Oliver Darcy Rips CNN Execs Hurting Network With ‘Softer’ Trump Coverage
Status founder and ex-CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy pulled no punches as he blamed CNN’s leadership Tuesday for hurting the network by overseeing a sluggish transition to digital and “softer” coverage of President Donald Trump.
Speaking on the Sanity podcast with hosts Alisyn Camerota, who formerly anchored for the network, and Dave Briggs, Darcy delivered a blunt take on the network’s pace of innovation under CEO Mark Thompson, two years after the former New York Times chief was brought in to modernise operations.
Briggs began by highlighting CNN’s 13% drop in primetime viewership and MSNBC’s 15% slump to ask Darcy what the future held for the networks. Darcy replied:
I think both have a potential, right, in this new spinoff world. I think it’s gonna be a very tough uphill climb, though, for both of these outlets. I mean they’re very large. They’re been built on a model, a business model that is rapidly crumbling and they haven’t figured out how to fill the hole that they need to fill.
He added:
CNN is trying to erect a digital business and they have a subscription business. I mean I think that there’s certainly a lot more work that has to happen there before people are going to fork over hard earned dollars.
The problem for CNN, according to Darcy, lies in the mismatch between bold promises and uninspired execution: “Time is ticking and you can only delay so much.”
Darcy suggested the network’s much-touted subscription model lacked the basic incentives media consumers expect, no original writing from marquee names, no compelling digital formats, and, crucially, no urgency – taking aim, again, at Thompson:
I think that you certainly want to see a lot more progress by now. And it’s been almost two years since Mark Thompson was appointed and that hasn’t happened. It has come a lot slower than I think people anticipated.
He added that network executives might defend themselves by arguing that they’re leading a “large organization” and that “wheels that have to turn in this bureaucracy to make things happen.” But while this might be the “actual issue,” Darcy argued the company needed to be more “nimble” to survive.
“I don’t know how long we’re supposed to wait or people are supposed to wait, but other outlets, you know other digital creators are doing this stuff and doing it pretty quickly,” he said.
He continued to argue that the network’s crisis extended beyond digital strategy, criticising a perceived tonal shift in its political coverage.
“It has less political edge because they’ve gone softer on Trump,” Darcy said.
Rounding on that point, Briggs pressed Darcy on whether the change in coverage was a “mandate” from the “bosses” at CNN. The media commentator said he wasn’t sure but did note that the pivot in coverage came after leadership changed hands:
Well, I don’t know if it’s a mandate from the bosses, like, I mean, I think it’s clear that under [Warner Brothers CEO] David Zaslav and [parent company] Warner Brother Discovery, the kind of coverage that you saw under the AT&T and [former CNN chief]Jeff Zucker era is gone, right? Like, it’s just gone. It’s not really the same thing.
Certainly there are hosts on there and there are correspondents on there that ask hard questions and do the reporting, but I think, by and large, and I think they would acknowledge this, I think David Zaslav would acknowledge this, in their eyes, I think, they’ve returned CNN to a more fair network, a less hyperventilating network.
With the actions of the current administration, Darcy warned that it was not “the time” to do that, and that this was reflected in CNN’s primetime ratings dive:
I think in reality, though, there’s a lot to be worried about in what’s going on in this administration. And by toning down, I’m not really sure this is the time to tone down. This is actually a very worrisome time in American politics and democracy. And Donald Trump is assaulting pretty much every tenet of this country, whether it’s Harvard or other education institutions or the media institutions or warping the FBI or with the Department of Health and Human Services. I mean, like you go down the list and there’s a lot of alarming things happening in all these agencies and a lot of assaults on just common American principles.
And so is it the time to be, I don’t know, more moderate in your tone? I don’t know, I would disagree. And I think the audiences kind of have reflected that and there’s not like that straight talk, I think, that people connected with during the first administration. It feels like it’s a lot more restrained and people can tell, audiences aren’t stupid, they can tell. And I think the ratings to some extent do reflect that.
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