people saying "come on, man!"

 

CNN chief executive Chris Licht leaving network after weeks of criticism

A tumultuous town hall with former president Donald Trump, a scathing article and ratings freefall preceded his downfall

[The Washington Post, June 7]

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reader comments

~  The answer to harmful speech IS NOT more speech if all you're doing is letting the liars lie.

~  Lost a lot of respect for Anderson Cooper when he started defending him.

~  You mean nobody told him that turning CNN into Fox-lite wasn't going to work?

~  The dumbing down of CNN print is disgusting.  Sometimes I don't know if I'm reading it or the New York Post.  Not to state the obvious, but the most important events should be the lead stories.

~  And it's not enough that mainstream, corporate media already leans right, the GOP has a bill introduced to defund NPR and PBS.  I guess removing diversity in discourse is on-brand for them.  We should only be spoon-fed what the oligarchs feel is necessary.

~  Next CEO has a tough assignment, to put it mildly

~  The Trump Town Hall will go down in history as one of the most monumental blunders in television news history.  How anyone thought that was a good idea is beyond comprehension.

~  It was simply astonishing that CNN's Licht decided to load up the Trump town hall meeting with Trump supporters.  In one hour, that program destroyed any credibility that CNN may have had as a news organization.  

At first, viewers were left confused and couldn't decide whether Collins was either inept and above her head at being unable to manage the lies that were spewing out of Trump's mouth, or that the program was staged for Trump's benefit.

Since that awful town hall meeting, many turned to other networks for their daily news and conversations with national leaders.  CNN has a lot of repentance and work to do to regain its credibility and trust as a news organization.

~  I hope they replace him with someone not as blatantly right-of-center.

~  Bring back Don Lemon.

~  Wonder how many Americans deleted CNN from their channel list?  I did and never looked back.  Good riddance; especially to Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper.  I feel sorry for Wolf Blitzer though, especially if CNN completely flips.

~  Same.  Not been back since and doubt I'll return anytime soon.

~  I didn't like how heavily promoted Cooper was when he came on board.  The lecturing after the town hall fiasco was too much.

~  "Everything Trump Touches Dies" book by Rick Wilson of The Lincoln Project proves once again to be prophetic.  Trump brings destruction...to any and all.

~  Licht's primary tragic mistake was allowing a NEWS channel to cave in to trump's agenda to make fools of CNN.  That "Town Hall" thing was a disturbing display.  A lying maniac got platformed.  End of story.

~  CNN had been driving with the headlights off for a while....but Licht drove them right off a cliff.

~  Ironically, "licht" in German translates to "light."

~ But he was doing so well  😂

~  Another news organization fumbles the turn to the right.

~  CNN should have just focused on news and not about wooing Republicans

~  Good point!

~  Good bye sir.  You FAFO, putting TFG on the air, like it was a good idea.  It was a disaster and you deserve your walking papers for that alone.

~  Has Chris announced his new job as trump campaign media advisor yet?

~  Tucker may be looking for a pimp.

~  When Brian Stelter was fired, I became alarmed.  When comments from various anchors went unpunished I was disgusted.  After the Trump Town Hall, I stopped watching CNN.

~  CNN was my go to news channel.  I haven't watched since they gave trump a platform to spew his lies.

I won't go back

~  I'll never forget Chris Cuomo allowing that depraved liar KellyAnne Conway to spew on multiple occasions.  That's when I stopped watching regularly.  That horrifying Trump vomit-a-thon was the final nail in the coffin.  Never again.  ETTD.

~  "[Chris] genuinely hopes CNN staff get the leader they deserve"

Why does that sound more like a snipe, than a warm wish?

        ~  More like a cashiered villain slinking offstage uttering threats over his shoulder.

~  Certainly Mr. Licht made some bad decisions.... but if it weren't for The Donald, he'd still have a job.  Just another notch in DT's belt.

~  he paved the way for donald to verbally degrade the woman he sexually assaulted, and that was just one of the things licht allowed

~  Let's hope Ms. Carroll files another civil suit against donald -- the country's most dangerous terrorist threat.

~  That out-of-control Trump interview with the cult audience was too much.  Aren't there enough of those right-wing propaganda outlets already out there?  

They finally got Trump to be interviewed by someone that wouldn't just throw him softballs, and well... same old lies and name calling and deflections.  They just let him get away with it.

~  "That out-of-control Trump interview with the cult audience"

that wasn't an audience of undecided voters??

cnn headline:

"Trump fumbles during tough encounter with undecided voters"

~  If you are frustrated by this sort of corruption of the news, you might find some relief at The Guardian -- an online paper that does not have a paywall and does not accept advertising.  They rely on donations from readers to fund their reporting.

As a result, The Guardian is a source of news and opinion that is completely independent.

        They consistently break stories about the U.S. ahead of most U.S. news organizations, and their global reporting is first rate.

They are a valuable source of news, accurately reported without fear or favor.

~  Thanks for the tip

~  The trump rally was the end for Mr. Licht.  I for one haven't used the app or turned the channel on, either cable or streaming, since.

~  Fix CNN.  Make it what it used to be back in its Centrist days, but DO NOT cow-tow to the GOP disinformation machine, and do not give any oxygen to its extremists.  Democracy is on the line...and the sooner you realize that protecting small-d democracy trumps ratings, the sooner we all will win.

~  The man is a convicted sex abuser that tried to overthrow our government

~  The problem is that the audience was loaded with nasty MAGA nut cases, and it gave the impression that it was representative of the American population and it's not.

~  it got very low ratings

~  The fatal flaw in the logic of Zaslav and Licht was / is thinking that making CNN more welcoming to conservatives is a good thing and a step in the direction of greater journalistic integrity.

The political right in the US is widely scorned for a very good reason.  It has abandoned truth and embraced an outright con man and mentally disturbed individual as its leader.  It has embraced authoritarianism and worked aggressively to undermine democracy.  

It has embraced racism and misogyny.  It has waged war on diversity.  And worst of all, it continues to support a man who tried to overthrow the results of an honest and fair election.  In other words, the political right in the US is no longer a legitimate participant in our democracy.

The complaint made by Licht that CNN was incessantly harsh on Trump and that this reflected "advocacy" rather than objective journalism was / is fundamentally false.  Trump is a disaster.  Saying anything else is journalistic malpractice.

Trying to make a news outlet more "friendly" to the right is essentially admitting that the quest for ratings and money trumps truth and journalistic integrity.  I don't think Zaslav has changed.  John Malone (Board Chair) is still calling the shots.  

        They'll just find someone else to neuter CNN and make it into another right wing pandering media outlet.  That's what they want.  That's what they paid for when Discovery took control of Warner.

~  All very true and all very good reasons to boycott CNN.

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