Network news chiefs getting their marching orders about the East Wing from the West Wing? [View all]

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The Daily Beast @thedailybeast 5h
CNN chief Mark Thompson reportedly told the cable network’s reporters to ease up on coverage of the demolition of the White House’s East Wing after a visit to the White House.

___Although denied by CNN, the report from the Status newsletter appears to be the latest example of media bosses bending the knee before the Trump administration.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-boss-mark-thompson-told-reporters-to-ease-up-on-teardown-coverage-after-white-house-visit/





___On Wednesday, as Donald Trump tore down the East Wing to build his ballroom, the White House had a visitor who raised eyebrows across Washington. CNN chief Mark Thompson made a rare appearance at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

The meeting was ostensibly about introducing to the administration the network’s new direct-to-consumer streaming product launching next week, laying the groundwork for officials to appear on CNN, a person familiar with the matter told Status. But given the swirl of speculation surrounding the cable network, with parent company Warner Bros. Discovery having publicly put itself up for auction, the question of Donald Trump’s animosity toward CNN, and how that might manifest itself in the process, is very much on people’s minds.

The meeting could certainly have been regular business, as news networks have a vested interest in maintaining a relationship with the administration for coverage access. But people close to the situation say Thompson and WBD chief David Zaslav believe it is very important for CNN to have a functional relationship with the White House, and CNN anchor Jake Tapper—who recently conducted an interview with Trump via text message—has been lobbying for an interview with the president.

Still, staffers were taken aback the next morning, when Thompson suggested during the daily network editorial call that it should ease up on covering Trump’s East Wing demolition, claiming that their viewership isn’t all that interested in the story, according to two people familiar with the matter. The comment struck many as bizarre coming from Thompson, who despite carrying the editor in chief title generally tends not to wade too much into the minutiae of the network’s editorial process. “There is zero truth to this conjecture,” a CNN spokesperson told Status in a statement after this story was published.
https://www.status.news/p/mark-thompson-cnn-white-house-east-wing-demolition