As the 2024 election season gains momentum, ABC News has unveiled its lineup of producers and reporters who will be hitting the campaign trail, playing a vital role in the network’s political coverage in the months to come.

The 2024 election coverage team for ABC News includes Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Libby Cathey, Abby Cruz, Hannah Demissie, Fritz Farrow, Lalee Ibssa, Nicholas Kerr, Soorin Kim, Will McDuffie, Kendall Ross, and Kelsey Walsh.

In addition to the core team, ABC News has appointed five alternative staffers who will support expanded coverage of potential candidates. The alternative team consists of Kiara Brantley-Jones, Julia Cherner, Isabella Murray, Olivia Osteen, and Laura Romero.

“This entire group has a shared passion and drive for chasing the truth and hitting the ground running,” ABC News president Kim Godwin said in a note to the news division.

“I’m confident that this team — alongside our powerhouse political team including political director Rick Klein, deputy political director Averi Harper, and senior manager of newsgathering Greg Croft — will provide our news division with reputable and straightforward reporting, guiding viewers through another important election season.”

Reverberations from The Atlantic’s feature story on now-former CNN CEO Chris Licht continue to be felt.

After Licht’s ouster Wednesday morning, it has been revealed that CNN Senior Vice President of Communications and Event Marketing Matt Dornic and CNN Global Head of Communications and Marketing Kristine Coratti Kelly have both also departed the network.

Dornic was prominently featured in Tim Alberta’s exposé on the “meltdown” at CNN, and was seen as an integral figure in giving Alberta as much access as he was allowed during his nearly yearlong assignment getting a behind-the-scenes look at Licht’s attempt to build a “new CNN”.

The announcement that Dornic and Coratti Kelly are leaving the organization comes just hours after it was revealed that Licht would no longer be leading the organization. After being hired as Jeff Zucker’s replacement in late February 2022, Licht helmed the cable outlet during one of the more tumultuous periods in its history.

The news of Dornic and Coratti Kelly’s departure was first reported by Puck News’ Dylan Byers.

This morning, Dana Perino, co-anchor of Fox News Channel’s America’s Newsroom, discussed the ouster of Chris Licht with contributor and columnist for The Messenger Joe Concha, who has been following Licht’s tenure at CNN closely.

Concha commented on the less-than-favorable feature from The Atlantic that was released prior to Chris Licht stepping down as CEO, “I wouldn’t allow a reporter to follow me around for a year including going to my workouts in the morning, and just witnessing what I’m doing around the office and then expect at the profile is going to be more positive and the negative.”

“He started there in April 2022, we are talking less than 15 months, he is gone.” Concha continued, “I can’t recall the last time a network president at this level got axed this quickly, and it was an internal coup led by on-air talent.”

Concha described the friction inside CNN, with talent and network executives vehemently disagreeing with Licht’s attempts to bring the network closer to “the middle” politically”.

“Many could not accept the fact that Licht was attempting to move the network from being seen by conservatives and many independents as an activist news network, a resistance news network, aimed at disparaging through provocative and personal opinion, those right or right of center, and thereby destroying the decent credibility it once had.”

He also noted the circumstance by which Licht entered his role as CEO, “And remember, Licht had inherited a network that had lost 75% of its audience when you’re comparing early 2021 to the spring of 2022, and new leadership there gave him marching orders there, saying move this network back to the center.”