CNN wants to be the new Fox News.

After the recent Discovery-Warner Bros merger, a lot has changed at CNN. The leading shareholder in Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. is billionaire John Malone, who donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration, is on the board of the Charles Koch founded Cato Institute, and previously held 32% of the shares of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. In an interview with CNBC, Malone said Fox News has “actual journalism” and CNN should be more like it, “more centrist.”^[1]

Now, new CNN President Chris Licht has discouraged staff from using “the big lie” to refer to former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.^[2] He wants to be less “partisan and alarmist”^[3] and went on a so-called “Capitol Hill diplomacy tour” to meet with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to recruit Republican members of Congress to appear on the network.^[4]

After canceling Brian Stelter’s Sunday CNN show, “Reliable Sources,” which has featured intelligent criticism of Fox News, right-wing media, Trumpism, and the increasingly authoritarian lurch of the Republican Party, Licht told staff "There will be more changes and you might not understand it or like it."^[5]

Basically fired, Brian Stelter was joined a few days later by John Harwood, another vocal critic of Trump on the network, who was also a veteran White House correspondent who spent decades reporting for top outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and CNBC before joining CNN at the beginning of 2020.^[6]

It’s not just who’s been fired. It’s also who they’ve hired. CNN has announced John Miller will be the network’s new chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst. The former New York Police Department deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism is an extremely polarizing figure who made headlines in March when he testified to the New York City Council that the NYPD did not, in his opinion, inappropriately spy on Muslims after the September 11 attacks despite the department settling numerous lawsuits related to the illegal spying.^[7]

CNN strongly denies it’s trying to be Fox News, but the change is soooo obvious that even Trump sees it.

It’s time to send CNN a message before it’s too late and the only message they’ll understand is reduced viewership. That means, it’s time to dump CNN.

Sign on to the campaign to dump CNN and make it clear, there’s no centrist path with violent right-wing extremists.

^{[1] John Malone says WarnerMedia-Discovery getting rid of CNN would be the ‘coward’s way out’
[2] Scoop: New CNN Boss Chris Licht Wants Staff to Stop Calling Trump’s Election Claims ‘The Big Lie’
[3] Scoop: CNN boss’ Capitol Hill diplomacy tour
[4] “I Really Hope That We Don’t Both-Sides Democracy”: Where Is CNN Headed?
[5] CNN Staff Brace for Change as Chris Licht Era Starts to Take Shape
[6] Correspondent abruptly leaves CNN after calling Trump a ‘demagogue’
[7] New ‘objective’ CNN appears to be making itself objectively rightwing}