CNN Employees Sent Horrible Email 25 Days Before Christmas: 'Big Day for the Solar Panel Industry'

By Ryan Ledendecker November 30, 2022 at 11:50am

For the past several months, speculation has increased that under Chris Licht, CNN’s new CEO after the merger of the network’s parent company with Discovery in April, several drastic changes would be in store, including the possibility of mass layoffs.

That day is here, and it came just 25 days before Christmas.

Ouch. CNN is officially in meltdown mode, and there’s no telling what could happen from this point.

The network’s employees and contributors received an all-staff memo from Licht on Wednesday morning, in which he wrote, “it will be a difficult time for everyone.” According to the memo, paid contributors are first on the chopping block. CNN’s employees impacted by the decision will be notified on Thursday, the memo stated.

“Our people are the heart and soul of this organization,” Licht wrote. “It is incredibly hard to say goodbye to any one member of the CNN team, much less many. I recently described this process as a gut punch, because I know that is how it feels for all of us.”

“If your job has been impacted, you will learn more through an in-person meeting or via Zoom, depending on your location. In those meetings, you will receive information specific to you about notice period or any severance that would apply, and your anticipated last day,” Licht added.

CNN senior contributor Oliver Darcy published a Twitter post with the entirety of Licht’s memo.

“CNN boss Chris Licht informs employees in an all-staff note that layoffs are underway. Licht says those being notified today are largely paid contributors and then tomorrow CNN ‘will notify impacted employees.’ Licht will then provide an update to staff afterward,” Darcy tweeted.

CNN boss Chris Licht informs employees in an all-staff note that layoffs are underway.

Licht says those being notified today are largely paid contributors and then tomorrow CNN “will notify impacted employees.”

Licht will then provide an update to staff afterward. pic.twitter.com/nD0pt9Ruwj

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) November 30, 2022

Critics of CNN didn’t waste the opportunity to take a shot at the cable news organization, which enjoyed tremendous ratings in its virtually 24/7 bashing of former President Donald Trump while he was in office but has greatly struggled since.

Big day for the solar panel industry,” conservative commentator Greg Price tweeted, referencing an often-used narrative pushed by the Biden administration and Democrats that laid-off coal miners can always transition into working in the green energy industry.

Big day for the solar panel industry https://t.co/AVk3xPesbk

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 30, 2022

Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly took a shot at CNN on Wednesday, laying most of the blame on the network’s former head, Jeff Zucker, who Kelly said had taken into “the partisan toilet.”

“This is the fault of Jeff Zucker, who took CNN from a once solid brand into the partisan toilet. It didn’t have to be this way, but he let his personal animus for Trump blind him to what a news org is supposed to be & there were severe consequences to that,” Kelly tweeted.

News of the mass layoffs shouldn’t come as a surprise, as The Hollywood Reporter noted in October that Licht had hinted at a significant network restructuring.

In a memo last month, Licht announced that the changes would come soon, writing that “our aim is to have most of these decisions made by the end of the year so we can start 2023 feeling settled and prepared for the future.”

Do you think CNN is going to survive?

The layoffs come in the wake of CNN’s embarrassingly fast closure of CNN+, which would have been the network’s answer to the Fox News streaming service, Fox Nation, as well as high-profile departures.

In August, CNN canceled the “Reliable Sources” program and shed its longtime host Brian Stelter. In September, then-CNN White House correspondent John Harwood left the network.

On the ratings front, CNN was already on the ropes, and that’s being generous. The network has been a total disaster and consistently ranks lower than every cable news network in most time slots.

It’s only logical to wonder how the failed network will survive such a massive culling.

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