The end of Chris Licht

| 8:00 am EDT June 8, 2023
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While everyone thought Donald Trump’s impending town hall event at CNN would be the magical power-up that would make him more dangerous than ever (something that those who know best seem to predict regardless of whatever he does), it’s barely remembered now – with maybe a handful of Trumpers tuning in and most normal people watching pretty much anything else that night.

On the whole, the town hall was far from a ratings grab – actually setting the news network’s ratings back a decade (no exaggeration), and ultimately leading to the ouster of its last CEO, Chris Licht, shortly after he was demoted to minimize the bleeding.

At Palmer Report, we saw Licht’s ouster as not being too far down the road after the town hall was a proven disaster that revealed a whole lot of other cracks behind the scenes – with analysts and staffers being punished for any criticism of not just the event, but of Licht’s leadership in general – something that came to light further with The Atlantic’s unflattering profile of Licht. The moral of the story is that you, the viewer, can make a difference when it comes to serious journalism.

Whatever Licht’s political views may be, what ultimately mattered was what got ratings and he lost when he couldn’t deliver. We don’t need cable news that keeps us glued to the screen with updates every hour on how things are about to get so much worse, and not every right-wing loudmouth purveying ignorance deserves airtime. Turn the TV off and get to work so we can win in 2023 and 2024.