Alex MacCallum, CNN’s Interim Digital Chief, Will Leave
Table of Contents
A second senior CNN government who was deeply included in the launch of the company’s CNN+ streaming-video clip hub is set to leave the business.
In a memo to staffers sent Wednesday, CNN CEO Chris Licht stated Alex MacCallum, who had been named interim chief of CNN’s digital functions, was scheduling to depart the Warner Bros. Discovery unit on June 30. Wendy Brundige, senior vice president of global electronic video clip, will just take about the part of interim main. Robyn Peterson, CNN Digital’s chief technology officer, is also leaving, Licht stated.
MacCallum had been general supervisor of CNN+, which released just weeks prior to the merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia. CNN associates have been not able to react straight away to a query trying to find comment.
“Alex allow me know early on that she is passionate about direct-to-customer operate, and while searching for that in her following chapter, she would presume the role on an interim basis. I wish her and Robyn nothing but the ideal,” Licht reported.
MacCallum has been viewed as something of a increasing star in the media organization, which has come to be significantly reliant on streaming video clip for some part of its revenue. In advance of becoming a member of CNN, she was standard supervisor of video clip for The New York Occasions where she served start and direct verticals these types of as NYT Cooking. In 2014, she was the youngest person appointed to The New York Instances masthead.
MacCallum and Peterson depict the hottest defections of senior CNN digital employees. Andrew Morse, who was overseeing the launch of CNN+, declared he would leave when CNN”s parent scuttled the web site. Meredith Artley, editor in main of CNN Electronic, who experienced been with the organization for far more than a 10 years, declared in late Might that she had decided on to depart.
CNN is in the midst of a jarring transition, pivoting from a far more spirited and obstreperous, outlet under the aegis of earlier leader Jeff Zucker to a far more staid, significantly less partisan news vendor underneath Licht and Warner Bros. Discovery. Licht, a producer who has helped build demonstrates these types of as “Morning Joe,” “CBS This Early morning,” and “The Late Exhibit with Stephen Colbert,” is performing to scale back again some of CNN’s excesses in modern a long time. Below Zucker and specially throughout the Trump administration, CNN anchors had been specified leeway to express viewpoints and passions all over particular subjects and discussions grew to become much more combative. Warner Bros. Discovery has articulated an curiosity in bolstering the network’s information bona fides and journalism.
In latest months, Licht has scaled back use of “Breaking News” on-display banners, and mentioned ideas to revamp the network’s “New Day” early morning display and section of its Sunday routine.
Licht also indicated CNN needed to develop up its digital staff members. “We are targeted on raising engagement with our audiences by investing in technologies that will allow us to serve all of the incredible function completed by our editorial, video clip, audio, programming, and solution groups, and we are difficult at perform making a plan to do so,” he mentioned in the memo. “To that stop, we have just released dozens of positions to be filled and will be asserting a next wave of business-significant work in the coming days.”