Saving Face 101

I used to work here as a computer programmer.  

Well, not here, here.  

At first they stuck my team in a former (recently abandoned?) dentist's office, adjacent to the building...then in offices across the skybridge in the 625 Davis Street building (which was, at the time, alleged to be the tallest building between Chicago and Milwaukee) then I got the hell out of that fucked-up department (which is where we're going today) and into another department which I thought was better run (which it was, until the VP in charge retired and then, hoo boy) which was housed in an former (recently abandoned?) jewelry store (still had the mirrored display cases) which was also adjacent to the building and also smelled of  ancient, unstoppable decay, and then, finally, back to a different floor of the 625 Davis Street building where I had a lovely corner office with a great view of downtown Evanston.

Which lasted until a mob of Evangelical, Conservative Christian loot-and-scoot consultants from Texas got their hooks into the owners of the company and proceeded to gut it and destroy many careers along the way including mine.

Dark times for our hero.

Anyway, based on my experiences there and at other deeply dysfunctional companies, I have always maintained that, if one could hold one's lunch down and keep one's eyes open, while working at just about any level of management in any fucked up company, one could obtain a graduate-level education in how companies implode.

Which brings us to CNN.  

The one common factor across all the fucked up organizations for which I have ever worked, was the paralyzing fear of the man or woman in charge of losing face.  Of admitting that had blown it.  In a healthy organization, if you're basically competent, you can screw up and survive, as long as you learn from it and own up to it.

Here, for example, is The Great One showing you how it's done:

But if you're a mope, and you've clawed and scratched and finally been Peter Principled to the upper echelons, the only thing that will keep you there is the relentless, swaggering projection of your infallibility.  Which is accompanied by the constant nagging dread that you will be made to look ridiculous because, to quote Jack Woltz, a person in your position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous.

On the other hand, you now also have actual power over the lives and fortunes of everyone below you..  Their mortgages and college funds and 401Ks depend on your good will.  With a word you can put them on the unemployment line, and with a few phone calls you can make them damn near  unemployable.  And it's the easiest thing in the world to build yourself a thick, ablative shield of toadies and yes-men and attack dog to amplify the  swaggering projection of your infallibility, defend you regardless of the facts, and run to ground anyone who says a discouraging word about your management abilities.

And it never stops until the organization bleeds enough money to either collapse, or trigger some outside force to intervene and decapitate the management.

Or at least put the head of a decapitated horse in the top guy's bed to encourage him to rethink the situation.

Which, this time, really does bring us to CNN.  

Objectively hiring of Chris Licht by David Zaslav to run CNN has been a rolling, public disaster, and the CNN Trump Town Hall was, objectively and predictably, a very public debacle.

From The New Republic:

CNN Is Tanking After Its Unforgivable Trump Town Hall 

Chris Licht’s master plan has already run aground—as have the news channel’s ratings. 

CNN’s brass defended its disastrous early-May town hall with Donald Trump on journalistic grounds, arguing that while he may present unique challenges as an interview subject—serial lying, general incoherence, a literal attempted coup—it was ultimately better to hear from the front-runner for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination than to ignore him. “We obviously can’t control what Donald Trump says—that’s up to him,” the network’s news director, David Chalian, told Vanity Fair a week before the event. “What we can do is prod, ask questions, follow up, and try to get as revealing answers as possible.”

This scenario, we know with the gift of hindsight (and, to be fair, the gift of foresight as well, as this was all eminently predictable), was not what transpired during the chaotic town hall. Moderator Kaitlan Collins made a game effort to rein Donald Trump in, but as usual, he simply steamrolled over her while an audience packed to the gills with supporters hooted and hollered in support...

And, in case you missed it...

Boston University grads booed the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO amid the writers strike

Students at Boston University chanted "pay your writers" as Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav gave the commencement address at the institution's graduation Sunday, amid a writers strike that has been impacting the television and film industry...

https://newrepublic.com/article/172986/chris-licht-cnn-trump-ratings

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/22/1177460619/boston-university-david-zaslav-commencement

But, of course. a mogul in David Zaslav's position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous, so...

David Zaslav Backs CNN CEO After Trump Town Hall Uproar: Chris Licht Is ‘Rebuilding the Network’ 

...
“That’s what we’re going for,” Zaslav said. “Our view is, there’s advocacy networks on either side, that we have the best journalists in the world. We need to show both sides of every issue. If you went there after Roe v. Wade, you would turn to CNN and there’d be someone to the left, where this was the best day for them in 40 years, but when the moderator turned to the right, it was the worst day in 40 years. But we had both, all the time.”

And so...

WBD CEO David Zaslav Defends Chris Licht, Is Pleased That More Republicans are Appearing on CNN

And so...

‘Paid By MSNBC’: CNN Exec Torches ‘Shameful’ Jen Rubin Op-Ed Calling For Amanpour to Replace Licht

After Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin called for the ouster of CNN chief Chris Licht over the network’s town hall with Donald Trump, one of the network’s communications executives hit back in a scathing statement.

Matt Dornic, the head of strategic communications for CNN Worldwide, blasted Rubin in a statement posted to Twitter, blasting the suggestion Licht be replaced and her calling CNN a laughingstock “shameful.”

I don't know anything more about the specific interior politics of the CNN's C-suite than is publicly available, but I do understand how dysfunctional organizations behave, and especially how they react to criticism.  

I Am The Liberal Media