He thought he’d just throw his neck in the ring anyway.
“Stick his neck out” would have been more appropriate but
1 Like
Looks like the Licht era might have come to end at CNN already.
Coming while the controversy around the Trump Town Hall was still swirling, the Atlantic published a piece with first hand accounts of his leadership that essentially makes his position untenable. I think most critics had assumed he was a bullshitter - consciously making the network more MAGA friendly while using the language of performative centrism to pretend to have some high minded objective about fairness and reputation in news, knowing a significant amount of the media establishment would parrot his words and not reflect on how badly disconnected they were from what he was actually doing. The Atlantic piece positions him as someone maybe brainwormed enough to have believed his own nonsense, and in lots of ways that is even more damaging for him.
Even before the weekend was out Warner/Discovery inserted an executive from the parent company to co-chair the ship at CNN and its difficult to see how someone survives after that. My concern is Licht will carry the heat for the change in direction at the network, and once he’s gone they will be free to continue down that path while the new person is given an extended period of grace
1 Like
This week, with a Republican DA from Texas announcing his recommendation that the DeSantis administration be charged for their immgrant kidnapping stunt, they did it again. Florida has nearly 1m undocumented immigrants, so why fly them from Texas?
This is why
https://twitter.com/tomaskenn/status/1665727928167014403?s=20
They are trying to thread a needle of stoking up resentment of immigrants, but not chasing too many of the ones in Florida away, people who much of state’s commerce relies upon.
2 Likes
And…Licht is gone
Now stay vigilant for all the CNN rehab you’ll see despite Malone still sitting in the background wanting it to be an alternative to Fox News for “conservatives”.
And it begins. Biden’s best chance is probably that Trump, Pence and De Santis do so much damage to each other before the primaries that Biden just has to try and not trip over again and he should win
2 Likes
Or that one of them stands as a third candidate.
Yeah, even better.
The Republican primary is a foregone conclusion , but it will be fun nevertheless watching Trump’s biggest enablers and apologists now knocking lumps out of him on the debate stage.
A good piece here on the importance for people covering CNN to understand how much of direction Licht took was driven from above him. They must not fall into the trap of treating a new head as a clean slate when Zazlov and Malone are still the driving force for the network’s direction.
https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1666616239832154112?s=20
Can’t wait till he pretends like he said none of this and endorses Trump when he wins the primary. 
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get ready to rumblllllllle!!!
In this corner, running out of a medium security federal penitentiary in Wildwood, Florida, weighing in at a bone-jarring 287 pounds, the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trummmmmp!!
And in the other corner, running out of a skilled nursing facility in Bethesda, Maryland, weighing at a svelte one hundred and seventy-seven pounds, the 46th president of the United States, Joltin’ Joe Biden!!
2 Likes
Could have put this in the podcast thread, but it’s so specific to this topic that decided to put it here - this is a good series
The last couple of years there has been a good number of pieces that cut down the Lone Wolf narrative for these various RW terrorist acts and instead connect them via a central ideology and connected ecosystem. PBS Frontline did a really good piece on McVeigh a few years ago about his radicalization at Waco in that he was actually there are witnessed it as a spectator.
This is one of the better treatments of it I’ve seen though, even if only because it’s longer so it has more time to connect more dots.
Edit : It’s actually Smokin’ Joe Biden. 
They’re around all the time. And I mean all the time. Ones from out of town tend to focus on that entry to Disney Springs shown there, but we’ve got 2 spots relatively close by where the local ones demonstrate. It’s odd because their presence doesnt seem to be precipitated by any specific event in the news that justifies protest or support. But maybe once a month I’ll either drive past them on one corner I have to go past to get home from the gym, or I’ll see on IG that they’re about 3 miles further up the road.
1 Like
This could go in several threads, but I was personally most interested in the discussion of the intersection of US politics and the nutter evangelicals.
I would highly recommend as an easy listen whilst brushing your teeth or doing a poo.
2 Likes