CEO Chris Licht's Departure Isn't the Only Change Happening at CNN: Report
A report Wednesday said CNN likely will clean house of many of the staffers hired by CEO Chris Licht, who was shown the door earlier in the day.
Licht stepped down after just 14 months on the job amid mounting internal and external pressure that put him on the outs with CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.
CNN confirmed reporting from earlier in the day in an afternoon report from senior media reporter Oliver Darcy.
“Licht, who became network chief last May after most recently leading ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ to much success, saw his tenure dogged by fierce criticism in the press, often the result of leaks from employees around him who never fully trusted his leadership skills or editorial vision,” Darcy wrote.
“The final death knell was a devastating 15,000-word profile in The Atlantic that [was] published on Friday,” the report said. “The blistering piece, in which author Tim Alberta spoke to more than 100 CNN employees, called into serious question Licht’s ability to lead the organization into the future.”
Licht fought for his job but to no avail, Darcy reported.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav met with him early Wednesday and relieved him of his job.
Licht’s attempt to bring CNN back to relevancy failed, as he was incapable of courting conservative and independent viewers to watch the notoriously left-wing network.
In the end, liberals also bailed on CNN for MSNBC and other alternatives.
Licht’s legacy at the network will be remembered as one in which he shuffled a deck of personalities in the lineup but made no home run hires, no meaningful policy changes and only one high-profile termination in former anchor Don Lemon.
According to Dylan Byers of Puck News, numerous executives who were brought on board by Licht are expected to exit their jobs by the end of the week.
“Chris Licht comms chief Kris Coratti cleaned out office last night and has told staff she expects to leave,” Byers reported Wednesday on Twitter.
“Veteran CNN P.R. guru Matt Dornic also likely out. Licht’s [business chief] Chris Marlin and [chief of staff] Devan Cayea likely out this week as well,” he said.
UPDATE @PuckNews: Chris Licht comms chief Kris Coratti cleaned out office last night and has told staff she expects to leave. Veteran CNN P.R. guru Matt Dornic also likely out. Licht’s biz chief Chris Marlin and CoS Devan Cayea likely out this week as well https://t.co/j2BuuAlZpi https://t.co/x8sPPemqgR
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) June 7, 2023
The leadership shakeup will be the second one experienced by the struggling network in just the last year and a half.
To end 2021, the network parted ways with CEO Jeff Zucker as it was dealing with the fallout of the ouster of host Chris Cuomo.
Veteran CNN executives Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley and Eric Sherling have been tapped to run the network by committee on an interim basis, Darcy reported.
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