Chris Licht is officially out at CNN. The former TV show producer and showrunner came to the “most trusted name in news” with a plan: Move away from opinion shows and do more straight-forward news reporting. Doing so was drop much of the left-wing bias. That plan worked, sort of, after a couple of TV show hosts were shown the door.
But the news network never came around to big changes.
Curtis Houck of Media Research Center tells AFN the new CNN leader didn’t accomplish much.
“Because, if you turn on CNN, it was relatively similar to what we had been used to,” Houck observes. “Just a few more stories covered per day, and some rearranging of the deck chairs, so to speak.”
Houck has been keeping an eye on Licht and CNN ever since the new president took over 13 months ago. Houck commented to AFN last summer when media analyst Brian Stelter (pictured at right) was shown the door and his “Reliable Sources” show was cancelled.
Last December, in a related AFN story, Houck suggested Donald Trump returning to the White House would rescue CNN from the ratings dump. That opinion, he says, has not changed.
“Trump is the desired candidate for CNN and MSNBC on the Republican side,” he says, “because they're just hoping to capture – recapture – those viewers.”
