CNN’s Oliver Darcy Flames His Boss: ‘Alienated Much of the Employee Base’

By Charlie NashJun 6th, 2023, 

CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy didn’t hold back in his Reliable Sources newsletter on Monday, which questioned CNN CEO Chris Licht’s “judgment” and “ability to lead,” and revealed that many CNN staffers want Licht gone.

In his newsletter, Darcy called The Atlantic’s Friday profile of Licht “blistering” and “embarrassing,” and wrote that it “called into serious question Licht’s judgment, his ability to lead the network’s staff, and his overall professional capabilities as CNN’s top executive.”

Darcy also wrote that it was “far from certain” whether Licht could “actually win over his army of journalists,” as he had “alienated much of the employee base and squandered the good will he had when he took helm of the network.”

“There are a wide range of emotions coursing through the halls of CNN. Some staffers are frustrated. Others are angry,” Darcy revealed. “Many are sad about the awful state of affairs that has taken hold of an organization they love.”

Darcy also revealed that the “one near-universal sentiment” behind the scenes at CNN was that “Licht has lost the room.”

While Darcy reported that Licht’s apology to staffers on Monday “struck the right tone,” he noted that several staffers had considered it “too little, too late”:

In the eyes of so many at CNN, there isn’t anything Licht can do at this point to win over their support. They’ve hit the wall with him. As one anchor texted me, in reference to Licht’s announcement on Monday that he will relocate his office to a newsroom floor at Hudson Yards: “We don’t want his office relocated to the 18th floor, we want it relocated out of the building.”

The last time Darcy wrote so candidly about the “fury of criticism” Licht was facing within CNN, Darcy was reportedly “summoned” to a meeting with the CEO and scolded for being “too emotional.”

“Darcy stood by his work and pushed back on the ’emotional’ characterization, one source with knowledge of the meeting said. But afterward two sources who heard about the meeting described him as visibly shaken,” reported Puck News’ Dylan Byers.

On Monday, the Daily Beast’s Confider newsletter called Licht a “dead man talking” and claimed “CNN bedrocks” like Jake Tapper, Erin Burnett, and Wolf Blitzer had “lost confidence in the boss” in the wake of the Atlantic‘s article.

Licht apologized to staffers on Monday, saying, “I fully recognize that this news cycle and my role in it overshadowed the incredible week of reporting that we just had and distracted from the work of every single journalist in this organization. And for that, I am sorry.”