With a straight face, New York Press Membership proclaims Chris Licht to keynote journalism convention

It’s like hiring Jeffrey Toobin to present a how-to on Web privateness, or snagging Joe Biden as your debate coach. 

The CNN diaspora was in a dither yesterday after the New York Press Membership introduced that its Convention on Journalism would have a keynote tackle by Chris Licht. 

This could be the identical Chris Licht whose fleeting tenure as the top of CNN was so unremittingly catastrophic that Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav, the man who employed him away from “Late Night time With Stephen Colbert” to move the information community, gave a public tackle personally taking accountability for his error in judgment. 

Nonetheless, the membership mentioned in a press launch that Licht would give the headline discuss on the Nov. 23 occasion “specializing in the way forward for legacy media.” 

Whereas stewarding the way forward for one legacy media model — which he did from 2022 to 2023 — Licht employed NBA nice Charles Barkley as a information host (which went about in addition to you’d think about), moved star anchor Don Lemon from prime time to a doomed morning present then bafflingly fired him, hosted an excruciating and broadly loathed city corridor with Donald Trump after which — demonstrating his mastery of journalism by changing into its topic relatively than its creator — gave an countless interview to the Atlantic that lastly led to his firing amid pitiful scores. 

Once we requested the press membership in regards to the decide, a rep instructed us: “Chris Licht was chosen as a result of he has been a pivotal determine within the altering media panorama. We expect his discuss, which can be introduced as an interview with a distinguished journalist, can be thought-provoking. Our choice of Licht as a speaker is supposed extra as a automobile for dialogue than a mirrored image of the Press Membership’s opinion of a person.” 

When Web page Six provided a former CNNer the evaluation that whereas Licht is plainly a gifted TV producer, he’s not a journalist in any respect, they responded: “That’s 100% spot on.”