2023-06-07 19:18:34
In the meantime, the American network will be led by a pool of managers coordinated by David Leavy. Licht’s fate was marked by a series of mistakes that made him lose the trust of the editorial staff: among them a controversial meeting with Donald Trump
NEW YORK – For a year in the storm after the departure of the historic boss, jeff sugarand the settlement of a new property, Warner Bros-Discovery, aimed at moving the progressive network more towards the centre, the Cnn now living the chaotic moment of dismissal of a managing director, Chris lightwho just two days ago promised to do everything to regain the trust of my employees and who had seen his trust reaffirmed by the head of Discovery, David Zaslav.
But it was Zaslav himself who introduced himself this morning at the editorial meeting of the world-famous television network: I want you to be the first to know. And to learn it from me: I met Licht and he leaves CNN. I wish him a wonderful career: he was wholeheartedly committed to us but, for a variety of reasons, things didn’t work out. In the end it’s up to me to decide: I take full responsibility for what happened and wish him good luck.
The company boss added that the search for a new leader for the Cnn it could take months. In the meantime, the network will be led by a pool of managers coordinated by David Leavy appointed general manager just a few days ago to put the group back in order. Leavy was due to take up duty on June 20, but the rush of events forced him to disembark immediately.
In recent days, to the first twenty that seemed to announce an incoming tornado, we had written that the Americans, veterans from fictionimaginary but not too much, of Succession – with the exciting power disputes of the The Murdoch dynasty owner, among other things, of Fox
, the tv network megaphone of conservatives and trumpism – were about to witness another editorial drama: that of the fate of Fox’s main rival, the Cnn.
Changed ownership, a year ago the network that was divided with Msnbc l’progressive audience of Americabegan a course correction in Licht’s belief that more centrist information would allow the Cnn to conquer new market shares. It didn’t go like this: in recent months the network’s audience has undergone a significant contraction (-30% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2020 when Trump was still in the White House), while profits dropped from one billion and 250 million in 2021 to 750 million in 2022.
But, more than the results, Licht’s fate was sealed by a series of mistakes that made him lose the trust of the entire editorial staff: from the controversial meeting with Donald Trump in a town hall meeting organized with a Trumpian audience who cheered the falsehoods repeated in bursts by the former president and opposed the legitimate questions of the interviewer, to the decision to open the doors to the journalist Tim Alberta of the magazine The Atlantic who for months followed him everywhere, collecting all his confidences.
As compared to Succession the Shakespearean drama of Cnn has one key difference: with dynasties everything happens more slowly and nobody leaves the scene definitively, due to family and property ties. Where everything is entrusted to the managers, changes can, on the other hand, be more sudden and definitive.
In the case of the Cnnin crisis for some time, the drama unfolded in a breathtaking sequence that lasted just six days: last Friday the publication of the gigantic (15,000 words) article by Atlantic in which Alberta draws the merciless portrait of a vulgar, superficial, approximate company manager in strategic choices, unable to predict the deleterious effects of his moves. And who does not spare sharp judgments on the journalists of the group, while judging the line followed by the network during the pandemic as wrong. Sunday Jeff Zucker, ousted in February 2022 over a romantic relationship with another manager of the Cnn (consensual relationship but contrary to company rules), delivering a speech in front of recent Yale graduates: he claims he was shot off on a pretext when he disclosed the affair (I gave them a gun and they shot me) and harshly criticizes the Licht management.
On Monday Zaslav, a former friend of Zucker, confirmed his trust in Licht while people close to him invited the former boss (who continues to be in contact with CNN journalists who he led for ten years) to put his mind at peace and stop to fan the fire. At the same time Licht appears before the editorial staff with his head covered in ashes. He apologizes for the criticisms of journalists that ended up Atlanticpromises to regain their trust, starting with the decision to bring his office back to the editorial staff, after isolating himself for a year on the 19th floor of the skyscraper Cnn at Hudson Yards.
He didn’t have time to move the desk.
June 7, 2023 (change June 7, 2023 | 19:21)
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