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The precipitous fall of Chris Licht is simply the form of story that right this moment’s cable-news atmosphere is greatest at overlaying: dramatic, messy, lurid, and finally missing in a lot substance.
Licht was pushed out of CNN right this moment, 5 days after my colleague Tim Alberta wrote a deeply textured, rigorously thought of, and completely damning profile of the CEO. Licht’s clumsiness and tone-deafness within the story—he sniped at his workers, obsessed over his predecessor, and customarily appeared feckless—had been astonishing for somebody in his place, and so they’re the instant context for his firing.
But the actual purpose Licht failed was not the best way he executed his job however the best way he conceived it within the first place. He wished to show CNN again into the impartial arbiter of reality that it as soon as was (or gave the impression to be) with out understanding that such a task is unimaginable in right this moment’s fractured, polarized cable-news atmosphere. “He was dealt a bad hand, and then he played it badly,” as considered one of his pals informed the media reporter Brian Stelter.
Licht was not mistaken to see severe issues at CNN. During the 2016 presidential marketing campaign, the community unwittingly boosted Donald Trump by offering wall-to-wall protection. Once Trump was in workplace, CNN switched gears, changing into fiercely important of the president. Many of thhe criticisms had been appropriate, although generally they had been additionally histrionic and self-absorbed, as I famous in 2017. But with many CNN personalities establishing themselves as adversaries of the president—placing on a jersey, as Licht put it—the community seemed much less just like the fearless news-gathering operation of Gulf War fame and extra like a milquetoast reproduction of the liberal MSNBC.
Licht was betting that by neutralizing essentially the most fiercely anti-Trump voices at CNN—firing individuals equivalent to Stelter and John Harwood, and clamping down on Jim Acosta and Don Lemon—he may return the community to the impartial middle. CNN wouldn’t hesitate to name out Trump’s lies, however it wouldn’t pose because the resistance both. This not solely could be good for its journalism, he wagered, however would additionally reclaim the large, underserved middle within the media viewers.
But Licht’s evaluation misconstrued the cable panorama. No such viewers seems to exist—or not less than, it doesn’t appear to exist amongst cable-news viewers, evening in and evening out.
CNN’s viewership nonetheless booms each time there’s a serious information occasion, as a result of viewers preserve a vestigial sense of the community as a spot for severe information in a manner that Fox News and MSNBC usually are not. But breaking information merely doesn’t occur that a lot—even should you slap BREAKING NEWS on a chyron all day, day by day. (Cutting again on that follow was considered one of Licht’s unequivocally appropriate choices.) The individuals who watch cable the remainder of the time are usually information junkies and political junkies. As American politics has turn out to be sharply polarized, so have they.
America actually does have a considerable centrist center, which explains why Joe Biden is president right this moment, however it’s composed of regular individuals. Less than 10 million individuals watch cable information nightly; 155 million voted within the 2020 election. There merely aren’t sufficient rabid information shoppers who’re additionally staunch centrists to maintain a community. Even Fox News is bleeding viewers who discover it insufficiently conservative to networks additional to the fitting, like Newsmax.
Licht’s makes an attempt to market CNN to this imaginary viewers simply dragged the community down additional, most vividly demonstrated by the disastrous May city corridor with Trump, the place the previous president bullied CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and pumped out nonsense. Licht’s makes an attempt to win over conservatives didn’t work; they had been nonetheless watching Fox (or Newsmax), however they took the overtures as an indication of weak point and a technique to tug CNN additional proper. Meanwhile, the liberal and centrist viewers whom CNN had retained had been appalled by the spectacle and misplaced allegiance. He made different errors, too, like elevating Lemon, solely to fireside him when a brand new morning present flopped and Lemon’s sexist remarks alienated his co-hosts.
Licht fell sufferer to the identical fallacy as many different media figures, from moguls to reporters to critics: They overestimate the facility of the press, believing it to be the dominant drive shaping American society. TV, magazines, and on-line retailers all convey the nationwide discourse, however too typically arrogantly assume they’re creating it out of skinny air. One easy instance suffices: The nice mass of the press detested Trump, and and if the media had the kingmaking (or -breaking) energy that it presumes, he would by no means have turn out to be president.
Licht’s catastrophic tenure is a disgrace, not solely as a result of CNN is among the largest and most necessary reporting organizations within the nation, but in addition as a result of the function it used to play within the American media was beneficial. Having a community that’s extensively seen as dependable and mainly reliable by a broad swath of the general public is optimistic, and the partisan lean—generally open, generally much less so—of a lot of the press right this moment helps clarify declining belief within the media. But Licht may no extra rebuild the outdated CNN in right this moment’s atmosphere than he may flip again the clock to 1993. That time has expired, and now, so has Licht’s.