Harwood, a longtime Wall Street Journal reporter, joined the community in January 2020, after working as CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent from 2006 to 2019. According to 2 folks with data of the state of affairs, Harwood nonetheless had time remaining on his CNN contract, which means that community brass determined to finish his tenure prematurely.
Representatives for CNN declined to touch upon the explanation for his departure. “We appreciate John’s work covering the White House, and we wish him all the best,” they mentioned in a assertion.
As a reporter who typically supplied political evaluation, Harwood was a common presence on the community’s airwaves who was “clearly in-demand by the shows,” one shocked CNN insider mentioned.
His exit follows the abrupt departure of CNN’s chief media correspondent, Brian Stelter, host of the weekly media news present “Reliable Sources,” which had aired for 3 many years till it was canceled final month. Like Harwood, Stelter had time remaining on his contract. Another longtime CNN commentator, legal-affairs pundit Jeffrey Toobin, introduced his departure on Aug. 12.
Several present and former CNN staff who spoke with The Washington Post — most of whom spoke on the situation of anonymity to talk candidly — are decoding the sudden exodus as proof that Licht, who joined the community as chairman and CEO in May, is beginning his tenure by casting out voices that had typically been vital of former president Donald Trump and his allies, in an effort to current a new, extra ideologically impartial CNN. That aligns with a imaginative and prescient repeatedly expressed by David Zaslav, the chief government of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Zaslav employed Licht to interchange Jeff Zucker, the community’s ousted longtime chief, who had inspired an earlier tonal shift at CNN by permitting the community’s stars to specific extra emotion and opinion.
“People are freaked out,” mentioned one CNN journalist. “It almost feels like there’s a pattern. Is there a purge going on? They seem to be sending a message: ‘Watch what you say. Watch what you do.’”
Licht has supplied little steerage publicly about a new mission for CNN, leaving some staff feeling unmoored. “Longtime CNN personalities are disappearing, and the viewers don’t know why,” one other CNN insider mentioned, noting that Licht has not employed many new voices to interchange them.
Harwood’s vocal commentary set him aside from lots of his CNN friends. In his closing reporting look Friday morning, Harwood known as Trump a “dishonest demagogue” when discussing President Biden’s tackle from Philadelphia the earlier night time. Harwood added that the “core point” of Biden’s speech, which asserted that Trump and his supporters current a risk to democracy, “is true.”
Harwood acknowledged on-air that his personal assertion veered from the conventions of conventional journalism. “We are brought up to believe there’s two different political parties with different points of view and we don’t take sides in honest disagreements between them,” he mentioned. “But that’s not what we’re talking about. These are not honest disagreements.”
Harwood’s remark got here throughout as an intentional “last salvo,” mentioned Wajahat Ali, a political commentator who served as a CNN contributor in 2019 and 2020. “I don’t think it was an accident,” Ali mentioned.
Ali speculated that the pressured departures of Stelter and Harwood will ship a message to different CNN journalists that they need to curb their political evaluation for worry of crossing a line into opinion, susceptible to dropping “a plum job that everyone wants.”
Licht has instructed CNN employees that he hopes to see extra Republican politicians making visitor appearances. He visited Capitol Hill in July and held conferences with key Democrats and Republicans.
But the community has pushed again on recommendations that Licht was particularly attempting to curry favor with Republicans, saying that he simply desires to make CNN “a place for fair and respectful dialogue, analysis and debate.”
Licht’s early actions within the job are being intently watched in gentle of feedback by John Malone, a main shareholder in Warner Bros. Discovery, who mentioned on CNBC final fall that he “would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists.”
In an interview final month with the New York Times, Malone denied that he was concerned within the choice to push out Stelter. He mentioned he desires “the news portion of CNN to be more centrist” however that he’s “not in control or directly involved.”
In a memo to staff in May, Licht mentioned he desires CNN to assist regain the belief that many individuals have misplaced in media, by “fearlessly speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo, questioning ‘group-think,’ and educating viewers and readers with straightforward facts and insightful commentary, while always being respectful of differing viewpoints.”
But one of many CNN journalists who spoke with The Post mentioned that colleagues are nonetheless attempting to determine the place, precisely, the brand new traces are being drawn. “I think they’re hoping people will just guess what to do.”
A veteran producer on the community, who spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of he was not licensed to remark, expressed issues about how the latest departures — and the message they’ve despatched internally — will have an effect on protection of the upcoming midterm and presidential elections, which might embrace Trump as a candidate.
“It’s a really confusing and unsettling time from top to bottom at CNN,” the producer mentioned. “I don’t know anyone who is happy right now.”