I've posted this many, many times on DU, and I think most folks here know it, but Warner/Discovery CEO David Zaslav and his billionaire boy pal John Malone are both radical right Rupert Murdoch wannabes.
Zaslav is the "big cheese" at CNN and Malone is his wingman.
Chris Licht became the sacrificial lamb after the "Trump Town Hall" debacle, but he was just following orders. That was the brainchild of Zaslav & Malone.
All of the "Republicans coming on to spout Republican talking points, unchallenged" and the tragic levels of false equivalency / "Whataboutism" are coming under the deliberate direction of those two.
It's all deliberate. Tapper's following orders too. This article is 4 years old, but for anyone who's asked "What the HELL happened to CNN," here's your answer:
Why billionaire John Malone’s shadow looms over CNN
One of the world’s most powerful news outlets has a new mandate.
by Peter Kafka
Aug 26, 2022, 9:30 AM EDT
https://www.vox.com/2022/8/26/23322761/cnn-john-malone-david-zaslav-chris-licht-brian-stelter-fox-peter-kafka-column
CNN is in flux. It has a new owner, and a new boss, who promises to remake the news channel and has told employees to be prepared for “a time of change.” Most of those changes have yet to manifest. But one of the first ones — canceling its long-running Reliable Sources show and pushing out anchor Brian Stelter — has already unsettled some CNN employees and viewers.
But the bigger question floating over one of the world’s largest and most important news organizations is why it’s changing. Is it because the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, its new owner, wants an overhaul? Or is it at the behest of a conservative billionaire investor in the company who sits on its board?
That billionaire is John Malone, a legend in the cable TV business and one who has deep and longstanding ties with David Zaslav, the CEO of WBD. People close to both men insist that Zaslav is remaking CNN because he wants to for both business and editorial reasons, and not because Malone has told him to.
But complicating that narrative is the fact that Malone has repeatedly wished, in public, for CNN to remake itself. And his prescription happens to sync with the new CNN agenda: a plan to steer the channel away from what Malone and others call a liberal bias they say muddles opinion and news. And to shift it toward a supposedly centrist, just-the-facts bent.
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