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.”
