In a letter to CNN employees Licht stated there would be changes to CNN.
“Our viewers demand the truth from us, and I want to learn the truth from you. Together, we will double-down on what’s working well and quickly eliminate what’s not,” Licht stated.
Those changes reportedly involved rolling back the network’s primetime lineup of left-wing opinion hosts like Don Lemon, Jim Acosta and Anderson Cooper.
Axios’s Mike Allen exclusively reported:
“Under new chief Chris Licht, CNN will dial down the prime-time partisanship and double down on the network’s news-gathering muscle, top sources tell me…
…Between the lines: Axios is told that Licht and Zaslav share a view that CNN was chasing prime-time ratings at the expense of the brand.
Zaslav wants to move CNN back to the middle.
Licht expanded on what he meant by changes being on the way and hinted that Axios’ reporting was correct by writing that CNN would focus on “NEWS” – which Licht wrote in all caps which is the universal sign for emphasis.
“The honest answer is that I don’t know yet. David Zaslav has given me one simple directive: To ensure that CNN remains the global leader in NEWS as part of Warner Bros. Discovery,” Licht added.
Zaslav hinted changes were on the way to CNN’s editorial slant telling CNBC that CNN developed the reputation as the leader in news “for the left.”
CNN’s slogan used to be “the most trusted name in news.”
But after Trump won the 2016 election Jeff Zucker pushed CNN over the edge and the network morphed into a group therapy session for liberals to work out their anxieties about Trump’s win.
Under Zucker CNN turned into a factory of fake news latching on to every deranged anti-Trump conspiracy theory.
But CNN is under new management.
Discovery merged with Warner Media and David Zaslav is now calling the shots.
Discovery markets the Discovery Channel as programming for middle America.
And now it looks like Zaslav is pushing CNN to adopt that model and stop shaping its coverage to fit the political sensibilities of liberals in New York City and Los Angeles.
