Chris Licht Lays Out CNN’s New Approach to Covering Trump — And Ensuring The Network Doesn’t Fall For His ‘Noise’

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CNN Worldwide Chairman and CEO Chris Licht addressed the network’s employees during a company-wide Q&A with anchor Alisyn Camerota on Tuesday.

While the discussion largely focused on upcoming cuts and potential layoffs as the network tightens its belt, Licht also spoke at length and laid out his vision for how to cover a third presidential run by Donald Trump, which was put into action later in the day.

At one point in the conversation, Camerota noted that the network has a responsibility to fact-check Trump “when he opens his mouth.”

Licht agreed as Camerota then asked when should the network decide to cover a Trump event and when should they not cover it, given that a Trump campaign inevitably “sucks up a lot of the oxygen on the airwaves.”

Licht responded, saying the network should make those calls on a “case by case basis.”

He argued that making those calls is “where we have to be different than before” – alluding to a criticism regularly launched at his predecessor Jeff Zucker. Zucker has addressed accusations that he and CNN under his leadership covered Trump too much and helped to propel him into the presidency and, as recently as October, has publicly said he regrets it.

Licht added in his response to Camerota that CNN must not “allow the craziness to consume us” when covering Trump. “‘Don’t fall for the outrage porn,'” he added, saying he was quoting one of his favorite CNN staffers.

Licht continued, noting that part of Trump’s media strategy is to distract and create “noise” that’s “specifically designed to gin us up.” He argued that the network must choose carefully what “actually matters” and focus on what “actually has impact.”

He made the case that this is the only approach for the audience to know what is actually worth paying attention to from Trump — so that it all “doesn’t feel like noise.”

“Part of his strategy is to make sure that everything he does gets a lot of coverage, so that when he slips in something that’s really consequential, like a coup, it feels like noise. And I don’t want us to succumb to that,” Licht concluded.

Hours later CNN was one of the few networks that carried Trump’s speech announcing his 2024 run for the presidency. CNN carried about 25 minutes of the speech and then discussed it in a panel discussion, which included two former Trump aides, Mick Mulvaney and Alyssa Farah Griffin, offering tough analysis. The network also quickly fact-checked it with Daniel Dale finding “20 false and misleading claims.”

CNN was rewarded in the ratings for the approach as the 9 p.m. hour raked in 2.43 million total viewers and 656,000 viewers in the key 25-54 age demographic – a significant bump.