Liberal podcaster Kara Swisher cautioned CNN’s corporate overlord to "get the f—k out of the way" and let "professionals" try to fix the long-struggling network.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is known to want CNN to return to a just-the-facts approach to news, but he fired CNN CEO Chris Licht this week when he lost support of liberal staffers amid a disastrous year on the job while trying to make the network less biased.
Swisher, who infamously defended then-Senate candidate John Fetterman, D-Pa., at all costs after he struggled to communicate, isn’t a fan of Zaslav’s attempt to pivot away from far-left programming.
"I think they can be news without having to declare constantly they're centrist," Swisher said on her "Pivot" podcast. "That was… very much David Zaslav. Let me just say, I think Chris was a proxy for him."
Swisher said she’s previously had "vexing" conversations with the high-powered Zaslav about his theories on journalism.
"I think he’s a very smart programmer, but honestly, it’s like talking to my uncle about journalism," Swisher said. "I’m like, ‘What?’ I said ‘what’ a lot during our conversation, so he needs to let the professionals take over and see if they can make good programming. He needs to get the f—k out of the way."
According to a source familiar with Zaslav’s thinking told Fox News Digital, "He would have preferred to spend less time on CNN, but it was clear to him that Licht needed the support."
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Swisher added that she feels Zaslav "worships at the altar" of Warner Bros. Discovery board member John Malone, who has said CNN needs to "actually have journalists" and urged the network to revert to its nonpartisan heyday.
"I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing," Malone said during an interview in 2021 in which he also praised Fox News.
"Fox News, in my opinion, has followed an interesting trajectory of trying to have ‘news’ news, I mean some actual journalism, embedded in a program schedule of all opinions," he said.
Licht was hand-picked by Zaslav in 2022 to replace Jeff Zucker, who was forced out ahead of a long-planned merger that put CNN under Zaslav’s control. Now Licht is out of a job after just over a year, and the future of Zaslav’s CNN remains unclear. CNN executives Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley and Eric Sherling are expected to serve as the acting leadership team, along with new Chief Operating Officer David Leavy.
Warner Bros. Discovery declined a request for comment.
