When CNN made changes last year by bringing in Chris Licht, the company believed it was moving in the right direction. Nonetheless, Licht exited after a little more than a year at the helm, and now Mark Thompson is in charge of turning the trajectory upward.
Still, why does the network continue to struggle? Former Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter recently appeared on The Beat with Ari Melber and shared his opinion about why his former employer can’t get out of this funk it currently finds itself in.
“When you’re reading the newspaper, or you’re reading a website, and you hate an article [or] you hate a column, judge that one column. Don’t judge the entire institution. And that’s what I would say about CNN or any other big media brand. When it came to me, I think CNN was, and maybe still is, struggling about what to do about Donald Trump. That’s a problem that’s been going on for almost a decade, and it’s not unique to CNN.
“This is the challenge that every journalist in America is facing. Some might want to avoid it, might want to pretend it’s not a problem, pretend they figured it out. But it’s an incredibly hard problem to solve, this torrent of lies directed at an institution that’s trying to get to the truth.”
Stelter had his show canceled in August 2022, leading to an exit from the company. This was one of the many changes that CNN has gone through in the last year and a half, as Thompson now has to lead a digital revolution.
Thompson will bring changes, but will they steer CNN in the right direction? It remains to be seen.
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
