THIS IS CNN: Don Lemon goes berserker on Kaitlan Collins

Not sure he'd want to do it, but Dean Baquet would add some credibility at the top of the organizational chart. Or Marty Baron.

 

Everything Trump Touches Dies

 

Recently leaked video of Licht meeting with Trump to set up the town hall.

 

If they had any brains, they'd go back to Jeff Zucker. He got canned for a bullshit reason, anyway.

 

CNN has been a flaming pile of dog poo since AOL. It was a dysfunctional place when I worked for Turner Sports and only got worse when it started losing the ratings war to Fox. Television, first and foremost, is a vehicle to print money. Journalistic integrity, although a wonderful notion, is a sorry second to getting eyeballs for advertisers.

Zucker was a bad hire not just because he had zero newsroom experience. He took over NBC and basically ran it into the ground, so the idea that he'd somehow fix CNN was ludicrous.

Enter David Zaslav with the Discovery merger. He's been nothing more than a smoke and mirrors guy for his entire career, and hiring Licht showed he was even more clueless than Zucker, if that's possible.

If there's a common thread from AOL, AT&T and the current regime, it's two decades of really stupid people making really stupid decisions.

 

Zaslav 2: Maybe This Time I'll Make A Couple Phone Calls

 

Excellent take, Maumann.
To excerpt part of it:
"Television, first and foremost, is a vehicle to print money. Journalistic integrity, although a wonderful notion, is a sorry second to getting eyeballs for advertisers."
Ed Murrow was worried about this way back when.

 

The weird thing is, I doubt anyone is not watching CNN because of all the behind the scenes drama.

 

Analysis from Ben Smith:

https://www.semafor.com/article/06/07/2023/cnn-christ-licht-steps-down

Licht’s departure is on its surface a management debacle and a reminder that you can’t run a television network if you can’t keep your key asset, the high-profile on-air talent, happy. And now it’s a hard management crisis to fix, Zaslav has been half-running the place all along, and I’m not sure who will want to half-run it with him now.

...

Jeff Zucker’s tenure at CNN was less a statement about what news ought to be than a heroic feat of television magic. He staved off irrelevance because he saw clearly that there was only one big pool of viewers left for CNN, MSNBC’s alarmed Democratic audience. He competed aggressively and head-to-head for them. He was aided by Donald Trump, whose politics almost required a confrontation with The Establishment, represented by its most famous brands.

 

Half-joking: name Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen as CNN Co-CEOs.