Sometimes we're cast in roles we didn't audition for and never would have chosen had we been offered the option. Such is life. But there's an important distinction between being assigned a role and embracing it. Once you've chosen to play a part, and you do it to the hilt, any sudden transformations won't be plausible. Even if your about-face marks a return to who you truly are it's too late — you've already made the audience believe you.
This is the conundrum facing CNN faces as it hurtles into an interregnum. Chris Licht, the chairman and chief executive of CNN who stepped into the job – after Jeff Zucker was defenestrated – was ousted on Wednesday. The diagnostic precision of Tim Alberta's 15,000-word profile for The Atlantic reveals Licht to have been badly suited for the position, which was handed to him by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav without considering any other internal candidates.
