#CNN CAVES TO GOP #REACTION to #DineshDSouza

CNN's new CEO, Chris Licht, has been attending to an audience neglected by the network for the past several years: Republican lawmakers.

Full story https://freebeacon.com/media/chris-lichts-republican-apology-tour/
The network boss camped out in mid-July in a room on the first floor of the Senate side of the Capitol, S-120, where he asked GOP lawmakers to come talk with him privately. That arrangement avoided alerting the reporters who stalk the halls of the Capitol, sources said, and accommodated Republican lawmakers who preferred not to be seen hobnobbing with him.has made few personnel changes. While he elevated Virginia Moseley to the network's top editorial spot, Puck‘s Dylan Byers has observed that "what's actually notable" about the changes he's made thus far "is that the leadership team is comprised of exactly the same people who were working under Zucker. One might disparagingly call it a rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic."

Licht's pitch was a tough sell, sources said, given the hostility CNN anchors have expressed toward top Republicans. Among others, The Lead host Jake Tapper has floated the idea of banning from his show any Republican lawmaker who questioned the 2020 election results, asking in May 2021, "How am I supposed to believe anything they say?" a stance his CNN colleague Chris Wallace has dismissed as "moral posturing." Tapper, a former spokesman for Democratic congresswoman Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, has continued to book Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who never conceded her 2018 race to Georgia governor Brian Kemp.

OutFront host Erin Burnett, meanwhile, skewered House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) for removing Rep. Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.) from her leadership position: "He says he is for a big tent party that embraces free thought and debate," Burnett said in May 2021. "Wow. He has—in polite terms—gall." And Sunday show host Fareed Zakaria has argued that GOP senator Tom Cotton (Ark.) wants the United States to "imitate the Chinese Communist Party."

Pressed about how he would change course without making major personnel changes, Licht appears to be relying on the force of his authority and personality, sources said. "He kept saying, ‘I'm in charge, I'm in charge, they answer to me,'" the GOP lawmaker said. "‘They don't answer to the workforce, they don't answer to the viewers, they answer to me.'"

Licht also said that he is not focused on the ratings, at least in the near term, emphasizing that the bulk of CNN's revenue comes from cable-subscription fees rather than from advertising, and that his boss, Warner Brothers Discovery chief David Zaslav, is committed