News

just when it would be beneficial to Israel

On 30 August 2023, Thompson was named the CEO of CNN

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/07/chris-licht-out-cnn-column-00100824

Licht (previous CEO) “lost” the newsroom, as people like to put it when the newsroom rebels against a new boss. A similar thing happened to Howell Raines, who was essentially ousted as executive editor of the New York Times by the newsroom in 2003 after 21 months at the top after proving charm deficient. Employees tend to resist new bosses unless given a reason to embrace them. Raines, and now Licht, provided no such reason, and suffered for it. Journalists love to complain, and they love to leak on their bosses when peeved. “Top talent began to turn on Licht,” as Alberta put it. The CNN newsroom’s dissatisfaction with Licht was already a media beat staple before the Atlantic story, which made CNN management and not the network itself the story. A bad look.

Also, let's not pretend that CNN was fine until Israel's need for control over American narratives. Case in point: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/10/objective-cnn-rightwing-week-in-patriarchy

Licht was trash and it spurred a lot of distrust and dislike among CNN users over the pandering to conservatives and the wannabe mango Mussolini

Sat 10 Sep 2022 09.00 EDT CNN wants to be the new Fox News and it’s not even trying to hide it. Earlier this year Chris Licht became the new CEO of the cable network and immediately made it clear that he was going to change the network’s direction. One of Licht’s first moves was to embark on what Axios described as a “Capitol Hill diplomacy tour” and others described as a Republican boot-licking tour. Licht met with lawmakers who had become wary of cable news and promised them that CNN was moving away from “alarmist” programming towards more neutral, objective reporting.

What does that mean in practice? Well, it appears to mean firing anyone who is critical of Donald Trump or Republicans. Last month CNN suddenly axed Brian Stelter’s Sunday show in a move many commentators considered politically motivated; Stelter had been an outspoken critic of Trump and was reviled by many on the right. Earlier this month White House correspondent John Harwood was fired shortly after calling Trump “a dishonest demagogue” on the air.

It’s not just who was fired that is alarming – it’s the abrupt manner in which they were fired. As the media analyst Josh Marshall noted, “The most striking thing about Licht’s firings to date is how they are choreographed for … right-wing media consumption and designed to generate mass schadenfreude on the right: the bête noires Fox has been harping on for years suddenly marched to the top of the pyramid and hurled to the ground.” Licht says he’s moving away from sensational news, but he appears to be putting on his own little drama for the right.

After purging progressive voices, Licht has just made his first big hire: announcing on Tuesday that John Miller would be joining CNN as the network’s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst. Miller isn’t exactly an obvious hire if you’re looking to brandish your new “neutrality” credentials. The former New York police department (NYPD) deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism is an extremely polarizing figure who made headlines in March when he testified to the New York city council that the NYPD did not, in his opinion, inappropriately spy on Muslims after the September 11 attacks. Which is a weird thing to say because Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting has clearly shown that the NYPD used census data to spy on Muslims following September 11 and the department has settled a number of lawsuits related to the illegal spying.

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