CNN’s new top boss has made his first major change in programming. It’s bad news for fans of chummy morning shows.

Chairman and CEO Mark Thompson announced Monday that CNN would cancel “CNN This Morning” and no longer host a morning chat show. The network will focus instead on offering more straight news coverage.

Thompson joined CNN last fall and laid out his plans for the cable network on Jan. 17, promising a “true multimedia strategy.” He noted that most people under retirement age turn to their phones for news and not their TVs. And he said “CNN’s linear services and even its website can sometimes have an old-fashioned and unadventurous feel as if the world has changed and they haven’t.”

Perhaps the traditional morning shows, like ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today” show — which CNN’s morning programming often felt like it was emulating — are part of that “unadventurous” past.

Thompson noted in his strategy memo that for many people, “the smartphone is a more important device for consuming news than the TV.” And he said that their “news primetime is in the morning, not the evening.”

How better to capitalize on that understanding than by offering a hard news report in the early hours?

Here’s how the strategy will shake out: Kasie Hunt’s current 5 a.m. news show, “Early Start,” will add an hour to fill part of “CNN This Morning’s” three-hour time slot. Variety’s Brian Steinberg reports that it will also take the “CNN This Morning” name. Then, “CNN News Central,” which now runs from 9 a.m. to noon, will move to the 7 to 10 a.m. slot. That program is anchored by John Berman, Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. Jim Acosta, who had been moved to a weekend show, will take over the 10 a.m. slot, and Pamela Brown will take over at 11 a.m. when she returns from maternity leave (Wolf Blitzer will host in the meantime).

The changes will take place by the end of the month.

The 50-person staff of “CNN This Morning” was told they could reapply for jobs within the network. Co-anchors Poppy Harlow and Phil Mattingly are discussing new roles at CNN.

“Change and uncertainty are inevitable in an industry undergoing a revolution, but we must never underestimate the human consequences that come in their wake,” Thompson said in a memo. “So to everyone who has been involved in the New York based Early Start and CNN This Morning, thank you for your hard work and your total commitment to the show since its launch.”

Morning show fans who have tuned in to CNN over the past decade found a multitude of offerings. In 2013, then-president Jeff Zucker launched “New Day.” It was hosted, at various times, by rising stars Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Brianna Keilar, among others. In 2022, new CNN chief Chris Licht launched “CNN This Morning,” co-hosted by Harlow, Don Lemon and Katilan Collins. Lemon was soon ousted from the network after a series of controversial comments and Collins moved to prime time.

Apart from strategy, ratings for “CNN This Morning” performed unfavorably versus its cable news competitors, The New York Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin report. It drew about 322,000 viewers on average this year, compared to 1.07 million for Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” and 988,000 for MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

By Ren LaForme, managing editor

Microsoft funds Semafor AI tool, training programs

Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, has announced funding for generative artificial intelligence newsroom tools and training.

Semafor is the only newsroom to receive direct support from Microsoft’s Democracy Forward program. The global news site will launch a tool called Signals, which aggregates breaking news stories from multiple news sources around the world.

Signals doesn’t appear to use AI-generated text in its items. Instead, its reporters “(are) aided by AI tools that help them search news sources across multiple languages and geographies, allowing them to extend their reach to bring more, and more diverse, perspectives to readers.”

With support from the initiative, the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY will launch a three-month AI training program, and the Online News Association will offer a year of AI programs. The GroundTruth Project, which runs Report for America and Report for the World, will get support for its AI in Local News Initiative. And Nota, an AI startup, will create an audience engagement tool called PROOF.

This is the latest in a series of newsroom collaborations with AI companies. Through a partnership with the American Journalism Project, OpenAI is supporting projects at 13 newsrooms, including the Marshall Project, Spotlight PA and THE CITY.

By Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise at Poynter

Media tidbits and links

• Florida-based political reporter Marc Caputo seems to have landed at The Bulwark, the anti-Trump conservative news and opinion website, following the sudden closure of The Messenger last week. Caputo will write a newsletter called MAGAville that “will bring you behind the scenes of the political movement that ate the Republican party.” The first edition is about the failure of former presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’ super PAC. Caputo previously worked at the Miami Herald, Politico, NBC News and others.
• Sunday’s Grammy Awards ceremony was a big one for CBS and the Recording Academy. On average, 16.9 million viewers tuned in across CBS, Paramount+ and other digital platforms, early data from Nielsen found. Deadline’s Katie Campione reports that it’s the best-watched Grammy ceremony since 2020.
• The Atlantic has cut ties with contributing writer Yascha Mounk following a rape accusation, The Washington Post’s Laura Wagner and Will Sommer report. In a statement, The Atlantic said, “We have not published any new work by the freelance contributor since being made aware of the allegation.” Mounk told the Post, “It is categorically untrue.”
• Semafor media reporter Max Tani is the latest guest on Slate’s “What Next?” podcast. The subject is the “Trump bump,” or the lack thereof this year. “Donald Trump was, if nothing else, a boon for the news business,” the podcast teases. “But this election cycle, even the ‘Trump bump’ isn’t slowing the shrinking of the audience.”
• Variety’s Brian Steinberg with “Super Bowl Advertisers Poised to Play Things Safe, Fearing Social-Media Backlash.”
• Quite the headline from Columbia Journalism Review’s Jon Allsop: “Is the press dragging America to war again?”
• For The New York Times, Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts and Jeffrey Watumull with “The False Promise of ChatGPT.”
• The BBC has “Saltburn actor Jacob Elordi accused of grabbing reporter’s throat.”
• For MediaWise’s Teen Fact-Checking Network, which is part of Poynter, it’s Isaac Harte with “Watch out for claims about ‘crisis actors’ in Gaza.”
• Brandy Zadrozny, a senior reporter for NBC News who covers misinformation, extremism and the internet, with “How the anti-vaccine movement is downplaying the danger of measles.”
• For The New Yorker, Patrick Radden Keefe with “A Teen’s Fatal Plunge Into the London Underworld.”

More resources for journalists

• The 2024 Poynter Journalism Prizes are now open for entries. To enter, go to the contest website. The deadline for entries is Feb. 16.
• Delve more deeply into your editing skills with Poynter ACES Intermediate Certificate in Editing. Start anytime.
• Transforming Local Crime Reporting Into Public Safety Journalism (Seminar) — Application deadline today – Feb. 6.
• Essential Skills for Rising Newsroom Leaders (Seminar) (May) — Apply by March 26.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.

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