This piece by Tim Alberta about CNN’s Chris Licht is very illuminating. And it shows, once again, that these big shot media moguls are just fine with criticism from the right — they expect it. But they get enraged when it comes from the left. And they react very badly:
The new boss told people inside CNN that Tapper’s 4 o’clock show, The Lead, was the model: tough, respectful, inquisitive reporting that challenged every conceivable view and facilitated open dialogue.
Licht emphasized certain exceptions to this approach. He would not give airtime to bad actors who spread disinformation. His network would host people who like rain as well as people who don’t like rain. But, he said, CNN would not host people who deny that it’s raining when it is. This was no small caveat: More than half of Republicans in Congress had voted to throw out the electoral votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania based on lies. Meanwhile, plenty of Republicans who weren’t election deniers didn’t want to come on CNN anyway. Sensing this predicament, Licht had traveled to Capitol Hill early in his tenure, meeting with Republican leaders and promising them a fair shake under his leadership.
What Licht viewed as a diplomatic visit, his skeptics portrayed as an apology tour. The narrative taking hold in elite media circles—that CNN’s new boss was a scheming, ruthless Roger Ailes wannabe—went into overdrive. Licht was amused at first. But he soon lost his sense of humor. He called Robert Reich and rebuked him after the former labor secretary wrote a Substack post criticizing CNN. He vowed to friends that he would “destroy” Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, for a disparaging Los Angeles Times column. Licht seethed about what he saw as a coordinated attack from liberals who feared long-overdue journalistic scrutiny of their ideals.
“You have a certain segment of society that has had an unfettered megaphone to the leading journalistic organization in the world,” he said. “And at the slightest hint that that organization may not be just taking things that are fed to them from that segment of the population, it must be that a fascist is running the network and he wants to move it to the right … The fact that I want to give space to the [argument] that this thing everyone agrees with might be not right doesn’t make me a fascist right-winger who’s trying to steal Fox viewers.”
…”fed to them from that segment of the population.” Clearly criticism of Trump and the GOP’s usurpation of democracy is “feeding” propaganda to the media. Because he isn’t a fascist, goddamnit! He isn’t!
He sounds like Elon Musk.
And this is just painful:
Much of this angst at CNN, Licht argued, stemmed from skepticism about whether his vision would succeed in bringing back viewers. He acknowledged that it very well might not—or, at least, that it might take a long time. Licht was visibly bothered whenever someone brought up the network’s bad ratings. But, he assured me, David Zaslav cared more about other metrics. Success would be measured differently at CNN than it had been in the past. “This is a reputational asset for the company. It is not a profit-growth driver,” Licht said.
I asked him to define “reputational asset” in the context of an enormous, publicly traded, for-profit corporation.
“CNN, for Warner Bros. Discovery, is a reputational asset,” he said, emphasizing the phrase. “My boss believes that a strong CNN is good for the world and important to the portfolio.”
Even if it’s not making nearly the money it once did?
“So I’m told,” he said.
This sentiment struck me as particularly guileless coming from a newsman. Whatever Zaslav’s worldview, steering CNN toward the center was a business decision. In an age of fragmented media, Zaslav was convinced by Licht, among others, that broadening the network’s appeal to reach an exhausted majority of news consumers was good for the bottom line (and, perhaps as a bonus, good for America). It’s unclear whether Zaslav still believes that model is viable. There had been doubts from day one as to whether Warner Bros. Discovery planned to keep CNN; plenty of industry insiders believed Zaslav’s plan was to stabilize the network, cut costs to stop the bleeding of revenue, then flip it for a gain.
In any event, the health of CNN’s business was but one source of anxiety. I told Licht—based on my conversations with his employees, as well as the questioning from Cornish earlier in the day—that there seemed to be even greater insecurity about the journalistic ethos itself. When he’d warned Cornish about taking a “condescending tone” toward Republicans, surely it sounded to some reporters like he wanted them to coddle the crazy right-wingers who would use their platform to destabilize the country’s democratic institutions.
Licht looked annoyed. “We are not an advocacy network. And if you want to work for an advocacy network, there are other places to go,” he told me. “You can find any flavor of advocacy in a news organization that suits your need. We are providing something different. And when the shit hits the fan in this world, you’re not gonna have time for that advocacy anymore. You need an unbiased source of truth.”
I told him that some journalists, myself included, believe that truth itself needs to be advocated for.
“No one is suggesting in any way that we shy away from the truth,” he replied.
Of course they want CNN to make money and that is why they are pushing them to go right because they think that’s where the ratings — and the profits — are to be found. It’s stupid because there is a glut of right wing media already and MSNBC is taking all the normies and the liberals so I don’t know who this audience of wishy-washy, non-partisan, news audience that doesn’t need to know that right wingers are lying sacks of shit is.
He wants to tell the truth? It’s easy. The right wing is trying to destroy democracy and usher in authoritarian rule, period. Here’s what the new “it boy” of the Republican Party is saying openly on the campaign trail:
“I will be able to destroy leftism in this country and leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history.”
He’s banning books fergawdsakes. And Licht is whining about liberals being upset that one of the major networks has decided that getting to the “truth” means that it’s important to make nice with the authoritarians. It’s ludicrous.
Here’s the Elon factor again:
Licht emphasized that although he would show employees grace for certain missteps, he had no tolerance for efforts to chill reporting on controversial topics. He noted that Zucker, fearing the COVID-19 “lab-leak theory” was a xenophobic gambit that endangered Asian Americans, had essentially banned discussion of the topic on the air. This was not dissimilar, Licht suggested, to the surgeon general of the United States telling citizens at the beginning of the pandemic that wearing masks wouldn’t help them—not because it was a fact, but because the government wanted to prevent a run on the masks needed for first responders.
He goes on and on about COVID and it’s enough to make you lose your lunch. He’s one step away from saying that anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers had a point. Leter in the piece he says:
Right on cue, one of Luntz’s students asked Licht about the trap of false equivalency. She seemed less interested in litigating the respective crimes of Fox News and MSNBC—though that played into her question—and more concerned with Licht’s overall attitude toward the news. There is, she reminded him, “one truth” on some fundamental questions facing the country. Trump had lost the 2020 election; Barack Obama had been born in the United States; we know how many deaths have been caused by COVID.
Licht pounced. “Wait a second. We don’t know how many deaths there were from COVID,” he said.
She frowned at him.
“No, really, we don’t,” Licht said. As the son of a doctor, he believed there were “legitimate conversations” to be had about the death toll attached to COVID-19. Perhaps some patients had been admitted to hospitals with life-threatening illnesses before the pandemic began, then died with a positive diagnosis, Licht postulated. “Where we run into trouble is when you say, ‘No. Come on. We’re not even having that conversation,’” he told the students. “That goes to trust as much as anything else. If you’re solid on your facts, then you should be able to entertain that discussion.”
He’s just asking questions, you see.
The head of CNN is a conspiracy theorist.
We were in the middle of a fucking pandemic, society was crumbling and nobody knew how many people were going to drop dead! Everything was in flux, nurses were wearing fucking garbage bags because there wasn’t enough PPE! And this is what Licht is using this as an example of how CNN failed to tell the truth? Please. It was an emergency and everyone was scrambling in those early days to try to contain the fallout.
And as you no doubt already know, this is patented right wing bullshit and he’s listening to it because the liberals hurt his feefees. It always ends up like this. Right wingers can call them every name in the book but the liberals are required to treat them like little princes or it’s time to go to the mattresses against the left.
I mean:
Licht argued that the media’s blind spots owe to a lack of diversity—and not the lack of diversity that he sees newsrooms obsessing over. He wants to recruit reporters who are deeply religious and reporters who grew up on food stamps and reporters who own guns. Licht recalled a recent dustup with his own diversity, equity, and inclusion staff after making some spicy remarks at a conference. “I said, ‘A Black person, a brown person, and an Asian woman that all graduated the same year from Harvard is not diversity,’” he told me.
A minute later—after noting how sharing that anecdote could get him in trouble, and pausing to consider what he would say next—Licht added: “I think ‘Defund the police’ would’ve been covered differently if newsrooms were filled with people who had lived in public housing.” I asked him why. “They have a different relationship with their need with the police,” he said.
Right.It’s pretty clear what he meant the first time.
“Chris was absolutely, positively, without question the right choice for CNN,” the teacher told his students, motioning toward the man seated in front of them. “There is nothing more important in America today than trust. I’m praying that Chris is successful. I want him to have this job for 10 years. Because anything less than 10 years will not give him the opportunity to make the most important changes to the most important news source on the face of the Earth. I have every faith that he will succeed, and every fear for this country if he doesn’t.”
He turned to face Licht. The teacher’s eyes were watery. His voice was choked with emotion. “My hopes and dreams are embodied in you,” he said.
This was quite an introduction, especially considering the man who gave it: Frank Luntz.
I think that says it all.
CNN is probably doomed to end up as a watered down Fox news whether Licht stays or not and it’s not looking good for him. Because despite his assertions to the contrary, that is the mission of the board of directors of Discovery-Time Warner and that’s the way it’s going to be. At the end of the article Alberta makes it sound as if Licht is doing all he’s doing to placate David Zasloff his right wing corporate boss. The Frank Luntz connection contradicts that. Licht and Zasloff are on the same page.
It’s pathetic, but at least CNN helped us through the Trump administration and, God willing, there won’t be another one. God help us all if there is.
