CNN’s left-wing media reporter Oliver Darcy was scolded by his boss Chris Licht over his “emotional” coverage of the network’s Wednesday town hall with former President Trump.
Fox News Digital confirmed that Darcy was summoned for a meeting with Licht and other top CNN executives, who took exception to the overzealous framing of the fallout the network has received, particularly from liberals.
Darcy appeared to join the choir of CNN criticism in his “Reliable Sources” newsletter Wednesday night after the town hall.
“It can’t be based on emotion, it’s got to be based on fact,” a source familiar with Licht’s thinking told Fox News Digital about Darcy’s reporting.
The source said Licht received a “ton” of messages from CNN staffers appalled by Darcy’s newsletter, which emphasizes how CNN and Licht were facing tense backlash “internally” as well as externally.
The messages, according to the source, were like “what the f—.”
“I’m asking you to not be emotional,” the source paraphrased what Licht told Darcy at the meeting, adding that he wanted nonemotional coverage applied to all news outlets, not just CNN.
Puck News first reported that after Licht stood by the Trump town hall on CNN’s Thursday morning editorial call, he brought Darcy and his editor Jon Passantino in for a meeting later in the day.
Darcy was then told by CNN’s top brass “his coverage had been too emotional and [Licht] repeatedly stressed the importance of remaining dispassionate when covering the news, be it CNN or any other media organization.”
“Darcy stood by his work and pushed back on the ‘emotional’ characterization, one source with knowledge of the meeting said. But afterward two sources who heard about the meeting described him as visibly shaken. ‘They put the fear of God into him,’ one source said,” Puck News’ Dylan Byers reported Friday.
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