Vinay Menon: Chris Licht is out at CNN. Here’s why no tears will be shed

Rule No. 1 for anyone leading a news organization: Do not become the news.

The greatest media execs make the tough calls in the shadows. They game out strategy with an inner circle. They put a force field around staffers. They create stability with an invisible hand. They bring out the best when times are worst.

While leading CNN over the past year, Chris Licht did none of this.

On Wednesday morning, he was relieved of his duties.

The head of the head honcho had rolled. There were no tears inside CNN.

Mr. Licht now has time to reflect on how it went so wrong, so fast. Playing musical chairs with anchors was never a wise idea. To tinker in real-time, day after day, time slot after time slot, tells the viewing public you don’t know what you are doing.

In recent months, CNN was not reinventing so much as having an identity crisis.

To be sure, running a network is harder than building the CN Tower out of LEGO. Cable news, like all legacy media, is getting battered by industry storms. But Licht made navigating the killer waves ever harder by alienating staff. He obsessed over his own press coverage, as if he was on-air talent. He granted interviews and ran his yap, including in a devastating, 15,000-word profile published by the Atlantic last week.

At a time when CNN’s ratings are sinking faster than a Steinway in quicksand, Licht made it all about himself. He couldn’t stop being the news.

Licht’s decision to give Donald Trump a town hall last month was a predictable disaster. The problem was not “platforming” Trump, as many liberals decried. He is a former president. He is the leading Republican candidate for 2024. To ignore him and hope he goes away is journalistic malpractice.

The problem was that Trump is way smarter about TV than Licht.

Agent Orange negotiated a deal in which the audience was stacked with MAGA cultists who clapped and cheered on his firehose of lies. Even booing was banned. This was not a town hall. It was a deranged infomercial without a George Foreman Grill. This was not journalism. It was free PR. Licht, in an effort to turn CNN into a safe space for conservatives, had forfeited his credibility with his own employees.

If you can’t read the room, you lose the room.

CNN desperately needs operational steadiness. But under Licht, it was more chaotic than the Salem witch trials. Instead of building upon a foundation and carefully planning renos, Licht was a wrecking ball until he buried himself in the rubble.

It’s a shame. Before CNN, Licht had success producing “Morning Joe” on MSNBC and retooling “CBS Sunday Morning.” He was the executive producer of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” lifting it to the top of late night ratings heap. He started his career in Los Angeles as the O.J. Simpson trial forever changed cable news.

He learned many valuable lessons along the way.

But upon arriving at CNN, Licht clearly had amnesia.

The network’s foray into streaming and subscription, CNN+, lasted about a month. I have jars of olives in my pantry that are about 1,532 in CNN+ dog years. Though Licht is now blamed for this failure, it was a corporate decision. Even overlords have overlords. His failure was in hastening the instability during the mass layoffs and high-profile terminations, including Don Lemon and Brian Stelter.

His failure was in wanting to leave his DNA where it did not belong.

As Tim Alberta wrote in the Atlantic profile: “Every move (Licht) made, big programming decisions and small tactical manoeuvres alike, seemed to backfire. By most metrics, the network under Licht’s leadership had reached its historic nadir.”

So now CNN is worse off than before he took over. Until a new leader is recruited — this could take months — the day-to-day will be by committee. The network reported this leadership team will include: “Amy Entelis, executive vice president of talent and content development; Virginia Moseley, executive vice president of editorial; and Eric Sherling, executive vice president of U.S. programming. (David) Leavy will continue overseeing the company’s commercial activities.”

Their first order of business? Restore trust inside CNN.

“This. Is … CNN.” Please.

Right now, the tag line could be, “This. Is … Fear and Loathing.”

Colbert advised Licht, his friend, to not take the top job. But Licht saw the opportunity as a “calling.” Then he started butt-dialing bad ideas. He thought he could boost CNN’s ratings with an editorial lurch toward the political middle. The amnesia made him forget conservatives believe CNN is “fake news.” With the exception of giving prime time shows to Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kari Lake, Licht was never going to siphon Fox and attract phantom viewers he mistook as possible saviours.

Instead, he just irritated his existing audience. And his newsroom.

If you take over Nike, you don’t ditch running shoes to focus on flip-flops.

Licht apologized to CNN staff this week for comments in the Atlantic profile, including his criticism of the network’s pandemic coverage. He vowed to win their over hearts and minds while staying out of the news. It was too late. The room was lost.

Chris Licht tried to save CNN — but he couldn’t save it from himself.

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