Despite the worries that spawned around CNN in the wake of its merger with Warner Bros./Discovery and the extremely rapid cancellation of the young streaming service CNN+, it now seems as if the network has a new and proper plan to move forward. Additionally, it seems as though billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has given his tentative approval of this new plan.
As stated in a recent report from the New York Times that went out on Sunday, Chris Licht, the new chief executive for CNN, has a desire to shift the cable news titan away from a “hype” focus and to more of a “nuance” focus.
“A month into his tenure as the new leader of CNN, Chris Licht is changing the news network from the Jeff Zucker days, encouraging less hype and more nuance. Some at the network are skeptical,” stated the New York Times via a tweet.
Bye-bye, "breaking news" banners.
A month into his tenure as the new leader of CNN, Chris Licht is changing the news network from the Jeff Zucker days, encouraging less hype and more nuance. Some at the network are skeptical. https://t.co/BZhOE135Z5
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 5, 2022
It was also noted by The Times that Licht, who just before he took this role worked for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” made a massive jump from running a show that used just about 200 people to managing an entire industry titan that employed well over 4000 people. The report also claimed that “some CNN journalists say they wonder if he can navigate a sprawling, unwieldy global news network past what has been a no good, very bad year.”
In addition to the very poor launch of CNN+, the news titan managed to lose one of its most popular anchors after Chris Cuomo was canned in part for giving advice to his brother, former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), throughout his own sexual assault harassment allegations.
Just a scant few weeks before the official time of the merger and the launch of its streaming service, Jess Zucker, the former head of CNN, announced that he was leaving due to a still undisclosed relationship he had with another employee, Allison Gollust. Regardless of the fact that rumors of their involvement had been an “open secret,” Zucker resigned almost immediately after talking about the relationship, and almost immediately following him out the door was Gollust.
Licht has made it entirely crystal clear since he took control of the news titan that he has plans to handle things very differently from his predecessor, and one of those changes that he is lauding is a much lighter touch when it comes to the “breaking news” banner.
“CNN’s ubiquitous ‘Breaking News’ banner is gone, now reserved for instances of truly urgent events,” reported the NYT. “Snarky onscreen captions … are discouraged. Political shows are trying to book more conservative voices, and producers have been urged to ignore Twitter backlash from the far right and the far left.”
Despite the fact that many throughout the internal workings of the company have their doubts, Elon Musk seems to think it just might work out.
“This sounds promising,” he tweeted out in response to the original post.
This sounds promising
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2022
Leave a Reply