Inside The New CNN

Licht’s Master Plan, Disney vs Netflix, West Wing Dysfunction

Welcome back to the Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to what’s new at Puck.

Today, Dylan Byers lays out Chris Licht’s post-Trump blueprint to reclaim CNN’s reputation for traditional, just-the-facts journalism without any of the hair-on-fire diatribes that turned the network into a ratings juggernaut under Zucker. It might win him the allies he needs on the WBD board. But will it rate?

Plus, below the fold, Matt Belloni discusses whether Disney is the new Netflix. And Tara Palmeri swings by The Powers That Be to discuss the post-Roe dysfunction inside Biden’s West Wing.

SPONSORED BY HULU

Chris Licht’s Master Plan Comes Into View

Sure, an adult-table bastion of centrist upscale cable news sounds fantastic, especially since Fox News and MSNBC have totally abdicated the middle. But can it still be done, and will it rate?

DYLAN BYERS

When Ted Turner launched CNN in 1980, giving birth to the 24-hour news cycle that would eventually re-orient the media industry, bestowing us MSNBC and Fox News in the process, he did so with the lofty, quixotic ambition of bringing people closer together. “We hope,” he said at the network’s launch in Atlanta, “that the Cable News Network, with its international coverage and greater-depth coverage, will bring, both in the country and in the world, a better understanding of how people from different nations live and work together, and within the nation work together, so that we can perhaps, hopefully, bring together in brotherhood and kindness and friendship and in peace the people of this nation and this world.” Sure, the commentary manifested Turner’s slightly dippy, Brown alumni side, but it wasn’t some genetically modified corporate pablum. To drive the point home, Turner had the flag of the United Nations raised alongside those of the United States and the state of Georgia.

In the four decades since, CNN has certainly succeeded in becoming the leading global news network, with a far larger footprint than any of its rivals. In that regard, at least, CNN has provided people around the world with a shared record of the day’s news, and a common perspective on historical events for anyone who cares to watch…

CONTINUE READING ONLINE