under Zucker, Stelter has emerged as the personification of the network’s sometimes belligerent defense against the “fake news” attacks Trump has launched against it, and has become a regular target of conservative criticism. He will be one of the first high profile anchors Lihit’s cut.) “I think what many CNN staffers felt was that Mr. Malone wanted CNN to be closer to Fox.”
Stelter argues that the network was already recalibrating for the post-Trump era when Zaslav took office. Many staff members agreed with Mr. Licht on the general idea that the network should play fair, and Mr. Licht and other staff viewed the new leadership as “beating a straw man.” was
For example, one of the things Zaslav and Licht made clear was that they wanted to overturn Republican resistance to CNN appearances. “Republicans are back on the air again” Zaslav declared: at a press conference in May. “Republicans weren’t aired.”
But the notion that including Republicans in programming was a novelty for the station contradicted recent history.
Early in Trump’s rise, Zucker gave Trump too much uncritical airtime and hired pro-Trump analysts like Jeffrey Lord and Corey Lewandowski outright. was criticized for
The tone has certainly changed as CNN, like many other news outlets, has become more aggressive in challenging Trump’s false statements. He also denigrated them as “fake news” and “enemies of the people.”
Few people were attacked by Mr. Trump the way CNN was.the memory is still fresh mail bomb terror It took place in a New York office in 2018, but was part of a hushed environment before Licht and Zaslav arrived.
Even now, Zucker’s fans at the station — and there are still many — will say that even though his avatar on CNN seemed furious at times, it was to defend the truth. .
“Under the Zucker administration, CNN said, ‘We may sound furious, but we are condemning lies and defending the truth. If it sounds like that, so be it,” said Frank Sesno, former CNN Washington bureau chief and now professor of media and public relations at George Washington University.
Cessno also said he believes it’s the network’s duty to “tone down certain elements and bring some back” after Trump takes office. But Licht was wrong, he said.
“What Licht was really trying to do, and it didn’t work, was that he was trying to change the tone, and it sounded like a substantial change.” Cessno said.
The town hall CNN held with Trump last month wasn’t particularly unusual by the standards of the 2016 campaign. Of course, that was before the turmoil caused by four years of the Trump administration and his election lies fueled the Jan. 6, 2021 riots.
Licht’s handling of City Hall will help determine his fate – especially in support of the ex-president who lies and attacks CNN host Caitlan Collins, who serves as an Inquisitor. His decision to stage it in front of an ardent pro-Trump audience.
There seems to be broad consensus within CNN that the execution was bad. In the first place, there was little uniformity in holding events at the city hall. After all, Trump was the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.
On air the next night, Anderson Cooper acknowledged the viewers’ disappointment by asking: “Do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with will make them leave?”
Within the next few days, it appeared that the answer had arrived. The network had its worst viewership week in eight years.
Even now, Mr. Zaslav seems to be sticking to his strategy. “Evaluation is ridiculous,” he said. But history shows that no television strategy can withstand the eternal ratings spell.
