It remains to be seen if CNN’s anti-Trump, anti-GOP culture is changing permanently. Still, for now—its new CEO isn’t pleased with the hyper-emotional reporting regarding the former president’s town hall event which the network hosted on May 10. Chris Licht is the new captain, and he’s purged many of the blowhards that made CNN unwatchable. Don Lemon, John Harwood, and Brian Stelter were all given their exit papers.
Jim Acosta has been relegated to the weekends; he’s no longer a White House correspondent. Oliver Darcy is the network’s chief media reporter with Stelter’s dismissal, and his coverage of the town hall warranted a meeting with Mr. Licht. He was reportedly summoned to the CEO’s office and berated, being ordered to change his reporting style post haste.
New details of this reported meeting said that Darcy pushed back, and defended his work, but was left “visibly shaken” by his chat with Mr. Licht. CNN’s staff has also been critical of the event, but that’s their problem. Trump is a 2024 presidential candidate and the frontrunner. Not covering him is not an option here, and if anyone feels otherwise, they need to find a new job. “The Reliable Sources” newsletter, which described the Trump event as a “spectacle of lies,” is what triggered the editorial meeting (via Fox News):
"It can't be based on emotion, it's got to be based on fact," a source familiar with Licht's thinking told Fox News Digital about Darcy's reporting.
[…]
Puck News first reported that after Licht stood by the Trump town hall on CNN's Thursday morning editorial call, he brought Darcy and his editor Jon Passantino in for a meeting later in the day. Darcy was then told by CNN's top brass "his coverage had been too emotional and [Licht] repeatedly stressed the importance of remaining dispassionate when covering the news, be it CNN or any other media organization."
"Darcy stood by his work and pushed back on the ‘emotional’ characterization, one source with knowledge of the meeting said. But afterward two sources who heard about the meeting described him as visibly shaken. ‘They put the fear of God into him,’ one source said," Puck News' Dylan Byers reported Friday.
SCOOP @PuckNews: CNN's Chris Licht summoned @OliverDarcy and his editor to a meeting with himself and top executives in which they told him that his coverage of Trump town hall had been too emotional and stressed the importance of remaining dispassionate: https://t.co/R0dgcOmgGa
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) May 12, 2023
BAHAHAHA Oliver Darcy got called to the principal's office!
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 12, 2023
"Licht summoned Darcy...to a meeting....in which they told him that his coverage had been too emotional and repeatedly stressed the importance of remaining dispassionate when covering the news https://t.co/I0mobF336z
LOL Oliver Darcy got chewed out by his boss for being a hysterical crybaby. https://t.co/4yPpl9xmuO
— Noam Blum 🚡 (@neontaster) May 13, 2023
It may force the more leftist cadre within this network to look elsewhere for work. It’s all a game, though. The worst-kept secret is that liberals want Donald Trump to be the 2024 nominee; they view him as the one Biden could easily beat again. In doing so, they need to give him all the media he wants, and Trump must be aware of the double-edged sword this now presents. In 2016, he was an outsider and an unknown element. That doesn’t work in 2024, being a former president.
We’ll see if “Reliable Sources” changes their tune in the coming days.
