Chris Licht, 51, was given a mission. His mission was to restore CNN’s reputation as a beacon of quality journalism.
Thirteen months later, Licht was forced out this week as network director after wreaking havoc, failing to embrace Trumpism, plummeting viewership and sparking a war within the house.
To achieve his goal, he despised the workers, of whom he underestimated the task carried out on fronts such as coverage of the pandemic, fired annoying stars and wanted to ingratiate himself with former President Donald Trump, an admittedly toxic character.
A little over a year ago he did the same as this past Wednesday. Around seven in the morning she left her home in Manhattan and took a short walk to Central Park to meet David Zaslav, head of Warner Bros. Discovery, the corporate empire that owns CNN.
Things had changed. Then Zaslav offered him to run the chain, a dream for Licht. This June the meeting was much shorter. Thank you for everything and to the street immediately.
When he took the reins at the channel in May 2022, Licht told staffers that CNN had lost track of his predecessor, Jeff Zucker, because his hostile approach to Trump had alienated a broader audience that yearned for more sober and stern coverage. based on facts.
That starting point already put him in front of irresolvable battles, which soon after have guillotined him. He wanted to win over the Republican public, an impossible task because he is very hooked on the alternative reality of Fox, while he opened the internal front for him, since the newsroom considered that his new director was using them as a scapegoat before his new boss, Zalav, that he had signed Licht for a swing to the right.
According to the profile published by The Atlantic, signed by Tim Alberta, true final wishbone, he accepted the position of running CNN with the ambition of rehabilitating the entire news industry. He told his colleagues that Trump had fractured the mainstream media and his goal was nothing less than to save journalism.
His recipe was to put on a show tailored to Trump, a supposed interview with the public, made up of radicals from his base who applauded his lies about electoral theft and his coup initiative. The discredit was total and the ratings sank even more.
Passionate about journalism, Licht, raised in Connecticut, the son of a doctor and a health assistant, set up a kind of studio in the basement. He studied broadcasting and audiovisual at Syracuse University (New York State). He moved to Los Angeles, where he was at the right time at the right time and managed to cover the famous O.J. Simpson, the former football player turned actor accused of killing his ex-wife and her partner.
This led to production. Licht came to CNN with no experience in directing roles, but with a successful career as a producer. He was considered a cool guy for his work on the Morning Joe show on MSNBC, one of the longest running and most successful morning shows on a cable channel. There they nicknamed him intense captain. At the age of 38 he had a serious warning when he suffered a brain hemorrhage. After a while he left MSNBC and went to CBS’s morning magazine. He then took charge of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show on that channel, who offered him more money, less headaches and better hours.
Until Zaslav gave him the offer that fulfilled his dream. His friends advised him to reject the mission, but he only heard siren songs. Back to the basement.
