Chris Licht has at least one big professional regret: The former CNN boss said he wishes he didn’t do an interview with The Atlantic for a profile the magazine did on him last year – an article that ultimately spurred his exit from the network.
“If I can say one thing to anybody, do not bring a reporter to the gym,” Licht said to a Manhattan audience on Saturday, according to the New York Post on Tuesday.
It was a cheeky callback to a memorable part of The Atlantic’s profile, in which Licht took writer Tim Alberta to the gym to show off his intense workout. “Zucker couldn’t do this sh–” Licht told Alberta about one tough lift. Licht also said he was a “fu–ing machine” when it came to his strict diet and exercise plan.
“The Atlantic article I absolutely should not have done,” Licht told ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith on Saturday, per the Post. Their conversation was featured at the New York Press Club’s Journalism Conference.
Licht’s 13-month run as the head of CNN came to an end in June 2023 – just days after The Atlantic’s profile was published. The magazine followed Licht for months on the job, including joining him while he was in the control room for a fall 2022 town hall with Donald Trump.
“The media has absolutely, I believe, learned its lesson,” Licht said at the time about how to cover Trump.
He’d taken over as chairman and CEO of CNN Global from Zucker in April 2022, amid the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Licht assumed Zucker’s previous responsibilities — minus leading WarnerMedia’s sports programming, which was taken off Licht’s plate.
Ahead of the transition, Licht vowed to staffers he would “double-down on what’s working well” at CNN, and “quickly eliminate what’s not.” In the first few months after taking the job, Licht tried to dial back the network’s partisanship, according to Axios.
Looking back on his tenure on Saturday, Licht said it went off the rails because he failed to earn “the trust of the organization.” Licht also said that he was initially bashful about doing the profile, but gave in because of “arrogance.”
“Imagine saying yes after, by the way, saying no several times, but at the end, saying yes because you know what, when this comes out in a year, I will have saved everything,” Licht said on Saturday.
Licht said he “hadn’t failed at anything before,” so his mindset was the story would come out and people would say “Wow, look at all these great things that have happened.” That wasn’t the typical response to the piece.
