On with Kara Swisher - Can Chris Licht Turn CNN Around?

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

Chris Licht faces an uphill battle at CNN. He got the CEO gig in the midst of a prickly merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery and right after the shocking exit of beloved long-time boss, Jeff Zucker. In his first six months, he’s shut down CNN+, ousted Brian Stelter, and shuffled anchors around, including Don Lemon and Jake Tapper. This week, the network chief held an internal town hall meeting where he faced a staff of thousands and discussed upcoming layoffs. Shortly afterwards, he sat down with Kara — who grilled him, of course.  She asks Licht whether he has any real actual power or if he’s simply executing orders from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav — who is in search of cuts, as the company stares down the barrel at $50 billion in debt — and billionaire board member, John Malone, who has said he’d like to see more “centrist” programming from CNN. They discuss Licht’s vision for the newsroom, his plan to build trust with journalists who fear losing jobs, and how CNN will cover Donald Trump during the 2024 election.   Before the interview, Kara and Nayeema discuss the challenges facing journalism in an era of disinformation. Stay tuned for Kara’s closing rant on “citizen journalism” and Elon’s latest broadside against the press. You can find Kara and Nayeema on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is CNN Primetime with 100% less Jake Tapper. Just kidding. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Naima Raza. And that's kind of me and Kara. He's not on Primetime anymore.

No, that's right. That's right. He's gone back to four o'clock. So CNN Primetime has 100% less Jake Tapper. Less a lot of people. Less a lot of people. They need to hire people. And that's what we're going to talk about today with our guest, CNN CEO, Chris Licht. It's very exciting. He hasn't been doing many interviews. This is, I think, his first big one. Yeah, it is. He's an interesting character, and he's taken over in hard times. And from a very compelling former leader, Jeff Zucker, who was sort of frog-marched out of the place because of personal issues. Frog-marched.

I don't know what to say. Before we get there, I want to talk about another news anchor at another network, Carrie Lake. The AP has called the Arizona governor's race for Hobbs with 98% reporting. I think Carrie Lake's loss for the Arizona governor's seat is really important because it signals that Americans are saying no to punching down and disinformation. Have you become Pollyannish? No, I just think the voters are smarter than we are. They just are. They always are.

I believe in voters. And I think everyone, you know, hand-wringing on Twitter or in cable news or wherever, I think they don't know how people really are. At the time we're recording, she still has 49.6% of the votes. So you believe in everybody but 49.6% of the voters. Are you not being optimistic?

No, I believe they wanted to vote for her. No, I'm not, because she didn't win. And I think she was supposed to win by quite a lot. I mean, Hobbs was not a compelling candidate. I'll give you that. No, she was not. She was not. And nonetheless, she's now governor of Arizona.

I think what didn't work was she was punching down. When she did that McCain thing, saying, who's here for McCain? Get out of here. I thought you're finished. You never say, you take every vote. If they're there to see you, they might here for McCain? Get out of here. I thought you're finished. You never say, you take every vote. If they're there to see you, they might vote for you. That was the moment I knew she was going to lose. She took on the McCains.

And I think you're right. That's the Achilles heel for her. Because this is McCain land. And she's just, you know. I think she just rejected people. That's what it was. Well, Arizona overall rejected most of their Republicans, I think. But is she really gone?

Because, yeah, she tweeted, Arizonians know BS when they see it, which is basically intimating foul play. Yeah. You know what I said? Yes, they do. Yes, they do. I mean, she walked into that. Donald Trump on Truth Social wrote, wow, they just took the election from Carrie Lake. It's really bad out there. Oh, Donald Trump. You know what? You're only close in horseshoes, so I don't know what to tell you. A lot of the reporting I'm reading is saying, oh, Republicans, they've really learned the lesson and they can't double down on Trump. They can't double down on election denial. Have they really learned the lesson or is this the

beginning of more disinformation? It would be interesting to see tonight. We're taping this when Trump is supposed to announce. We'll see if he keeps on the disinformation thing. I don't think it works. I don't think it's a winning formula. I think people are mostly like, you know, people who like elections are like, shut up. And people who believe it are like, okay, I'm not going to vote. It's stupid. He should move along. He needs to move along and get back to, you know, his basic punching down that works a lot better. People are sick of it. I think it's a level of disinformation that people won't put up with. But here's the level of disinformation that I have seen all of my social media put up with. I am very irked today. Irked. You are. Irked. You called me irked. I did call you irked because my social media this week has been flooded with these

reports. They are fake reports that 15,000 people are going to be executed in Iran. In the last 12 hours, I've gotten over 300 emails because I guess I'm on a list of journalists who cover the Middle East or Middle Eastern journalists or something. And there's basically like a chain mail, get the attention of journalists. And let me just say what's happening in Iran is horrific. People are protesting. The Iranian government is oppressive. It can be ruthless. But the facts do not support this. And I really I think this is really dangerous because you want to talk about the horrific shit that's happening, not the horrific stuff that hasn't happened yet. It's believable, but it hasn't happened.

So who was sharing this? It was like, why aren't you writing about this? Who's sharing it? Yeah, because some of the stuff saying Iran is sentencing 15,000 people to death and I haven't seen an ounce of coverage anywhere. And they tell people what to do. They say write to reporters, tell them this, tell them that. So who's sharing it? Yeah? Justin Trudeau tweeted it. He's since deleted the tweet, but he wrote, Canada denounces the Iranian regime's barbaric decision to impose the death penalty on nearly 15,000 protesters. The tweet was deleted after 12 hours.

A little too quick with the tweet, Justin. Yeah. A little too fast. A little too fast, Justin Trudeau. Get your fingers off the keyboard, get your thumbs. But here's the thing, but celebrities like Sophie Turner shared it within those 12 hours.

Someone you loved shared it. Who? Viola Davis. Oh, did she? Oh, wow. I love that that's what gets you. You know, people make mistakes and see things and then do the instant tweet.

And Ian Bremmer, the head of the Eurasia Group, tweeted this. Monday, he said, Iran parliament votes overwhelmingly to execute 14,000 arrested protesters. Half a day later, he did a slight walk back. He said, to be clear, judiciary hands down the actual sentencing. 36,000 people liked the first tweet, 800 liked the second. That wasn't good. I reached out to the Eurasia group for comment earlier today. Shortly afterwards, Ian deleted the tweet. He acknowledged that the previous post was unverifiable and likely untrue, which I appreciate.

I think that is what you should do. Yeah. You got to say you made a mistake. I did this once. I'm not going to go into detail, but I was like, I am wrong. I'm going to leave it here to show I'm wrong. And I'm going to never take it down because I'm an idiot. I literally was like, sorry.

Anyway, what are the actual facts? Okay. The actual facts, and I'm getting this from Cheyenne Sardarizadeh of the BBC, which I think is the best source on this, because it is very hard to get information in Iran. There's not many reporters there. But here's what we know. Last week, 227 of 290 Iranian MPs called for justice. They said they wanted no lenience against protesters. Earlier this week, one unnamed protester was sentenced to death.

That's the only known sentence we have at the time that we're recording this. We know further 1,000 protesters have been formally charged by the regime. Activists are saying there have been over 15,000 people arrested by the regime. I'm not sure if that's like cumulative or current or concurrent. And the last thing that we know, a fact, the Iranian regime is brutal. Hundreds of protesters, including over 50 children, which Farnas Fasihi has written about for the New York Times, have been killed. Look, in 1988, we know that under Ayatollah Khomeini, the regime executed an unknown number of people, probably thousands. So let me just say, Iran is bad enough as it is.

So we don't need to add stuff. We don't need to add stuff. But this is the age that we live in. And particularly in my demo, I think, Kara, like millennials, Gen Zers, I'm not a Gen Zer, but millennials, Gen Zers, I think there's this urgency to post and to participate in a social conversation because you want. I think it's more important than ever to have really good journalists on the ground. These kind of things are going to happen over and over again until we have really good journalists and people trust these institutions to bring back the actual facts. Facts matter. Yeah, facts do matter. Meta and Instagram are flagging these posts as false information. Twitter has done nothing. Instagram doesn't take it down. They fuzz it and then you can still click to see it. But Twitter, why aren't they doing anything? Are you surprised? Because he's busy tweeting

about Sam Bankman-Fried. That's why. I don't know why. Because they've taken down all kinds of systems. They never were good in the first place. Now they're worse. The blue checks, I think, are making it hard. I wasn't as anti-everybody gets a blue check as you, but it's now really hard to sift through information. That's correct. So I was right. You were right on this. The citizen journalism, like everybody who can afford $8, all of a sudden seems a verified source is challenging. But let's focus on the fact that I was right. I am going to do a rant at the end of this about citizen journalism. It's something I think about a lot, which is something Elon tweeted about in a way I didn't agree with. Surprise, surprise. Surprise, surprise. But we'll talk about that. Facts matter. Well, let's talk about that. But first,

let's get into our interview today. It's Chris Licht, the chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide. Yes. You've known him for a long time. You've come across him before. I have. He came up to me at a New York Times event and he gave me his card. I didn't know who he was. I'm like, thank you, fan person. But he's a lovely and very, he's very gentlemanly. I don't know how else to put it. He was the showrunner of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And he has a long history. Before that, I think he was the EP of CBS This Morning and Morning Joe. So yeah, he's got a lot of history of putting on great shows. He does. He's a showmaker. He's not a manager per se. That's a big difference. And of course, he's right in the cauldron of politics and cable news. And so it's a very different than what he was making before. But you know, he's

plopped into a merger and financial problems and the economy and cut layoffs and etc. So I want to sort of ask him like, why are you doing this? Go back to Colbert with everything in the nice, the nice warm end of the pool. Yeah, I wonder if he feels good about this decision. Let's ask him. Let's ask him. Let's ask him. He did leave Colbert when Discovery purchased Warner from AT&T. And Jeff Zucker, now no longer the helm of CNN, but so beloved when he was there. Beloved.

Beloved. And still. Very tough shoes to come into. What's your big question for him? Oh, so many. He just conducted a town hall, so we'll start there, and talked about layoffs that he said weren't going to happen, but apparently they're going to happen in December. We should also note that this is happening across the industry, across the economy, and CNN is not alone in this.

Sure, 100%. But I think his problem is he said there weren't going to be any. I always tend, if I was managing that many people, if I didn't absolutely know, I wouldn't say a word. My big question is, is he the one that has the power here? Yes. Or is it David Zasloff? Or is it even John Malone on the board, who's a big mentor of David Zasloff? That's my big question. How much power does he actually have? Or is he just following orders?

Right. Well, that's a good question. Let's ask him. Okay. Find out also how they're going to cover Trump when he runs. Anything else? Anything else in the panoply? I've literally been called by a dozen CNN people since they've somehow gotten on the CNN horn and they all know I'm interviewing them, so they all have a little contributions to make. So thank you, staff, CNN, for your questions. I've heard that the all-hands was painful and a repetition of what people had heard already unclear why they were sitting through it again. He sat there for it. So good for him.

Let's take a quick break and we'll be back with an interview with Chris Licht. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year,

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Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. Constantcontact.ca. Let's just dive in. You just came out of a town hall. Tell me what you perceive the mood as. I have been called by about 23 people that work for you and texted by another 400. So what was the mood from your perspective? In the town hall? Yeah. Well, you know, there were probably 3,200 people watching it and probably 50 people in the room. I think generally there's anxiety. There's a lot of anxiety in the organization, which is completely understandable.

So the hope of that town hall was just to talk to people. And I didn't have a lot of specific answers because obviously that's not the forum to give specifics on that. But I think in the absence of hearing from me, people get very, very anxious. And all they had was an email about what was coming. And so I think the mood, this is a group of people that can handle just about anything. They've proven that. They just want to be told the truth and they just want to be spoken to. So hopefully that was, it felt good on my end. I don't know what you heard.

You got pretty good reviews. I think people liked it. So Alison Camerota did the interview with you in front of everyone. And what I was told is she's like, I'm just going to read this. And one of the ones was this idea of how can we trust you? And I think they were referring to in June when you told the staff, quote, there were no layoffs per se. But a few weeks ago, you did announce layoffs. Now, let's be clear, Vox Media is going to have job cuts. Amazon is having job cuts. And that means everybody gets to have job cuts. So did you know at the time? Did you not know? You didn't think these were coming, correct?

Of course not. No, of course not. And remember, the layoffs per se, and again, at the end of the day, doesn't really matter, is because we weren't part of the synergies of the combined companies. We still aren't. So if I'm being told that we are not part of the synergies of the combined companies, then we are not part of the coming layoffs that were happening this summer. I have talked to a lot of people up and down the chain. I'm not just kidding. But one thing came through more than anything else, and this was at all levels, which I thought was interesting, is what is the vision? Can there be a vision in this new environment where things are changing so fast for news? And then one person said, we're rooting for him, but what is the plan? How do you think about those questions?

Look, that's the beauty of working with journalists. They want to know what's the plan. This is a group of people that will follow me to the end of the earth if they believe I know what the hell I'm doing and that there's a plan. And for me, and I articulated this today, I want to expand the global dominance of CNN by doing two things, right? Engaging the people who are already coming to us, right? More, particularly on digital. And then creating a nimble news organization that can weather any storm and not only survive, but thrive. And using that currency to attract new audiences. So we have the largest news gathering operation in the world, second to none. And then how do we put that on television and online? And that's the programming part of it.

And then really digital, creating a multimedia home to engage with people. As you know, we have the number one news website in the world. So if we have upwards of 180 million unique users, they come, they say, hi, thanks for the breaking news, and then they leave. And if we can get them to stay and engage and become vital in their life and become more of a full service news and information leader, there's a tremendous upside for that. Which hasn't been taken advantage of, I think. Well, not only has it not been taken advantage of, but there was whiplash in the organization of digital, digital. Oh, wait, wait, there's a CNN Plus.

And all of the bandwidth, resources, people pointed to launching CNN Plus. And that was at the expense of the core digital assets. So you have this thing that's number one in the world and completely neglected for the last two years. And that was one of the sort of shocking things when I got here to see that. So we have spent the last six months building the infrastructure so that my new chief digital officer can come in and really take this car that we have built and accelerate it. I want to get to that specifically, CNN Plus. But Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zasloff, who we both know, and Discovery CFO Gunnar Weidenfels, who I do not know, have asked you to cut about $100 million.

It's a lot of pressure. Tell me about navigating those demands to keep the trust of the newsroom, which is a big order here, and their trust because they're your bosses. In answering this question, I don't want to say that that $100 million is correct. Okay. Is it correct? I'm not going to talk about any numbers, but I will tell you- If it's like 96, I'm going to find you. Let me just tell you. Regardless of the number, the job is to, it's not a number.

It is, what does it take to run CNN? What does it, what does it take to run the company that we bought and love and strip away things that aren't core to our mission? And they may think it's this, I may think it's that we will argue, we'll get to a point, right? So for me, it's all about fighting for the core asset that they have bought and love. Right. And they are entrusting me not to do anything to hit a certain number that is going to hurt the long-term growth of this business.

That said, David Zasloff is staring down the gun of $50 billion in debt at the larger company. More than Elon Musk, for sure. Elon Musk has a better hand. Disney has a better hand. And the CFO at CNN, the former Discovery guy who'd only been in the job about seven months, quit. Apparently thought the cuts were too big. Not true. All right.

No, let me just tell you. We're being honest, right? Oh, I hope so. We're friends. I don't know about that, but okay. We'll see at the end of this. He didn't want to move to the United States. I mean, you cannot be the CFO of CNN from London,

and he didn't want to move to the United States. I'm curious why you didn't figure it out that he didn't want to move before hiring him, but that's probably not your responsibility. Maybe it is. There's an answer for that that I'll leave for him to tell you. All right. I'm not going to be talking to him.

So let's talk about your relationship with David Zasloff. This is the head of Discovery. I know him a little bit and have talked to him many times. He certainly has a lot to handle, including this $50 billion in debt and a very fast-changing economic environment and a media environment. What is your relationship with him? I have known him for 15 years. He started as a mentor to me.

And then as our relationship developed, I think I turned into a sounding board for him. So we are, I would not call us like close friends, but we are friendly. And I will say my first day, he took me to lunch and he said, you know, we've been friends for a long time. I said, I know. And he goes, we're not friends anymore. David Zaslav. You work friends anymore. David Saslow. You work for me. Yes, yeah.

So that is the relationship. And when he was making the pitch for you to do this, which I thought was a fascinating choice when I heard about it, what was the pitch to you to do it from him and what convinced you? As you know, I had no intention of leaving my current job with Colbert. It was quite possibly the greatest job in the world. Greatest job ever. With the greatest person in the world. Why are you leaving Italy? It's beautiful. The food is delicious. Well, I am a journalist at heart. It is a calling. I know that sounds cheesy. It does. Thank you. When I was a cold bear,

I would get job offers all the time. And they would go in one ear and out the other. And this is the first thing that even stopped for a millisecond in my brain. And that is because David had a vision for CNN and what it could be. And I said, okay, I can execute that. We're on the same page here. If I have that support and I have, um, you know, we are entering a time in society where a strong CNN is crucial. And if I could be part of that solution, then how do you say no to that? So for me, it was a very, it was something made with my heart. So does that mean when he said, I'm not your friend anymore, talk about your power. I mean, obviously David Zaslav has the power, but do you have real power here? Because in order to do that,

you have to have the kind of sway in order to get things to happen rather than just simple following of orders and to protect the newsrooms specifically. No, I understand the question. That is not the dynamic of the relationship. This is, and I think if you talk to anyone that works for him, that's not how he operates. He puts people, if you look at every one of my colleagues that report to him, he hires doers. He hires people that have actually done the job. He loves the fact that I could be in any control room and produce any show. So he did not hire me to take his dictation. And I would not have taken the job if it was that. It was like, you have a proven

track record. You're a great leader. You have experience in news. And I think you can take this organization to where it needs to go. That's the pitch. And frankly, that's how we operate. He calls me and nine times out of 10, it's just him like really excited about something we're doing. You know, what's, you know, around election, what's the latest you're hearing on this? What's going on here? Oh my God, that live shot was incredible.

Like he consumes CNN. If all of America consumed as much CNN as David Zasloff, we, you know, would have no problems. He's an engaged fan of the product and might have thoughts here and there, but no directives. All right. Is there anything times you had to push back on him? No, because he has not ordered me to do anything. Except possibly make undetermined cuts. All right. You've got- Okay. But- Maybe not.

Let me stop you there. All right. Okay. If there was a cut that I thought was going to, look, these are my cuts. Right. I own this. This is my strategy. And if I thought that there was a cut that somehow I was getting pushed to do something that I thought would be not in the interest of this company,

I would push back hard. And I've not had to do that. Okay. So one of the things, you've got big shoes to fill. Jeff Zucker was famously hands-on and still beloved by CNN talent. It's really quite remarkable. I don't want to make this interview compare and contrast, but tell me about stepping into this role because this is someone who had a very fan base. I'm trying to come up with the correct metaphor that's not offensive. He was an incredibly popular leader. Popular leader. Tell me about stepping into role when someone was like that, sort of a charismatic leader

who had talent, just beloved by talent. Charismatic, beloved by talent, but also incredibly hands-on. Very. Nothing really happened without flowing through him. And that's not how I operate. And I don't, it's just different. It's not better. It's just a different way of operating. When I stepped in, it was not to be another version of Jeff. And so I've had to establish myself and my style. And this is a huge organization spread across the globe. And I'm six months in and then people are still, there's a little bit of muscle memory there. But I stepped into an organization run by a legend, someone who I knew very well, another mentor of mine.

I've known Jeff Zucker since I was an intern on the Today Show. Wow. And he's someone I regularly spoke with. So for me, I stepped in with a humbleness for what he had done and built, but knowing that I had to forge my own way. Have you spoken to him since you took the gig or before it? Yes. And for what advice or? Just a private conversation. Okay. Not about CNN itself.

Would you want me, if you and I were having a conversation, would you want me to go on a podcast and talk about what we talked about? Why not? Why not? I have nothing to hide. But okay. By the way, I don't either. We just, we had a private conversation. Okay. Recently? This summer. Okay. His desk was famously in the newsroom. I remember visiting it. This is something that people mentioned, and I don't know whether it's a big deal or not. You chose to put your office on the 22nd floor, which is where the executives are in the non-newsroom floor. Tell me why you did that, because it seems to stick in the cross of a lot more people there. I don't know if it

matters or not. I'd love to understand why you didn't put yourself in the newsroom. So it was a very specific choice. I'm sure it sticks in the craw of a small group of people that were in the vicinity of that office. But for me, I serve this entire organization around the globe. And the proximity to my office should not dictate how much access you have to the, to the leader of the organization. And quite frankly, I think in the old newsroom, it really was, you probably not at Hudson yards. You probably went to the one before circle. Yeah. That one really was in the middle of a heart beating newsroom. That's not the situation here. It's in a corner. It's like,

so it's not as romanticized as everybody says. So for me, it was not as difficult of a choice, right? For me, it sends a message that I have to run this entire news organization. And really, it also put the onus on me to go find people and to go to all the different bureaus and go places as opposed to having them come to me in my office. Jeff has a look at me character. I mean, like here, over here, I'm over here, look at me. You seem more watch and learn kind of person. Is that wrong? Am I getting that wrong? No, I don't think that's wrong. I don't think that's wrong. And I'm also, I, in an organization this size, I believe you really have to empower the editorial decision

makers. You really like you, you can't have them just be figureheads that ask me what I should do with everything. Right. I love collaborating. I love what should we do about Trump's speech tonight? I love getting people in a room and hearing a bunch of different ideas as to how we should handle it. And then all walking out on the same page, as opposed to me, you know, at the top of the call one morning saying, this is how we're doing it. Do you, are you on every call in the morning? Jeff certainly ran the call. Jeff ran the call. I do not run the call, but I am on, I mean, unless I have a meeting or something, I'm on the call. I say something at the top, maybe at the end if the spirit moves me, but then I listen.

Yeah. He most, I've heard it. He most definitely ran it in a way that he was like, he really did. I was sort of shocked by it. Right. I was like, what are you making the coffee to? I don't know. Well, he did all the fun stuff. Yeah, that's the fun stuff.

Now you're doing the unfun stuff. So let's talk about editorial. I'll come back to some of the financial issues in a little bit, but let's talk about it anytime. John Malone, one of David Zasloff's mentors and a board member, said he wants CNN to become more centrist. This is, of course, well known. I've interviewed Malone several times, many times. Talk about what that means to you. I have a sense of what it means to him, although it's more grumpy, I suspect, and I won't go into that. But what is your sense of what that means and what you meant by it? I don't think I've ever described what I want the editorial vision of CNN to be as centrist.

I think there is a place for prospective opinion, informed opinion programming in prime time. But I think the day side offering where we are on in congressional offices and lawyers offices and all around the world, we need to report the news and push back on both sides equally. But that doesn't mean that we, that centrist can be really fit for whatever people's purposes are. For me, it's just take the editorial out of how we report down the middle news. Down the middle news, meaning that was happening before in Dayside, correct, or not? No, I think what happened is during Trump, certainly the opinion programming became much more aggressive. And I think it seeped into Dayside as well. And you wanted to remove it.

So it's just this happened here. This is happening wherever the news happens. It doesn't mean you have to be boring. That sounds horrible. I would never, that, you just described that would never work. There was a Russian rocket in Poland. That's really the news today, I think. Look, I think what we have talked about is if you're going to have

a Republican congressman on to talk about, like a good example, COVID relief, right? The Republicans said that this was going to put too much into the economy and cause inflation. And the Democrats said, if you were against this, you hated poor people. And I think you had to push back on both of those notions. And that is what I mean when we say down the middle. Would you have used the term woke describing the organization? I've heard you've done that many. I know David Zasloff has said that to me. Do you think that was the case? I would say any news organization, whether it's CNN or anybody, you just have to be aware that your worldview may influence your tone. It may influence what you perceive to be the right thing. And one thing we've done really well since I got here is we've

given space to, there are other points of view. And that doesn't mean you have to have one side. You don't have to book someone from that side. You just have to have space for the fact that there are people in the country who may not think that. And again, the analogy I use is some people like rain, some people don't like rain, but we're not going to have somebody on who says it's not raining. So I don't want this to be misconstrued because this is very important. Everyone, all your friends in the cocktail parties might think that rain is awful. But when you have someone on who likes rain, you've got to take that hat off.

I get the rain thing, but it's not rain we're talking about. It's other things. It's easy to do that. And it's an excellent talking point, by the way. But Chris Karate's over there going, God, why did we do this? Do you use the term woke? Do you think it's a real meaningful term? Because I did push back on David Zasloff when he said it to me.

I was like, I think it's a meaningless term. I'm not a big fan of the term woke. I like to be more specific. I think woke is one of those talking point things that I don't like. So what you want is, like, let's bring in lots of viewpoints that are accurate, presumably. I don't want us to condescend to a view that it doesn't necessarily fit our worldview. Right. Which I think probably the word is nonpartisan in some ways, in some ways,

reasonably nonpartisan and pushing back when things are wrong. Right. And look, I'm not afraid for us to call bullshit when we need to call bullshit. And if you look at our election night coverage, we literally labeled people election deniers as the adjective, just as you would call them an incumbent. I was noticing that. Yeah. I have no problem with that. There was all kinds of craziness around the term the big lie. I don't like the term the big lie because it's not very specific and it sounds like a talking point.

I prefer Trump's lie, Trump's lies about the election. So there's nothing here that suggests that we would pull back or, well, maybe there was lies around the election. That's not what I'm talking about. Yeah, I noticed the election denier thing. I found it fascinating. Did you like it? I thought it was accurate. I thought it was accurate. That's not what I'm talking about. Yeah, I noticed the election denier thing. I found it fascinating. Did you like it? I thought it was accurate. I thought it was accurate. That's all. It's accurate. And there's no way you could run away from it. I have had many arguments about using the term liar sometimes

when people lie and things like that about news organizations. I think you just say what it is. So when you're thinking about this CNN rebrand, what makes you think you can win over conservatives? Because part of it is not having a, you know, we'll get to Fox News in a minute, but they know their audience well, let's just say. You're looking for a broader audience. Do you think you can win over, this election was very interesting. It showed the voters were a lot smarter than any pundit or media person or politician that I could, that I listened to. The voters really kind of went not down the middle. They took a stand for democracy, for example. Yeah, I'm not looking at it through trying to appeal to

lean into the left or try to appeal to more people on the right. I think that that's not a good business model because you're fighting for a bigger slice of a shrinking pie. The competition for me in cable is not MSNBC or Fox. Hopefully, what we're doing is so different and unique that we are attracting people who perhaps have found cable news to be irrelevant in their lives. So the play is to not be offensive to a side, right? And perhaps they will come to us for an unvarnished truth to allow themselves to make their own decisions. And that's a different brand. And my competition is frankly Kathleen's, you know, HGTV and Netflix. And, you know, that's my, I'm fighting for people's, in down news times, I'm fighting for people's discretionary attention. Right.

And I don't believe that the way to the future is to try to steal people from Fox. So wasn't CNN doing that before Trump and the ratings still didn't? You know, I don't know. I don't know that that's accurate. I think if you're just doing news, then perhaps that's not a winning formula. But if you're widening your aperture as to what could be news, and quite frankly, we have the world's leading news gathering. It doesn't always show up on television, right? So for me, I think more like a newspaper where there's a lot of different things in there. It's not just breaking

news. It's not just politics. It's not just down the middle. There are really interesting stories happening in America that are becoming more and more relevant in people's lives. And I think that that's something that we can lean into. All right. Your old job as EP of Stephen Colbert, Colbert is very influential in news. Could you inform a broader audience there than you could at CNN? My sons don't watch CNN, they watch John Oliver, and that's where they get their news. But it's not news. But it is. It's not.

It's a point of view, and it's pretty smart. It is point of view, but I think we're offering something different. And I think, um, there are certainly elements of that kind of delivery, right? Not necessarily comedy, but, um, if you look at someone like John Oliver or Bill Marr, or, you know, that it's, that, you know, it's informed, uh, perspective programming that allows you to make your own decisions. And if we're able to talk about really polarizing topics in a way that those guys can, then I think that also makes us different.

So are you going to do a late night show on CNN, like compete with Gutfeld? I wouldn't call him, I would call him just an entertaining show. I would not call him a late night show. Okay. As someone who worked

on a late night show and knows what goes into that, I wouldn't put it in the same category. You'd be Colbert. But go ahead. Are we going to get into this conversation?

No, we're not. That's not true. Okay, all right, okay. I'm still going to defend my friend Steven. You're good at making these shows. Why not have one there if you're talking about

a panoply of things to give to people? I wouldn't rule out some kind of show that involved people talking in a way that was not delivering news in a straightforward manner. Sure. Oh, that's a nice way to cut it. It sounds like so dull. Okay. All right.

Last question on this topic. How will CNN cover the 2024 race under your vision, on the Zaslav-Licht vision? It's not the Zaslav-Licht vision. It's the Chris-Licht vision. Chris-Licht vision. Oh, yeah. Let's get rid of Zaslav. That's fine by me. Okay. Come on. All right. We have fact checkers ready to go. We will put things in perspective. We will not let everything he does consume the news cycle, right? There are other things that are important. I think one of

the mistakes- Which Zucker regretted. 100%. But look, it's not just Zucker. It was everybody. We let every little thing that he did consume everything. And so you ended up talking about him for eight hours a day. And we're not going to do that.

We're going to be very clear and take everything on a case-by-case basis about what level of coverage it should be. So meaning that it will not be quite hand-wavy? We are not going to be a 24-7 Trump news network. Even if he raises ratings? Correct. Thank you. is a matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility

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Business Formation product, excluding subscriptions and renewals. Expires December 31st, 2024. Get everything you need from setup to success at LegalZoom.com and use promo code VoxBiz. LegalZoom.com and use promo code VoxBiz. LegalZoom provides access to independent attorneys and self-service tools. LegalZoom is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice except for authorized through its subsidiary law firm, LZ Legal Services, LLC. All right, let's talk about probating decisions you made. I want to do this in a lightning round so you can get out of here quicker if you'd like, but you can stay as long as you like. The first thing you did, CNN+, you announced you were shutting down CNN+, less than 30 days after it launched.

The network had already put $300 million into it and let me make a disclosure. I was offered a show and I turned it down because I'm a genius. So full disclosure. So why not give it a chance? Can you imagine how you'd be grilling me today? Yes.

If we would be sitting here with a standalone streaming news service in the world that we are in that was budgeted to lose hundreds of millions of dollars this year. You would be like, what are you doing? Why haven't you shut it down? Yeah, I didn't quite get it. If you know something is not strategic and you know that it's not going to fit into your broader strategy, then why put another dime into it? And that's not to take away any of the work that was done. People worked really hard on those shows. And the fact that they stood up that many shows in that amount of time and it looked good. And that's not at all a disparagement on people that like,

the people in this building killed themselves to get that on the air. So it was not an easy decision, killed themselves to get that on the air. So it was not an easy decision, but it was, you know, from the standpoint of the people it affected, but it was an easy decision when it comes to the strategy. Is there anything you liked from it? Look, I think some of the long form stuff that Amy did was fantastic. Amy and Tellus. Yeah. And some of it's living on linear. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Not Jake Tapper's book club. No. Anyway, I won't go into it. I already teased him about that. You're so cold. I know, but I don't want to know what Jake Taffer thinks about books. Most people, I don't want to hear what they think about books, but that's just me. I've told him this. I've told him this. I enjoy his books. Okay. Okay. One of your first talent hires was John Miller, the former NYPD deputy commissioner.

Early this year, he testified at a city council hearing and essentially denied the NYPD deputy commissioner early this year. He testified at a city council hearing and essentially denied the NYPD spied on Muslims after 9-11. That's misleading at best. Mayor Eric Adams even had to apologize afterwards. If you want the newsroom to focus on getting the facts right, why hire Miller? John Miller is without peer as it relates to analysis of crime and anti-terrorism. I was on the show with him. He was excellent. And he's fantastic. And he joins that 9 a.m. call. And every time he opens his mouth, he gets booked all day.

And I would want no one else sitting on a set in real time breaking news as something is unfolding with him, given the contacts he has all over the country with law enforcement and frankly, all over the world. So if you're talking about getting something right because he has sources like no one else does, you can't do better than John Miller. Okay. Did you talk about the NYPD spying on Muslims after 9-11? Yes. And?

I'm satisfied with his response. Okay. You canceled Brian Stelter's Reliable Sources. It was one of your highly ranked weekend shows. Tell me why. Look, I really like Brian. I've known Brian for a very long time. I want to do media coverage in a different way. And I think you can see we have Sarah Fisher that we just brought over as a contributor who still works for Axios. And my vision for media coverage is that it doesn't really have a place on linear television on a weekly basis. I would rather do media analysis and coverage on our digital platform that reaches 180 million unique users. And when it makes sense to be on television, we put Oliver Darcy on or we put Sarah on.

So that was a strategic. According to Dylan Byers, Brian told friends he considered himself a sacrificial lamb. He had three years left on his contract, so it wasn't the money. I'm curious why you didn't offer him a different day or digital, just like you're talking about. I don't really want to get into the specifics on that. But I don't think that's fair to him. All right. Jake Tapper moved from four to nine.

Now he's moving back to four. This was a temporary thing, but there was an idea that he might move into that prime time slot. Did it not work or was it more the personal thing? This was not an issue with his ratings or whether the show was working or not, because it takes a lot longer than a few weeks to understand if a show is working. And I think he did some really interesting things in that short amount of time.

And part of the, hey, let's try this until the end of the elections was, how is this going to affect your life? Like, that is a huge consideration. And he was very clear that it was important for him to be home with his family. And like, I'm really grateful to him for leaving the, you know, very safe harbor of four o'clock and taking a chance and going out and doing this for a short amount of time. And it was, I'm very grateful to him. And there was something there, but it has to work for everybody.

And Tapper was also the lead anchor last week on election night instead of Wolf Blitzer. MSNBC did beat you in the ratings for the first time. I know you don't think ratings matter. In the total audience. In the total audience. Fox had 7.4 million, MSNBC 3.2, and you 2.6 million viewers in the overall audience. We beat everybody in the younger audience, including all the broadcast networks, except for Fox News.

You want to beat them overall, correct? I want to beat everybody in every metric, for sure. All right. So why do you think that happened? Do you have any clue? Not sure. I mean, we had also an incredibly big night on digital. We had more than 10 million video starts,

which is incredible. I don't know. I think it could be a variety of things, but I don't think it was our coverage. I don't think it was the fact that Jake was leading our coverage, if that's what you're getting at. All right. So you moved Don Lemon from 10 PM and put him on the morning show. We're almost through this. No problem. So far, the numbers are what? How do you? After three weeks? Yes. We continue to grow. So that, to me, is exciting. It takes a very long time for people to even know that we have a new morning show on.

That is true. But I'm incredibly excited about that morning show because of what it is and the impact it's already having and the guests that they book. And so I'm very bullish on that show. And it's already beaten some of the competition twice in three weeks. And that's pretty good. Twice in three weeks. So the debut show was 387,000. Morning Joe had 793,000.

Fox and Friends, killing. What does this Morning Joe show? Too bad, you left it. No longer yours. To give Chris credit, he was a critical force in making Morning Joe as big as it is. But now you have to contend with it. Fox and Friends, of course, has 1.5 million. First week averaged about 389.

The first week. The first week it was on the air, Karen. Come on. Yeah, right. But it was lower than New Day. It was lower than New Day, which was $404,000. I got numbers here, Chris. I'm sorry. How long was New Day on? A long time. Okay. So you're going to give it time to breathe. Time to breathe. Oh, my God. Yes, I'm just asking. Where we are right now, I would be thrilled if you told me that. Okay. What do you think works about it? Why start with mornings when the real ad money is in prime time? Well, first of all, that is shifting. And second of all, I start with mornings because

it is a place that can set the tone for the rest of the day. And if you get that right, by the end of the day, it actually helps your prime time. And if you have a good prime time, it helps your morning. So it's incredibly important. And to by the end of the day, it actually helps your prime time. And if you have a good prime time, it helps your morning. So it's incredibly important. And to put the three of them on, those are three amazing talent that we have. And I think for me, it was a no-brainer. How did you pick those three to come together? They're actual friends.

And they all bring something different to the table, both in their expertise and their demographic and where they come from in the country. different to the table, both in their expertise and their demographic and where they come from in the country. And as you know, what makes or break a show like that is the chemistry. Yeah, I know. So if you know that there is chemistry, and look, it's going to take time for that chemistry to actually be on set. But if you actually know that the three of them have chemistry and are friends and are good. Yeah.

I'd skip the coffee shop stuff, but that's okay. That's just me. I'm with you. I don't, I'm like, don't do that. Don't growing pains.

Growing. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's very, chemistry is very important. You were, you,

you, you helped with the rehearsals. I did. I was there. I did. You brought your kid. So, you know,

if you remember back in the day of Saturday night live, the Jane, you ignorant slut thing works really well, like a disagreement, which I think I could use a little bit more of, which is, I think, helpful. You could use more disagreement in the morning. Yeah, yeah, disagreement in the morning. Not bad disagreement, not like screamy disagreement.

You know what, by the way, that's actually, that's a really fair point. And I think that's one of the things we will get to when they feel more comfortable just being amongst themselves and the mechanics of doing that show then you can kind of let down that whole okay i'm on tv and how am i am i interrupting this person like that is absolutely a place that that we can get to so i was just saying in the morning uh fox news uh do you consider it a news outlet you are not going to get me to comment on whether i think fuck i I was not born yesterday. Come on. Okay. Well, the day before yesterday? Do you talk to them? Do you talk to them?

Fox? Yeah. There was a report that you were going to do a truce. I don't think that's accurate. No. No. Yeah. Yeah. And one thing you said today, the only reason I'm asking, because today in the meeting, you said we should not be fact-checking Tucker Carlson, even if he says outrageous things. And some people disagreed because they thought he was a big influence on the Republican Party. But you felt that was sort of a rabbit hole. Maybe I mischaracterized it. No, what I said was, I'm OK covering other outlets in a macro way, right? If the president of the United States is sitting in

his bedroom and getting policy advice from a cable news network, that is something we absolutely should cover. But what a primetime host says someplace to gin up excitement and controversy, I don't believe that that's something that we should be covering. Fair point. All right, last one. Talk about talent. Right now, you have two big holes in 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Does CNN have any- And 11. And 11. So how do you look at that? Anderson Cooper is probably your biggest star, if I had to pick one. Have you thought? They're all my biggest stars. I know.

They're all beautiful children. I get it. That's right. But how do you fill those two big holes? Carefully and deliberately. I'm not going to rush anything on the air. First of all, speaking of Anderson, he's able to go two hours. And I have something really kind of fun and interesting at 10 and 11, which I want to see

develop, you know, with Laura Coates and Alison Camerata, and that's more of a panel show, but I've been on it. Did you enjoy it? Yes. Yes. It was late. It's definitely late. But we have some very, look, as you can imagine, these things, you throw a bunch of things against the wall and you see what sticks. And it takes time to really talk to people and develop. And so we have some really exciting, interesting things that I hope will come to fruition. And I hope that we'll be able to announce in the not too distant future. But I'm not going to rush something on the air just for the sake of having something

at 9 o'clock. I really want it to stick. Yeah. And now, have you thought about spending, that would include spending money to lure a big name? Do you have any? 100%. 100%.

Yes. Can you tell me who that is? I have suggestions. I'm open to any suggestions. I think Shep Smith is really interesting. It didn't work at CNBC. In prime time? Yeah.

I didn't think it worked there, but it doesn't mean it wouldn't work. Interesting. Gail King, if I had the money, Gail King. She's tied up. I understand that, but a truck of money. Well, she can't break her contract, Kara. Well, you know, Chris, these things happen. I don't know if you've noticed.

I remember that David Letterman guy moved around. She's too loyal. She's too loyal. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Anybody else you want to?

No, absolutely not. Would you bring Chris Cuomo back? I would not. You would not. What is the status of that lawsuit? Whatever. I don't know. It's not part of my world.

Okay. All right. Let's finish up with business. So you and also David Zaslav has said you're not worried about ratings. Why aren't you worried about ratings? That is very simplified. I do not want someone who's producing an hour of television on CNN saying, you know what? I could lead with this or I could lead with that.

I'm going to lead with that because it'll get a better number. Right. I want people leading and stacking their shows in a way based on journalism and what's important. Let me worry about the ratings. Chase stories, not ratings. Does that matter? Of course we care about ratings. Does it matter to advertisers?

I hear there's a lot of advertisers leaving Twitter. They need a place to go. They need a brand safe place. A brand safe place. Which by the way, Kara, one of my pitches about CNN is that advertisers always want to be next to a cause, right? Customers demand it. Employees demand it. Can you think of a better cause than journalism? So one of my pitches to these advertisers is be alongside CNN because it's a cause worth getting behind. Journalism, particularly in the time that we are in, is something that your brand should be alongside of. So to do that, I have to make sure that our programming is not hurting the brand. Right. Okay. But viewers matter and ratings matter to you. Okay. Because you can't have a cause with no viewers, presumably. Yeah, but I'm nowhere near heading into the territory of having

no viewers. Now, no matter what great a job you do, millions of people are likely to continue cutting the cord every year. This is a secular issue that I've talked about for a long time. But they can't subscribe to Sandin Plus anymore. What's the long-term plan for that from your perspective? I know it's not your job, but it is your job to think about that. No, of course it's my job. But that's part of the vision of what we're working on. So ultimately, the reason why we still invest in the linear product is it does make a lot of money in a secular declining environment.

Yes, less money than before, but yes. But still a lot of money. Yep. And what that gives us is time, right? At a certain point, that linear product may go to a direct consumer product. Maybe it goes to our combined Warner Brothers Discovery Plus, whatever we're going to call it. Right now, it's only a tile with some of our content. And if at some point the economics suggest that it's better for us to be on

that platform that has over 100 million subscribers, that's something that we can do like that. Or maybe we license the feed to different people. There's a lot of options once the economics don't make sense about being with cable companies. But we have to have a linear product that is vital. And at the same time, we have to engage people on our digital platform and engage with the brand that way. So I'm going to wrap this up. Do you think CNN will get sold again? I mean, that's one of the worries with this debt.

I genuinely do not think so. You do not think so. And here's why. CNN, first of all, if you talk to David, it is one of the things that gets him most excited about it being part of the company. CNN, having that company, having Warner Brothers Discovery, he's incredibly excited that CNN's part of it.

So he did not buy this company to then sell off CNN. Now, the other reason that gives me, I've never, ever heard it once even whispered. And you'll say, well, Chris, they're not going to tell you. No, they're not going to tell you. But what I am told is integrate more with the parent company. CNN was set up as a very siloed organization when I got here. Right?

That could be spun off. People wanted to. And people want it to. But everything that I've been instructed on how we're structuring the companies is to integrate more that would thus suggest that there's no plans for it to be sold. Okay. Last question. Two short questions. I want to paint a picture.

I know, I know, but I always do. That's my thing. That's my life. I want you to paint three pictures for me three years from now. What's the worst case scenario, the middle of the road from outside just the core people that are already watching us. That everything we do, the morning show and prime time, along with day sides, the Sunday night stuff that we're doing, it all hits. That's the best case scenario from the linear side. From the digital side, all the bets that we're making on infrastructure and engagement and having the website be a part of your life more than just when there's breaking news. All of that is firing on all cylinders and advertising comes back.

That's your best. Any worst case scenarios? You just refuse to think. The worst case scenario is that people don't like what we're selling and people move on. And the people that we are trying to attract and interact with us don't like it. Yeah. And then that'll be someone else's problem. Yeah.

You'll lose your job. That's right. Thank you. I appreciate that. No problem. Just FYI. Just call me when that happens or if it ever, never going to happen. Will you hire me? I don't have a job to give you, but let me ask you one more question. Who is your favorite

newscaster of the past? I'm just curious who's someone that you imprint on. Mine is Ted Koppel in Nightline. Tom Brokaw. Why is that? When I was in fourth grade, I sat in front of a map and I pretended I was him. And he's just always been a hero of mine. And when I got to know him at Morning Joe, it was an incredible moment for me. And he is someone I had a very, very serious and long conversation with before I left to go to CBS. And I've always just considered him an incredible journalist and role model.

Would he work today? No. Because? I think he'd be the first one to tell you that. Because? I think the world has evolved. Right? And that's okay.

I think he'd be the first one to say that to you, I think. Yeah. Okay. And you both have great voices. Anyway, thank you, Chris. You've been really good for it. I think you've given as good as you got. I really appreciate it. I do. This has been great. I really appreciate it. Look at him angling for my job. Did you hear that? He wants to work for me. Well,

he's a very good executive producer. He is. He is. If you have to replace me with anyone, you can replace me with Chris Licht. Yeah, he's good. He's a very affable fellow. He's so different than Jeff Zucker. So different. Has a really hard job earning trust back at that organization. Yeah. I just think Jeff Zucker spent a lot of time with the talent and they, it's, you know, it's no matter how you slice it, it's TV. And therefore there's a different dynamic than other media organizations. What kind of dynamic? A petting zoo? Well, a petting zoo, because they live in TV.

It's the constant edge of insecurity, which is a plague of general media in general. But he's walked into a bad economy, a merger that has some real economic issues. And what are you going to show me, sir, in a world where secularly this stuff isn't working anymore? So what works? And that's hard. But he's made a lot of great stuff. So we'll see. I think you're right. The talent really want to be validated.

But also there's a huge amount of insecurity at CNN right now, which I can understand. I mean, the network is shifting. There are layoffs when they said they wouldn't be. There's a new guy in town. I completely get the challenges up against. He should do more of these. He should come out and talk more outside the organization. I completely get the, you know, the challenges up against. He should do more of these. He should come out and talk more outside the organization. I think this was very strategic. I think he's talking to me because he wants his own voice, not his boss's voice or his

employee's voice. Smart, smart idea to talk to me, actually. Anyways, Kara, I think you'd mentioned earlier that you had a rant for us today. I'm going to have a weekly rant because I think it's very good to have a rant. You should only do them when you're really inspired to do them. I'm always inspired. I could just print the text you sent me. Could that be the daily rant? That could be the daily rant. In any case, I'm going to talk about citizen journalism. The other day, chief twit Elon Musk turned his lonely tweets to the media, one of his favorite dunks. And he wrote, as Twitter pursues the goal of elevating citizen journalism, media elite will try everything to stop that from happening. I had to laugh, not because this was funny, it wasn't even a lukewarm burn,

but the world's richest man has finally entered a debate that's been going on for a very long time in tech and has been conducted by, I'm sorry to say, far deeper thinkers than this reductive tweeting. I think back to a discussion between my old partner Walt Mossberg and Hollywood legend Barry Diller when Walt likened citizen journalism to citizen surgery because it lacked the rigor needed and all the impulsiveness that could spell danger. Steve Jobs was even more adamant. I don't want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers. I think we need editorial oversight now more than ever. Anything we can do to help newspapers find new ways of expression that will help them get paid, I am all for. While I appreciated these more measured attitudes about

how important a free and independent professional press was to democracy, I've always been more positive about the idea that more voices on the ground with expertise that has been undiscovered was a good thing. The audience knew things, and this was a medium that allowed them in some way to have a bidirectional relationship with a news outlet. This is enormously valuable. When I started on the internet beat in the early 1990s, for example, I put my then new email at the bottom of my stories, one of the first at the Washington Post newsroom to do so. But you hear from readers, said my colleagues. Exactly, I replied. said my colleagues. Exactly, I replied. I have been heartened and even amazed sometimes by their contributions and have continued to seek out their wisdom today, most recently on Twitter Spaces,

where I tried to create content that relied on audience being part of the process. I was amazed by the high level of discourse and how many things they told me I did not know and needed to. So it's not a binary choice that leaves us with no nuance. Can we love citizens doing journalism, if we want to use that word or just giving information while also decrying those who seem to feed those with poor information diets information that is caloric, toxic, and in a quantity that makes it impossible to stop gorging on? What Musk and others like Kerry Lake, the local TV anchor who said last week, quote, I'm going to be your worst freaking nightmare for eight years. We'll reform the media as well. We're going to make you guys into journalists again. So get ready. It's going to be a fun eight years. I can't wait to be working with you. Sorry, I will

miss that journalism lesson, Carrie Lake. I didn't think you have anything to teach me actually, but citizens absolutely do have a lot to teach journalists. What I would prefer is not to make it an either or, or to hand a false choice to reporters and citizens alike that there is no middle ground. Stop citizen journalism from happening as if. Since you're so good at reading rants, you want to rant out the credits? I will rant out the credits now.

Today's show was produced by Naeem Araza, Blake Neshek, Christian Castro-Rossell, and Raffaella Seward. Rick Kwan engineered this episode. Special thanks to Haley Milliken and Adam Schibble. Our theme music is by Trackademics.

If you're already following the show, God bless you. If not, he may smite you. Unless you go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Glory will follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine,

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