| Dear Friend, CNN is strongly denying that it’s trying to be the new Fox "News," but the change is so obvious that even Trump sees it.
Let’s break down what’s happening at CNN. Since the recent Discovery-Warner Bros. merger, a lot has changed at CNN. The leading shareholder in Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. is billionaire John Malone, who donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration, is on the board of the Charles Koch-funded Cato Institute, and previously held 32% of the shares of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. In an interview with CNBC, Malone said Fox "News" has “actual journalism” and CNN should be more like it: “more centrist.”(1) Actual journalism? Has he ever seen Fox "News"? Now new CNN president, Chris Licht, has discouraged staff from using “the Big Lie” to refer to former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.(2) He wants to be less “partisan and alarmist”, and went on a so-called “Capitol Hill diplomacy tour” to meet with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to recruit Republican members of Congress to appear on the network.(3,4) After canceling Brian Stelter’s Sunday CNN show, Reliable Sources, which has featured intelligent criticism of Fox "News," right-wing media, Trumpism, and the increasingly authoritarian lurch of the Republican Party, Licht told staff, "There will be more changes and you might not understand it or like it."(5)
It’s not just who Licht has fired -- it’s also who he’s hired. CNN has announced that John Miller will be the network’s new chief law-enforcement and intelligence analyst. The former New York Police Department deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism is an extremely polarizing figure who made headlines in March when he testified to the New York City Council that the NYPD did not, in his opinion, inappropriately spy on Muslims after the September 11 attacks despite the department having settled numerous lawsuits related to the illegal spying.(6) We can’t let the media poison the narrative with right-wing lies and disinformation. There’s no middle ground in the fight to save American democracy. Thank you for taking action today. –Irene, along with Amber, Angela, Annie, Isidra, Jay, Lindsay, LisaMarie, Mai, Mai, Raquel, and Scottie (the Courage team)
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