New CNN Management Reportedly Considering Removing ‘Partisan’ Talent – What Else Do They Have?
“If talent cannot adjust to a less partisan tone and strategy, they could be ousted, three sources familiar with the matter tell Axios.”
CNN has been lurching to the left for years but jumped the shark during the Trump presidency. The network is under new management and is looking to regain some of its lost credibility.
Rumor has it that the first step will be trimming some of the most apparent leftist hacks from their ranks.
Sarah Fischer reports at Axios:
Scoop: CNN evaluating partisan talent
CNN’s new boss, Chris Licht, is evaluating whether personalities and programming that grew polarizing during the Trump era can adapt to the network’s new priority to be less partisan.
Why it matters: If talent cannot adjust to a less partisan tone and strategy, they could be ousted, three sources familiar with the matter tell Axios.
Details: Licht wants to give personalities that may appear polarizing a chance to prove they’re willing to uphold the network’s values so that they don’t tarnish CNN’s journalism brand.
- For on-air talent, that includes engaging in respectful interviews that don’t feel like PR stunts. For producers and bookers, that includes making programming decisions that are focused on nuance, not noise.
Between the lines: CNN’s tone became more partisan and combative during the Trump era and under the leadership of former CNN president Jeff Zucker.
- To conservative critics, some on-air personalities, like Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter, have become the face of the network’s liberal shift.
Brian Stelter and Jim Acosta may be the worst examples. Acosta thinks he is saving the world from Trump, and Stelter spends every waking moment telling people what FOX News is doing. But if Licht is serious about changing CNN, he will have to fire a lot more people. Don Lemon and Jake Tapper are names that spring to mind.
Also, how is CNN planning to keep the viewers who rely on them for resistance TV? Isn’t that their main vertical these days?
Spencer Brown writes at Townhall:
CNN, which didn’t respond to Axios’ request for comment on the evaluation set to take place, is seemingly trying to find some steady ground again to start rebuilding its brand as a news organization rather than a resistance-to-Trump channel.
Licht doesn’t want to necessarily shy away from personality programming, especially in prime time, but he wants to ensure that partisan voices don’t dominate in a way that harms CNN, a source notes.
Licht took the helm at CNN last month, shortly after longtime CNN president Jeff Zucker exited the network in scandal.
His priorities are widely seen as aligned with the leadership of CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery.
And, as Townhall reported last week, CNN recently added new guidance to limit the number of segments or stories labeled “breaking news.”
But CNN as anything but a progressive shill channel seems like something of an outlet without an audience.
MSNBC may want to consider making some changes as well.
Brian Flood recently reported at FOX News:
MSNBC flops in May: Network had smallest monthly audience since 1999 among viewers coveted by advertisers
MSNBC finished May with its smallest monthly audience among the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults age 25-54 since November 1999, and its lowest-rated month among the demo in primetime since May 2004, as Rachel Maddow’s reduced schedule continues to harm the network.
“Record-low ratings going back to 1999 is almost always a bad sign seeing as how they were then a fledgling network and far less ubiquitous in our bodypolitic,” NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck told Fox News Digital about MSNBC, which launched in 1996.
FOX News may lean right, but at least they usually feature voices from both sides of any given political argument.
CNN and MSNBC are entirely lopsided.
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Comments
I’d sack almost everyone. They are all tainted at this point and can not be recovered.
The ratings are in the bottom of the toilet bowl for a reason. That reason is the talent has gone full leftist.
Not even leftists watch CNN. That should tell you that you shouldn’t worry about pissing off the left and just sack everyone. I’d turn CNN into a clone of FoxNews. Hell I’d go after Tucker Carlson when his contract is up. Give that man whatever the hell he wants as long as those ratings come in.
Pinch me to see if I’m awake. Did someone really use the word “talent” in the same sentence in which Brian Stelter is mentioned?
talent = potato, you know….like in 2+2=5.381
CNN has an opportunity to do something unique…they COULD start covering real life news.
I know right, controversial! 🤣 But it would mark them as being completely different to every other fucking Democrat goon squad on the airwaves.
I agree. A straight news site just reporting on the daily headlines would likely find an audience much as CNN did in their very early days.
They would clearly have little competition from the wire services who turn almost every story into an opinion piece. In most of their stories you really have to hunt to find the “ who, what, when, and where.
Less partisan? Socialist disinformation is CNN’s business model. Without “talent” expressing outright lies before a live camera, CNN will no longer exist!
I see that as a win-win….
What else do they have? Well, as luck would have it, Karine Jean-Pierre will not last long as white house spokesperson and will soon be available to work for them. She will check off numerous tabs at once thus filling a deep seated need and regaining all their lost credibility.
That brand was burned down years ago. It’s probably better to shut the doors and start a new network with different people and a different name if you want to have any hope of being known for journalism.
Their brand is socialist hackerama. No loss to the public, except for the frothing at the mouth progressives…
A variation on what a friend of mine said about a bad car. “Jack up the radiator cap and slide a new car under it.”
For CNN: take the sign off the facility, screw a new one on with a name like GGN, and slide new personnel behind the equipment, behind the executive desks, and on the sets. .
GNN, Like in Greater Gynecological Network your own X rated news station?
That was my thought. Rather than going through all the motions of figuring out who to fire and who not to fire, it may be more efficient and more straightforward to change the network’s name entirely, and just answer all inquiries with “CNwho?”
I don’t see how CNN can be less partisan with the personnel they have. Most on and off air people are happy with being partisan – they relish it.
I do take issue with the coming all out when Trump came along. Their gushing, drooling love affair with Obama signaled their bias nearly as much as their frothing at the mouth hate of Trump did.
How do you change whats bone deep?
Paper the walls and halls with pink slips?
Yes, the entire AP went full on shill as soon as Obama took office. It was noticeably visible and sickening.
‘Partisan’ Talent
Ummm, I get the “partisan” part. But where’s the talent?
Obviously, it’s a technical term for people who read teleprompters. Just because they’re called “talent” doesn’t mean that they actually have any.
The guy in the pic at the top of the post – I can’t decide – does he look more like Mr. Potato Head or Boss Hogg?
I can’t believe that partisan eunuch has as many viewers and makes as much money as he does. So many things are wrong with this country and until he is paraded down the Main Street of every city in this nation,
clad in a diaper and sucking on a pacifier, we will continue to flounder.
Stelter will land at the NYT where he came from. He’s got a face for newspapers or radio.
I don’t know what I’d rather see…. The CNN crew forced to quit working for the DNC … or a whole new crew to start from scratch… and be more like the cnn from the 80’s. Straight news.
While I was a big fan of CNN in the 80s I’m afraid the rot has terminally compromised the organization and it is not coming back as anything with redeeming social value.
Burn it down and salt the ashes,
If he goes back to newspapers, then Mark Dice won’t be able to dub his voice on his video clips anymore. 😢
Hey when a new CEO comes in, looks around, sees that
“the dogs don’t like the dog food” that CNN is serving, somethings got to change. Adios Tater for starts.
They would have to fire everyone, not just the talking heads. They would have to fire producers, writers, etc.
CNN has only one chance for a comeback: Donald J. Trump wins in 2024. It wouldn’t surprise me if the entire company received orders to vote accordingly.
You’re gonna need a bigger broom.
“If talent cannot adjust to a less partisan tone and strategy, they could be ousted, ”
There won’t be anybody left.