The new head of CNN ordered the network to cut down on the number of times it uses “Breaking News” to describe a story, that, to be honest, is a good thing:
Bye-bye, "breaking news" banners.
A month into his tenure as the new leader of CNN, Chris Licht is changing the news network from the Jeff Zucker days, encouraging less hype and more nuance. Some at the network are skeptical. https://t.co/BZhOE135Z5
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 5, 2022
From the New York Times:
CNN’s ubiquitous “Breaking News” banner is gone, now reserved for instances of truly urgent events. Snarky on-screen captions — “Angry Trump Turns Briefing Into Propaganda Session,” for instance — are discouraged. Political shows are trying to book more conservative voices, and producers have been urged to ignore Twitter backlash from the far right and the far left.
A month into his tenure as the new leader of CNN, Chris Licht is starting to leave his mark on the 24-hour news network he inherited in May from its prominent former president, Jeff Zucker. So far, the Licht Doctrine is a change from the Zucker days: less hype, more nuance and a redoubled effort to reach viewers of all stripes.
Licht has never run a network, however, so maybe him thinking this will fundamentally change anything should be a warning sign of how things will go in the future:
Running a network is a new challenge for Mr. Licht, a 50-year-old lifelong producer who has never led an organization as big as CNN. (His last employer, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” had a staff of about 200 people; CNN has roughly 4,000.) Some CNN journalists say they wonder if he can navigate a sprawling, unwieldy global news network past what has been a no good, very bad year.
Case in point? Last night while I was watching CNN, the network just substituted different phrases for “Breaking News.” Like “First on CNN”:
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CNN replaced “breaking news” with “first on cnn” https://t.co/uZCp3fPHy8 pic.twitter.com/oL60KwbCBR
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) June 6, 2022
Jake Tapper even ended the segment by calling it “breaking news.” Old habits die hard:
Jake Tapper ended the segment calling it “breaking news.” Old habits. https://t.co/3b0Pb2RZr9
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) June 6, 2022
Wolf Blitzer then did a story where they chyron said “New Developments”:
CNN is so full of s*it. Wolf Blitzer doing a story with “new developments” instead of “breaking news” https://t.co/bHBOnFbckk
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) June 6, 2022
And then later on, “New Tonight”:
Lol @cnn. https://t.co/V1eM82JtxU pic.twitter.com/PVZ7Cmmmzd
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) June 6, 2022
CNN’s Brian Stelter, who was never shy about tweeting out “BREAKING” on his stories, seems to have fallen in line. Let’s see if it lasts:
He so wanted to put “breaking news” on this. https://t.co/ZnQZFh7YBB
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) June 7, 2022
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