New CNN boss tells staff to avoid using ‘big lie’ to refer to Trump’s false election fraud claims

The new boss of cable news network CNN reportedly wants its reporters to stop using the phrase “the big lie” to refer to Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

Recently installed CNN president Chris Licht asked newsroom leaders to stop using the phrase during a conference call, Mediaite reports, citing unnamed sources.

The new boss, who was named chairman in February, said this was a request not an order, and that it would help maintain the network’s neutrality, given that “the big lie” is a phrase largely used by Democratic politicians and media personalities.

Instead, Mediaite reports, Mr Licht said reporters should use the less loaded “Trump election lies” to describe the phenomenon.

“It’s worrisome that we’re being told how to talk about one of the worst things that ever happened to American democracy,” a CNN insider told the publication. “We have to call lies, lies, whether they’re small lies or big lies. Is there any lie bigger than that lie?”

The Independent has reached out to CNN for comment.

It’s the latest change to come for the network, after its parent company WarnerMedia merged with Discovery Inc in April.

Mr Licht, a veteran TV producer who worked on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, has also asked the network to tone down its use of the “breaking news” banner on new stories.

“Its impact has become lost on the audience,” he wrote in a memo to staff. “We are truth-tellers, focused on informing, not alarming our viewers.”

The network also shuttered its streaming service CNN+ in late April, just a few weeks after it launched, a project CNN had sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into.

The phrase “The Big Lie” became popular in liberal circles following the 2020 election, as Donald Trump continued to maintain that he was the rightful winner of the “rigged” contest, despite all evidence and numerous lost election challenge lawsuits pointing to the contrary.

The slogan has a strange origin story.

According to historian Zachary Jonathan Jacobson, Adolf Hitler first coined it as he made anti-Semitic allegations against Viennese Jews.

“In tragically ironic fashion, it was Hitler and his Nazi regime that actually employed the mendacious strategy. In an effort to rewrite history and blame European Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I, Hitler and his propaganda minister accused them of profiting from the war, consorting with foreign powers and ‘war shirking’ (avoiding conscription),” he wrote in The Washington Post.

“The Big Lie” has continued to be a major talking point for Democrats.

As the 6 January hearings in Congress progress, Democratic representatives have repeatedly used it as a frame of reference.

Representative Zoe Lofgren of California said on Monday that Donald Trump used the “Big Lie” to raise millions for his super PAC, pointing to evidence during the committee hearings that the Save America PAC raised $250m for an “election defence fund” that never actually existed.

“It was a big lie and it was also a big rip-off,” she told CNN.