Former CNN Boss Chris Licht Says Media’s Trump ‘Hyperbole’ Will Lead To Further ‘Credibility’ Issues

Screenshot via Yahoo Finance

Former CNN head Chris Licht blasted the media’s “hyperbole” about President-elect Donald Trump, predicting predictions about him dismantling democracy will lead to bigger “credibility issues.”

Licht spoke at the Yahoo Finance Invest conference with Yahoo Finance anchor Seana Smith and offered some advice for how the media can handle Trump’s presidency and win over younger viewers.

“We used to have one set of facts, and then you could have 30 discussions around that set of facts. Now you have 30 sets of facts, and a thousand discussions around those sets of facts, and that has to change, or we’re in big trouble as a society, and that’s a much bigger issue,” he said.

Licht also told those in the media covering Trump to “swing at the pitches that are thrown.”

The media, he added, gets into trouble with audiences when they make big predictions that don’t exactly pan out. Right now, Licht argued, people “have lost trust in legacy media.”

“To completely butcher a Chris Rock phrase, if someone kills eight people, don’t say they killed nine,” he said. [Trump’s] going to do enough things that really require scrutiny and sounding the alarm bells. Don’t say, ‘Well, this means this, and that means that’s going to happen.’ Say, ‘he did this, and then let’s discuss what that means.’ Not, ‘Well this is going to mean this’ because a lot of times the media gets in trouble when they predict things.”

These predictions can only fuel “credibility” issues,” Licht said.

“It’s the end of democracy.’ Well, if it’s not, if four years from now it’s not, then we have a problem with credibility,” he said. “So instead, ‘He’s appointed this person, this is this person’s track record,’ not ‘that means he’s going to do this,’ right?”

Licht served as Chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide from 2022 to 2023. A number of decisions led to internal backlash against Licht, including hosting a controversial town hall with Trump in May of 2023. On Tuesday, he called it “devastating” that his leadership role with CNN did not pan out.

“I did it because I felt it was a calling, and because I’m a journalist at heart, and it’s devastating to me that it didn’t work out,” he said.

Watch above via Yahoo Finance.

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