CNN Exec Called Brian Stelter — The Media Reporter It Fired — For Advice on Whether to Axe Former Boss Chris Licht: Report
CNN allegedly called axed network reporter Brian Stelter for advice on whether to fire Chris Licht last month, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In the latest development to come after Licht was ousted on June 7, Variety published a report on Tuesday that focused on the “battle for CNN” between Licht, his predecessor Jeff Zucker, and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav.
According to the outlet, CNN’s chief operating officer – David Leavy – called Stelter just a few days before Licht was fired to “gauge his opinion.”
As RadarOnline.com reported, Stelter was fired from CNN in August 2022 by Licht himself.
“Adding to the layers of tangled loyalties, CNN COO David Leavy called former CNN media reporter Brian Stelter days before Licht was fired to gauge his opinion on whether Warner Bros. Discovery should cut Licht loose, even though Licht was the very person who axed Stelter,” Variety reported on Tuesday.
“The former Reliable Sources anchor said yes,” the outlet claimed. “Stelter declined comment.”
Meanwhile, the new piece published by Variety this week also shared a number of other unreported revelations regarding Licht’s short-lived tenure at CNN.
For example, Zaslav and Zucker reportedly ran into each other in March 2022 in Miami Beach just a few weeks after Zucker was forced to resign from the network for having an unreported relationship with fellow network executive Allison Gollust.
Zucker allegedly complained to Zaslav that Licht was “unfairly maligning him in the press,” while Zaslav allegedly asked Zucker point-blank whether the ex-CNN CEO was assembling a “team of investors to try to buy the network.”
Variety also alleged that Zucker and Dylan Byers – a former CNN reporter who has since helped found the startup news outlet Puck – were working in cahoots due to their previous professional relationship at CNN and because Zucker was considering investing in Puck.
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Zucker’s rep, Risa Heller, has since denounced the report published by Variety on Tuesday and called the piece a “total joke.”
According to Heller, Variety’s report consisted of “countless anecdotes and alleged incidents that never happened.”
“There used to be a time when Variety held its content and its reporters to a high standard of truth and facts in journalism, but those days are clearly over,” Heller wrote in a statement to CNN’s Oliver Darcy for his Reliable Sources newsletter on Tuesday night.
“It is stunning to read a piece that is so patently and aggressively false,” Heller continued. “On numerous occasions, we made it clear to the reporter and her editors that they were planning to publish countless anecdotes and alleged incidents that never happened. They did so anyway.”
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Variety stood by its report.
“Variety stands by our investigative story about CNN written by one of the best journalists in the business,” a spokesperson for the outlet said in its own statement to Darcy.
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