HOW THE CORPORATE MEDIA’S TRUMP ADDICTION RELAPSE RELATES TO CHRIS LICHT’S CNN EXIT:

If I could summarize my advice on how to fix the problems in the corporate media today, it would be this: Whatever Jay Rosen tells you to do, do the opposite. Rosen is a journalism professor at NYU, and prolific tweeter (red flag #1 right there). There isn’t a specific example to point to — you can literally take any of his tweets and it would illustrate the point. He’s the epitome of an “information minimalist” — a crusading anti-speech activist in the newly-aligned media environment that distrusts the public, and therefore demands the media censor and omit various points of view it deems too dangerous to allow publicly. He wants the journalists of tomorrow to be as proficient in covering up the news as they are in covering the news. He is the gatekeeper of the gatekeepers, in an emerging media ecosystem that allows the American audiences to interact without gatekeepers altogether — and he, like so many in the old guard, are panicked.

And Rosen is what Licht was up against — the Rosen philosophy that sadly permeates not just much of CNN, but much of the entire legacy media apparatus. At the same time, perhaps the philosophy would have been easier to overcome and correct had Trump truly exited the political and cultural stage. But he’s back, and so is the Trump addiction.

The only consolation for those of us who believed in Licht’s vision of removing coastal lefty talking points from news coverage (his initial clean-up included stopping the hosts from using terms like “The Big Lie” which was literally started by the Biden team) is that the Discovery execs are still in charge. David Zaslav, John Malone — they don’t have the same disdain for half the country that many in the corporate press do. They have found success for decades programming content that America likes to watch. “Naked and Afraid” or “90 Day Fiance.” Besides sports, and Yellowstone, these are the kinds of shows that vast quantities of Americans still enjoy sitting down and watching.

That vision for CNN is not going away, even with Licht gone, and the Trump addiction relapse back in full force. And that’s good for everyone who cares about a better media ecosystem, that serves the people, and not just the powerful.

I’d like to think that was true, but I doubt that CNN is going to tack to the center anytime soon.