Has the New Management at CNN Decided to "Roll the Potato"?!?!

Actually that is probably very premature but I wanted to use ...'s Flaming Potato gif.

CNN has picked its replacement for Jeff Zucker, who they say will "dull the liberal edge" at CNN, producer Chris Licht.

This very serious newsman and not-at-all-leftwing media type has previously produced such Noted Serious News Shows Which Are Not at Leftwing Agitprop such as CBS This Morning, featuring Not At All a Leftwing Propaganda Machine Gayle King, Morning Joe featuring, well, all of them, and... Late Night with Stephen Colbert (!!!!), a Fake Comedy show which dropped the comedy to become just a pure propaganda messaging platform.

That's the guy they've chosen to steer CNN back to the middle.

Under new chief Chris Licht, CNN will dial down the prime-time partisanship and double down on the network's news-gathering muscle, top sources tell me.

Why it matters: Ratings are secondary to credibility, in the view of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who's taking over CNN.

Jeff Zucker's successor at the CNN helm will be Licht -- showrunner of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and a popular, pioneering producer who knows his way around America's top control rooms.

The selection of Licht, a regular at Zaslav summer parties in the Hamptons, was reported first by Puck News' Dylan Byers. Licht will be named next week.

Licht -- CBS' EVP of Special Programming -- succeeded with three very different programs: Colbert rose on his watch to become the most-watched network late-night show, with live shows for big news ... "CBS This Morning" got a ratings jolt when he was E.P. ... and he was co-creator and original E.P. of MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

What's happening: Zaslav, at the urging of mentor John Malone, is likely to push CNN back to hard news, and away from red-hot liberal opining.

Taking on a second hallmark of the Zucker regime, the incoming Discovery team has expressed skepticism about the roster size for CNN+, the streaming service Zucker had been stocking with expensive talent.

Between the lines: Axios is told that Licht and Zaslav share a view that CNN was chasing prime-time ratings at the expense of the brand.

Zaslav wants to move CNN back to the middle.

I think this is all bullshit. John Malone, the biggest investor in Discovery-Warner, wants the new CNN to be centrist, and I think this all a lie intended to appease him.

But it is a lie. This guy is as hard left as they come. Based just on the shows he's produced, he's probably harder left than Jeff Zucker is.

So what they're doing is doubling down on "red-hot liberal programming" but just rebranding that red-hot liberal programming as "centrist content."

Which is what the leftwing media has always done, before they became #TheResistance six years ago and stopped pretending so much.

Meanwhile, some scoops from Jon Nicosia that Jeff Zucker's "hitmen," Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy, are too associated with the last regime and might be "realigned" to other roles at CNN.

Though one can hardly imagine what "other roles" they'd be suited for besides watching Fox News, taking tips from Media Matters, and then campaigning to get people deplatformed. Neither is remotely qualified to do anything but that.

So whither Tater?

Jon Nicosia

@NewsPolitics

SOURCE: In the new @CNN post-Discovery "the role of 'Media Reporter' is going to take a new direction that will require staff realignments"

Understand that the 'Media Reporters' at CNN. Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy were Zucker's hit men and cleanup crew. It makes sense Discovery would like to start fresh. /More to come.

Arthur Schwartz
@ArthurSchwartz

Fantastic news: Brian Stelter, who spent most of the last half decade trying to cost other people their jobs, has told several people that be thinks he's going to lose his job at CNN.

Where else could he go? Who on earth would ever put that guy on TV again?

Perhaps he could produce a spudcast?
Posted by: Joe Mama

posted by Ace at 12:18 PM

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