CNN’s new boss David Zaslav has revealed that his strategy for turning the network around is to get back to reporting facts.
Zaslav, the boss at CNN’s new parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, wants the network to distance itself from its reputation as a purveyor of propaganda.
He says CNN needs to instead focus on the facts and set itself apart from a cable-news industry that he says is monopolized by “advocacy networks.”
Zaslav, who took the helm of the new company this week, wasted no time laying out his vision for the media behemoth.
The company also had HBO, CNN, TLC, HGTV, and movie studio Warner Bros. under its umbrella.
AT&T spun off WarnerMedia in a $43 billion merger with Discovery, which closed last Friday.
In an hour-long interview Thursday with Oprah Winfrey at a theater on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, Zaslav tackled questions about the future of CNN.
He also spoke about the company’s various streaming offerings and his $3 billion cost-savings plan.
The CEO told Winfrey that CNN needs to return to reporting on truth and facts.
“If we get that, we can have a civilized society,” he said.
“And without it, if it all becomes advocacy, we don’t have a civilized society.”
The largest shareholder at Warner Bros. Discovery is John Malone – a mega-donor to President Donald Trump.
Malone has made no secret of his desire to clean house at CNN.
“I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” Malone said during a CNBC interview last November.
“I do believe good journalism could have a role in this future portfolio that Discovery-TimeWarner’s going to represent.”
As Slay News recently reported, Malone told executives during a meeting on CNN’s future that star host Brian Stelter is a “cancer” on the network with a “failing show.”
