CNN Insiders On What Led to Chris Licht’s Exit, And What Comes Next: ‘Nowhere Near the Final Battle’

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Chris Licht’s ouster from the top of CNN came as little surprise. The day before, one anchor at the network told me: “It would not shock me if Chris were to be thrown overboard tomorrow.”

Wednesday morning, overboard he went. Sources pointed to several factors that fueled Licht’s ultimate ouster, which was announced by Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav on CNN’s editorial call: CNN’s ever-dwindling ratings; a distant relationship with the newsroom; the disastrous Donald Trump town hall; the catastrophic Atlantic profile.

By the weekend, Licht had lost the support of the network. Top CNN anchors began expressing their concerns with his leadership to David Leavy, the Zaslav-ally who was dropped down from WBD into CNN last week to take over operational duties from Licht. By Wednesday, Licht was out, and a new leadership team was appointed.

“Chris Licht was an organ that the body rejected,” one former CNN veteran said. “People hated him. And they felt like he hated them.”

The wheels of his departure were set in motion months ago, as the newsroom gradually lost faith in his ability to guide the network through turbulent waters. Layoffs and low ratings hurt morale, while Licht did little to inspire the rank and file. As one source put it: “CNN journalists want an inspiring leader.” Licht didn’t offer that.

His programming moves came slowly, and fell apart quickly. His attempts to fill the prime time hole left behind in 2021 by Chris Cuomo failed to attract an audience. He cobbled together CNN stars Don Lemon, Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow for a new morning show; within months had fired Lemon and moved Collins to prime time.

The consternation spilled out into public view in the wake of the town hall with Trump. The event was a poorly-executed debacle. The former president overwhelmed Collins, the moderator, with a torrent of lies. Her attempts to fact-check him were drowned out by an audience who cheered his every word — even when he was smearing his sexual abuse accuser.

The lurid spectacle sparked an open revolt at CNN, which was chronicled in Reliable Sources, the nightly newsletter of Oliver Darcy, CNN’s senior media reporter. His ballsy coverage of Licht’s leadership prompted the CEO to haul Darcy into his office and tell him to tone it down. The revelation of that meeting sparked further outrage at Licht as CNN staff rallied around Darcy. When CNN icon Christiane Amanpour publicly criticized the town hall, she received similar support from the rank and file; Licht drew even more condemnation.

“The Trump town hall felt like the beginning of the end,” one source said.

Then came Leavy. Described to me as “an extension of Zaslav,” Leavy effectively took one for the team by dropping down from WBD to report to Licht. Yet no one really believed he would be working for the CEO. As Mediaite’s Colby Hall reported the day of his appointment, Leavy was seen as embarking on a rescue mission to save a network adrift. The next day, Tim Alberta’s profile in The Atlantic dropped like a bomb.

Now that Licht is out, those journalists who objected to his attempts to remake the network have celebrated in private conversations with their colleagues and media reporters. “People are genuinely happy Chris is gone,” one CNN anchor said. “It was untenable. It needed to happen.”

They are less excited about what lies ahead.

After all, Licht was hired with a mandate from Zaslav to tone down the heated rhetoric and partisan theatrics of the Trump era. During his time as CEO, Licht sought to remake the network that during the Trump years emerged, thanks to the leadership of Jeff Zucker, as the voice of the opposition to the former president. John Malone, a conservative billionaire on the board of Warner Bros. Discovery, had said he would like CNN to be more like Fox News, alarming the journalists who thrived under Zucker.

Licht’s approach to this task sometimes involved public criticism of CNN under his predecessor, which journalists at CNN saw as rebukes of the work they did during a fraught time for democracy and the press. During his presidency, Trump relentlessly attacked the network as fake news; its anchors often fired back. One of his deranged supporters sent pipe bombs its New York HQ. A CNN source said the death threats continue to this day.

The Atlantic profile, which put in stark relief Licht’s feelings about the prior regime, wasn’t the first he had agreed to. There was also a splashy piece in the New York Times — “The Education of CNN’s Chris Licht” — which one anchor said rankled CNN staffers when it was published back in December.

“People fucking hated that inside CNN,” they said. “The way he was promoting himself left and right as they were doing layoffs. It made everyone despise him.”

One of the factors that fueled Licht’s tensions with the newsroom was that he simply failed to perform the kind of managerial parenting that established Zucker as a hero of Hudson Yards. Licht began his tenure by putting distance between himself and the newsroom, moving his office up to the 22nd floor of CNN’s headquarters. One brutal anecdote from the Atlantic profile described a dinner at Cafe Milano in DC during which Licht barely interacted with staff, spending time on his phone, reading a story about himself.

Eventually, Licht began to take a hands-on approach to dealing with talent. It wasn’t always encouraging. One anchor griped Licht would scold hosts over text after interviews with Republicans if he thought they were being too tough on them.

“It’s been a hellacious experience for several major anchors at the network because of the way leadership has acted,” the anchor said.

Despite his mistakes, there’s a feeling even among his critics inside CNN that Licht was dealt a bad hand. Had his efforts to make CNN a more dispassionate place for news brought ratings success, he might still be leading the network. Instead, the bad headlines that started with the ouster of Chris Cuomo all the way back in December 2021 continued to batter the beleaguered cable news network, in many cases thanks to forces outside Licht’s control. Few jobs start under such punishing circumstances: before Licht unpacked his things, Zaslav had shut down CNN’s ambitious new streaming service CNN+, laid off hundreds of staffers, and signaled cost-cutting across the WBD portfolio that only meant deeper cuts to CNN down the line. All the while, CNN’s ratings slid to lows not seen in years. The firing of Tucker Carlson at Fox News revived the fortunes of Newsmax, bringing the Trumpy cable news network within the same ratings league as CNN, and bringing morale impossibly lower.

The Licht ouster means a change in leadership for CNN, but staffers fear that forces beyond their control, as well as the mandate from above to tone down coverage in favor of elusive centrism will remain an albatross around the neck of the newsroom.

“Viewers seem to be rejecting Zaslav and Malone’s vision for the new company,” a CNN anchor told me, pointing to the ratings of the Trump and Nikki Haley town halls. “It’s like, the Coca Cola Company can always put out new Coke. But if the customer starts saying new Coke tastes like shit, why would you keep selling it?”

“We need editorial independence at CNN,” they added. “This is a move in that direction, but it’s nowhere near the final battle.”