CNN has major problems. Fixing it is another story

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How do you fix CNN?

That’s the question everyone should ask following the revelations in Tim Alberta’s brutal profile of the cable news network’s chief executive, Chris Licht, published Friday by the Atlantic.

Alberta’s 15,000-word opus, in devastating detail, portrayed Licht as a manager detached from the concerns of the newsroom, sent on a mission by a parent corporation that wanted to correct the perceived leftward migration of its journalism during the Jeff Zucker era. Licht, as he loses allies, comes off as vain, insecure and naive in his approach to covering former President Trump as he would “any other candidate.”

Licht on Monday morning apologized to staff during an internal conference call, expressing regret for making himself the story, and said he didn’t recognize himself as the person described in the article.

As my colleagues Stephen Battaglio and Meg James wrote in the aftermath, it’s going to take more than that to calm the nerves at the network, especially after last month’s disastrous town hall with Trump. Incredibly, CNN’s prime-time lineup has lost in the ratings to right-wing outlet Newsmax on some nights in the wake of that fateful program.

It’s all the more painful for people who felt — like fans of fellow Warner brands HBO and then HBO Max — that the new overlords were implementing an unnecessary overhaul.

Licht’s boss, Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav, said in a statement that the company has “great confidence in the progress that Chris and the team are making and share their conviction in the strategy.” Last week, before the Atlantic story hit, a longtime Zaslav confidant, David Leavy, was named chief operating officer at CNN.

In the days after Alberta’s defenestration of Licht, followup stories have sought to figure out what went wrong and what’s next. Licht will have to act fast, as CNN needs to get itself in fighting shape for when the 2024 election season truly gets underway.

“Can Chris Licht survive at CNN?” asks the headline of a column by former “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter, himself a casualty of the network’s reformation. The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin reported that Zucker, ousted more than a year ago for failing to disclose a relationship with an underling, has become a “grievance switchboard” for disgruntled former and current staffers, though the Zucker age certainly wasn’t without problems.

The bigger question is what CNN ought to be. We already know what it shouldn’t become. Not Fox News Lite. Not Diet MSNBC.

There’s a case to be made that CNN would create value for viewers and the American public by providing a nonpartisan refuge for the “exhausted middle,” a laxly defined segment of the population that doesn’t see itself represented on either side of the polarized political media menu.

Zaslav and media mogul John Malone have been vocal about their wishes to undo what they saw as the network’s tendency toward advocacy journalism in one particular political direction.

In practice, that essentially meant that CNN would provide a friendlier, more welcoming destination for Republican politicians and their allies to state their case. This strategy was viewed with skepticism at the time, least surprisingly from the left. In the L.A. Times in 2022, Democratic strategist Kurt Bardella warned that efforts to “appease” the right were doomed to backfire for CNN.

Licht’s stated goal of not hosting “people who deny that it’s raining when it is” but rather bringing people on to discuss whether they like the rain or not, seems like a noble one. Calling balls and strikes. Avoiding hyperbole and hysteria. And yes, providing both sides of an argument, unless there’s a good reason not to.

The CNN leader’s tenure so far could have been a referendum on that back-to-basics philosophy, if he’d followed it consistently.

Instead, the Trump town hall (complete with cheering MAGA audience members) and the network’s post-game coverage of the event, which included a Republican congressman who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, did not really serve any part of the electorate. As Alberta put it, “Licht was playing for an audience of one”: Zaslav.

Stuff we wrote

— SAG-AFTRA members approve strike authorization by overwhelming 98% margin. If actors go on strike they would join Hollywood’s writers, who are entering their sixth week of a walkout.

— Daymond John seeks temporary restraining order against former ‘Shark Tank’ contestants. After a Times investigation in which former NFL player Al “Bubba” Baker described his “nightmare” experience with “Shark Tank” investor John, the “shark” went to court seeking to stop Baker from airing his complaints publicly.

— Student heckling of Zaslav speech was ‘cancel culture,’ Boston University president says. The university official apologized to Zaslav after he was jeered by student supporters of the Hollywood writers’ strike.

— Judge OKs ‘Rust’ producers’ settlement with slain cinematographer’s family. The confidential settlement between the family of slain “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and producers, including Alec Baldwin, sets up distributions to Hutchins’ young son, Andros.

— Spotify cuts 200 more jobs in podcast division amid industry struggles. Spotify is reducing its staff amid broader changes to the streaming giant’s podcasting division, including the merger of Parcast and Gimlet.

— Kristen Welker will succeed Chuck Todd on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ in September. Todd will continue to work at NBC News after he departs the venerable Sunday program.

Numbers of the week

Apple’s mixed reality headset is here, and it’s not cheap. The Vision Pro does sound cool, and Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger was on hand at Apple’s big unveiling to explain the device’s applications for entertainment and sports. But dang, $3,499 for AR goggles?

The Walt Disney Co. announced it will take a $1.5-billion impairment charge during the current fiscal quarter after pulling dozens of titles from streaming services Disney+ and Hulu, following a strategy that Warner Bros. Discovery pursued for HBO Max.

The idea of a write-off is generally to lower a company’s tax bill, and this comes as Disney is aggressively looking to cut costs. Disney expects to record $400 million in additional charges as it continues to remove shows and movies.

Netflix shareholders voted to withhold their support from the firm’s pay package structure for its top executives.

The vote was nonbinding, meaning it doesn’t really mean much, though that didn’t stop a victory lap by the Writers Guild, which has made outsize executive compensation a focal talking point. Compensation for named Netflix executives totaled $166 million for 2022, including salaries and stock awards.

It’s rare for investors to publicly rebuke companies through these “say on pay” votes, but it’s less rare in Netflix’s case. Last year, long before the strike, only 27% of Netflix shareholders voted to approve the company’s pay plan. This year’s tally has not yet been disclosed.

NBCUniversal owner Comcast’s pay structure, also a target of the WGA, comes up for a vote Wednesday.

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” from Chris Miller, Phil Lord and Sony Pictures Animation, is an unqualified box office hit, opening with $120.5 million at the domestic box office. While ticket sales for “The Little Mermaid” and “Fast X” are offset by their huge production costs, it’s safe to say that Sony will do OK here, with an estimated budget of $100 million.

Best of the web

— Disney’s abandoned plans for Florida campus causes problems for other developments. (Wall Street Journal)

— The untold story of the “poisonous” culture on “Lost.” (Vanity Fair)

— Was Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” originally “Mongolian Rhapsody?” (New York Times)

Films shoots

The effect of the WGA strike is finally starting to show up in FilmLA’s data indicating the scheduling of productions. Permitted shoot days last week were down 43% compared to the same period last year.

Finally ...

ChatGPT is fun and weird, but it’s not all that useful in the kitchen. That’s the basic assessment of a funny piece on Eater, wherein bot recipes are discussed at length. The takeaway: Don’t let a robot tell you how to make dinner.

Fine, advice taken. But it can’t be nearly as strange as having an AI chatbot run your dating life.