Can Chris Licht Turn CNN Around?

On with Kara Swisher

New York Magazine

Society & Culture

4.2 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Chris Licht faces an uphill battle at CNN. He got the CEO gig in the midst of a prickly merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery and right after the shocking exit of beloved long-time boss, Jeff Zucker. In his first six months, he’s shut down CNN+, ousted Brian Stelter, and shuffled anchors around, including Don Lemon and Jake Tapper. This week, the network chief held an internal town hall meeting where he faced a staff of thousands and discussed upcoming layoffs. Shortly afterwards, he sat down with Kara — who grilled him, of course. She asks Licht whether he has any real actual power or if he’s simply executing orders from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav — who is in search of cuts, as the company stares down the barrel at $50 billion in debt — and billionaire board member, John Malone, who has said he’d like to see more “centrist” programming from CNN. They discuss Licht’s vision for the newsroom, his plan to build trust with journalists who fear losing jobs, and how CNN will cover Donald Trump during the 2024 election. Before the interview, Kara and Nayeema discuss the challenges facing journalism in an era of disinformation. Stay tuned for Kara’s closing rant on “citizen journalism” and Elon’s latest broadside against the press. You can find Kara and Nayeema on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:33.7	Hi everyone, from New York Magazine in the Box Media Podcast Network.
0:45.2	This is CNN Prime Time with 100% less Jake Tapper.
0:49.2	Just kidding, this is on with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher.
0:52.7	And I'm Neymar Raza and that's kind of me in Kara.
0:54.7	He's not on time anymore.
0:56.7	No, that's right. He's going back to 4 o'clock.
0:58.7	So CNN Prime Time has 100% less Jake Tapper.
1:01.7	That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. They need to hire people.
1:03.7	And that's what we're going to talk about today with our guest, CNN CEO Chris Lyck.
1:07.7	It's very exciting. He's been doing many interviews. This is I think his first big one.
1:11.7	Yeah, it is. He's an interesting character and he's taken over in hard times.
1:16.7	And from a very compelling former leader, Jeff Zucker, who was sort of frog marched out of the place
1:22.7	because of personal issues. Frog marched. I don't want to say.
1:29.7	Before we get there, I want to talk about another news anchor at another network, Carrie Lake.
1:33.7	The AP is called the Arizona Governor's Race for Hobbes with 98% reporting.
	...

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