Chris Licht has replied to criticism of CNN’s current news coverage, calling some of it “uniformed hatred” and saying that most of what “passes for journalism is name-calling, half-truths, and desperation.”
In a recent interview published Sunday by The New York Times, the network’s CEO discussed his exit from late night, his relationship with Warner Bros.
Discovery CEO David Zaslav, and his (publicly criticized) choices during his first eight months as CEO of the media firm. It includes revenue losses, the complete reduction of HLN, the closure of CNN+ after less than a month, and other, more recent layoffs, which he previously told staffers would not occur as a result of the Warner-Discovery merger — and which now have him feeling like “I have to win that credibility back” with staffers.
CNN’s CEO told the Times that outside criticism of the company’s many moves in the last eight months, particularly from media pundits like a former colleague and former MSNBC personality Keith Olbermann, has been misguided. “The misinformed venom, particularly from the left,” he said, “has been startling,” proving his thesis that “so much of what passes for journalism is name-calling, half-truths, and desperation.”
Licht was responding to criticism of his approach to featured speakers on the network, which he says is geared at providing “a logical discourse about divisive issues” and a version of the news that is not dictated by Trump “24/7.” It’s an approach that has been chastised in the aftermath of hires such as Stephen Gutowski, founder, and editor of firearms website The Reload, by those such as Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, a grassroots organization affiliated with Everytown that advocates for public safety measures to combat gun violence.
Nobody wants a shooting at a school, Licht told the Times.
“But we must understand the culture of gun owners,” he remarked before adding, “this is not vanilla, centrist, or uninteresting.”
The statements were identical to those he made to the Financial Times in late November, telling the outlet that “one of the major misconceptions about my worldview is that I want to be bland and middle of the road. That is nonsense.”
“You must be compelling. You must have a competitive edge.
In many circumstances, you must choose a side. So, he says, you never ask the appropriate questions. But you don’t see it through a left or right lens, she said.
Licht has also been chastised for his approach to CNN primetime, which has seen him move Don Lemon out of primetime and into a morning show slot with CNN This Morning, and Jake Tapper temporarily into primetime to occupy Chris Cuomo’s old time slot. This experiment lasted only a month.
Despite the missteps and criticisms, Licht sees primetime as an “open canvas” and a venue with “some latitude for being a little unusual.” That strategy has resulted in him and his staff “throwing stuff against the wall, looking for off-the-beaten-path opportunities” with celebrities, comedians, and athletes. It must be engaging and entertaining without compromising the news organization’s reputation.
According to Licht, examples of “the kind of people who’d work” are Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. He stated to the New York Times, “I want CNN to be essential to the community. “If you’re indispensable, revenue will follow.”
