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Inside the Meltdown at CNN (after the ill-advised Trump Town Hall)
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/06/cnn-ratings-chris-licht-trump/674255/When he took the helm of CNN, in May 2022, Licht had promised a reset with Republican voters—and with their leader. He had swaggered into the job, telling his employees that the network had lost its way under former President Jeff Zucker; that their hostile approach to Trump had alienated a broader viewership that craved sober, fact-driven coverage. These assertions thrust Licht into a two-front war: fighting to win back Republicans who had written off the network, while also fighting to win over his own journalists, many of whom believed their new boss was scapegoating them to appease his new boss, David Zaslav, who’d hired Licht with a decree to move CNN toward the ideological center.
One year into the job, Licht was losing both battles. Ratings, in decline since Trump left office, had dropped to new lows. Employee morale was even worse. A feeling of dread saturated the company. Licht had accepted the position with ambitions to rehabilitate the entire news industry, telling his peers that Trump had broken the mainstream media and that his goal was to do nothing less than “save journalism.” But Licht had lost the confidence of his own newsroom. Because of this, he had come to view the prime-time event with Trump as the moment that would vindicate his pursuit of Republican viewers while proving to his employees that he possessed a revolutionary vision for their network and the broader news media.
Trump had other ideas.
For 70 minutes in Manchester, the former president overpowered CNN’s moderator, Kaitlan Collins, with a continuous blast of distortion, hyperbole, and lies. The audience of Trump devotees delighted in his aggression toward Collins, cheering him on so loudly and so purposefully that what began as a journalistic forum devolved into a WWE match before the first voter asked a question. Vince McMahon himself could not have written a juicier script: Trump was the heroic brawler—loathed by the establishment, loved by the masses—trying to reclaim a title wrongly taken from him, while Collins, standing in for the villainous elites who dared to question the protagonist’s virtue, was cast as the heel. “She’s not very nice,” Trump told the studio audience, pointing toward Collins while she stood just offstage during the first commercial break.
. . .
“Does CNN count that as an in-kind campaign donation?” the longtime broadcaster Dan Rather tweeted.
Rather’s comment was gentle compared with the torrent of criticism aimed at CNN. “Ready to call it: This was a terrible idea,” the conservative writer Ramesh Ponnuru tweeted, just nine minutes into the event. “CNN should be ashamed of themselves,” tweeted Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “This is an absolute joke,” tweeted former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger. “Chris Licht is rapidly becoming the Elon Musk of CNN,” tweeted The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes.
When Licht found me in the lobby, commenting on how not boring the night had been, it wasn’t clear how much of the blowback he’d already seen. What was clear was that Licht knew this was bad—very, very bad. Republicans were angry at CNN. Democrats were angry at CNN. Journalists were angry at CNN. The only one who wasn’t angry, it seemed, was Trump, most likely because he’d succeeded in disgracing the network on its own airwaves. . . .
One year into the job, Licht was losing both battles. Ratings, in decline since Trump left office, had dropped to new lows. Employee morale was even worse. A feeling of dread saturated the company. Licht had accepted the position with ambitions to rehabilitate the entire news industry, telling his peers that Trump had broken the mainstream media and that his goal was to do nothing less than “save journalism.” But Licht had lost the confidence of his own newsroom. Because of this, he had come to view the prime-time event with Trump as the moment that would vindicate his pursuit of Republican viewers while proving to his employees that he possessed a revolutionary vision for their network and the broader news media.
Trump had other ideas.
For 70 minutes in Manchester, the former president overpowered CNN’s moderator, Kaitlan Collins, with a continuous blast of distortion, hyperbole, and lies. The audience of Trump devotees delighted in his aggression toward Collins, cheering him on so loudly and so purposefully that what began as a journalistic forum devolved into a WWE match before the first voter asked a question. Vince McMahon himself could not have written a juicier script: Trump was the heroic brawler—loathed by the establishment, loved by the masses—trying to reclaim a title wrongly taken from him, while Collins, standing in for the villainous elites who dared to question the protagonist’s virtue, was cast as the heel. “She’s not very nice,” Trump told the studio audience, pointing toward Collins while she stood just offstage during the first commercial break.
. . .
“Does CNN count that as an in-kind campaign donation?” the longtime broadcaster Dan Rather tweeted.
Rather’s comment was gentle compared with the torrent of criticism aimed at CNN. “Ready to call it: This was a terrible idea,” the conservative writer Ramesh Ponnuru tweeted, just nine minutes into the event. “CNN should be ashamed of themselves,” tweeted Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “This is an absolute joke,” tweeted former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger. “Chris Licht is rapidly becoming the Elon Musk of CNN,” tweeted The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes.
When Licht found me in the lobby, commenting on how not boring the night had been, it wasn’t clear how much of the blowback he’d already seen. What was clear was that Licht knew this was bad—very, very bad. Republicans were angry at CNN. Democrats were angry at CNN. Journalists were angry at CNN. The only one who wasn’t angry, it seemed, was Trump, most likely because he’d succeeded in disgracing the network on its own airwaves. . . .
73 replies
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What a clusterf*uck! He has to go as soon as possible.
After he's gone it will take at least 5 years to woo back all the viewers CNN lost in one night.
When will these people accept the spot on definition of Trump? He's toxic, malignant to anything and anyone associated with him.
Licht obviously thought the rule didn't apply to him or CNN, that he would escape humiliation, turn a turd into a gold star.
The criticism is well deserved. Too bad he tarnished an entire network in the process.
As for being Asian-American, one time I heard him joke that he had an Italian last name, a German first name, and a Korean face. 
