Chris Licht out as CNN chief after series of stumbles

Chris Licht, the embattled chief executive of CNN, is set to leave the network after a series of controversies, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Licht had been handpicked just over a year ago by Warner Bros Discovery chief executive David Zaslav to steer CNN after the departure of its longtime chief Jeff Zucker.

But Licht’s brief tenure at the top of CNN was riddled with mis-steps, culminating in a damning article in The Atlantic magazine last week that depicted the executive as thin-skinned and struggling.

Weeks earlier, CNN hosted a controversial town hall meeting with Donald Trump, who insulted the network’s moderator to cheers from an audience packed with the former president’s supporters. CNN journalists were angry, but Licht defended the decision, saying: “America was served very well by what we did”.

Licht apologised to CNN staff on Monday morning, telling employees he would “fight like hell” to regain their trust.