Chris Licht’s CNN ousting paves way for trio of Jeff Zucker-era holdovers to satisfy staffers

CNN CEO Chris Licht's abrupt exit on Wednesday paved the way for a trio of Jeff Zucker disciples to lead the long-struggling network on an interim basis.

Zucker, who was forced out last year ahead of a long-planned merger that put CNN under the control of Warner Bros. Discovery, became synonymous with left-wing opinion programming. Zucker was beloved by staffers, and many of CNN’s biggest stars were openly distraught when he was terminated. Licht, who replaced Zucker, was never embraced by his predecessor’s loyal soldiers who remained in place, and by the end of his tenure, he was a dead man walking; one insider told Fox News Digital his departure was "inevitable." 

Less than two years later, CNN’s ship needs a new captain and staffers are pleased that three holdovers from the Zucker era are stepping up. 

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Executive Vice President of talent and content development Amy Entelis, EVP of editorial Virginia Moseley and EVP of U.S. programming Eric Sherling, along with recently appointed Chief Operating Officer David Leavy, who is close with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, will run CNN on an interim basis. 

A former CNN journalist said the new leadership team provided instant stability to the network, adding Zucker was still deeply missed.

A CNN insider said they were the right ones for the job, keeping the network afloat while a search for a permanent new CEO is underway, and they would not be asked to do much different from their current roles while Leavy ran the business.

They added Zaslav said the right things on the morning call announcing Licht's dismissal, where he warmly praised the CNN staffers, many of whom had been mortified by Licht's shots at the network's earlier coverage on issues like COVID-19 and the implication they were biased and flawed in their reporting.

Some observers felt Licht was fired because liberal CNN personalities resented his attempt to straighten out the network and become a meeting place for both sides of the aisle. 

"It was an internal coup, led by on-air talent… at the network, even its own media team, that ultimately brought [Licht] down. And why? Because many could not accept the fact that Licht was attempting to move the network from being seen by conservatives and many independents as an activist news network," Joe Concha said on "America’s Newsroom" shortly after the Licht’s departure was announced. 

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"He got cancel cultured because he wanted to level the ideological playing field," another CNN insider told Fox News Digital. 

While CNN employees rejoiced, critics noticed a potential red flag when the interim leadership team was announced.

"Conflict of interest alert: CNN is promoting news executive Virginia Moseley, who is married to Tom Nides, Biden's ambassador to Israel," Media Research Center executive editor Tim Graham tweeted. 

Moseley is married to Tom Nides, a high-powered former Morgan Stanley executive who President Biden nominated to serve as ambassador to Israel in 2021. Prior to that, he served as deputy secretary of state for management and resources under Hillary Clinton from 2011 to 2013 and was considered for a key White House or State Department position if Clinton was elected president. 

Nides is planning to leave the ambassador position over the summer.

CNN told Fox News Digital that "Virginia will recuse herself from anything regarding Israel" when asked if Moseley’s husband creates a conflict of interest in her new role. 

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Entelis helped bring Moseley to CNN after the duo both cut their teeth at ABC News when it was considered a "toxic" workplace. At the time, the Disney-owned news operation was known to be cold and unsympathetic to rank-and-file staffers, where the top priority for ABC News executives was to keep broadcasting legends Peter Jennings and Diane Sawyer happy. 

Entelis and Moseley are known to be tight, and they are well-liked by the staffers who rejected Licht’s vision.  

"Love them both," one responded when asked about Entelis and Moseley. 

Entelis, who like Moseley joined CNN in 2012, held multiple high-level positions over 30 years at ABC News and oversaw talent when the network hired future CNN personalities including Jake Tapper, Jim Sciutto and Chris Cuomo. Tapper was among the prominent CNN anchors who expressed concerns about Licht’s leadership, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

In one of the most public examples of lewd behavior at ABC News, political journalist Mark Halperin apologized at the height of the #MeToo movement for sexual harassment allegations made against him while he was employed with ABC News during Entelis’ time as a top executive. Halperin's tenure at ABC News spanned into the 1990s and early 2000s.

"Amy Entelis and Virginia Moseley have never had to answer for looking the other way at Mark Halperin’s widely observed sexual misconduct when they were in senior executive roles at ABC News and when, specifically, Amy oversaw talent," a longtime media industry executive told Fox News Digital.

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"Now they’ve exported that same toxic culture to CNN. For years, they’ve both carried out the policies of liberal news bosses such as David Westin and Jeff Zucker," the executive continued. "And Virginia, whose husband is an extremely wealthy, high-level Biden official and part of Hillary Clinton’s inner circle, has no business being the top editorial manager unless we want to see CNN backslide into left-wing advocacy."

Sherling is the least-known of the three Zucker holdovers but has worked at CNN for over a decade and helped launch Tapper's dayside show.

Leavy was brought in this month to serve as chief operating officer and handle the business side of things at the drama-filled network, in a move that signaled Licht's days were numbered. It’s unclear if there is any editorial hierarchy among the others, but the Warner Bros. Discovery honchos are satisfied with them on an interim basis.

"While we know we have work to do as we look to identify a new leader, we have absolute confidence in the team we have in place," Zaslav said. 

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Ex-CNN anchor Brian Stelter, who was fired by Licht last year and remains in regular contact with many of his former colleagues, relayed on CNBC Wednesday that staffers were "relieved" at Licht's dismissal.

CNBC reporter Alex Sherman remarked that Licht took "marching orders" from Zaslav, who along with board member John Malone had signaled a hope for CNN to return to a less partisan approach than it employed under Zucker.

"The question now is, if you're going to find a new leader, do you task that new leader with a new vision for CNN?" Sherman asked. "Or do you just keep kind of repeating the same things you've been saying about CNN like, well, it used to be an advocacy network, now we want to make it down the middle... I don't know if that's enough of a vision to get everyone there on board with the mission."

"A lot of us when we were at CNN in the Trump years felt we were advocating for the truth, advocating for reality," Stelter said. "Others felt that was left-leaning."

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Stelter said there may be a desire to have a less contentious political environment, but it wasn't realistic, saying CNN couldn't just deliver "the plain vanilla news" when that's not what people seem to want.

Licht released a statement on Wednesday evening. 

"This was an exciting but incredibly challenging assignment and I learned a lot over the past 13 months. I’ve been lucky enough to have had a successful, fulfilling career and I look forward to my next chapter. I wish the team at CNN the very best, always," he said.