Left wing cable news outlet CNN is once again looking for a new leader after news broke this week that CEO Chris Licht is out at the Atlanta-based company.
And while there are several factors at play in Licht’s removal, it is tough to overstate the role former President Donald Trump played. After all, the network’s internal collapse intensified after Trump victoriously starred in a CNN town hall broadcast that undoubtedly was meant to end otherwise.
By all accounts the program went far worse for the leftist platform than anyone could have conceived. The audience was heavily in the corner of the former president, and moderator Kaitlan Collins was clearly out of her league.
The left does not appreciate being shown up in the way Trump so forcefully did.
UNREAL: It looks like new CNN CEO Chris Licht Is OUT at CNN, after the brutal backlash the company faced after hosting the Trump town hall.
Morale amongst CNN employees apparently plummeted to an all time low following the disastrous town hall, which was packed with Trump… pic.twitter.com/S7QNCehCVW
— Really American 🇺🇸 (@ReallyAmerican1) June 7, 2023
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that several of the network’s mouthpieces, low rated as they are, hit the streets to criticize Licht and call for his head. He was brought in to drag the flagging outlet towards the political center, a nearly impossible task.
The doomed CNN CEO did not help his own cause when he allowed virtually unlimited access to his job performance to The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta.
What was written about Licht, whether it directly caused his dismissal or not, certainly hastened his exit.
The harsh expose highlighted Licht’s words to Trump before the town hall spectacle. The CEO told the former president to “have fun,” and, as Alberta noted, “Trump obliged.”
The Atlantic piece went on to declare that Licht lost the trust of CNN. His circle got smaller over the past year and he became prone to venting grievances to the writer.
He was criticized for being tone deaf in making major moves at the network. Licht defended them as his way of fixing what was wrong and declared that “there has to be a source of absolute truth.”
Alberta wrote that Licht was hamstrung with obsessions over his media persona as well as his predecessor, Jeff Zucker. He also apparently shamed his CNN staff for their obsessive coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He once pounded the table and declared, “Look at the case numbers! No context.”
CNN is a sinking ship taking on massive volumes of water. Licht was brought in to bring credibility to a network — and an industry — that has little to none. It was an impossible task.
