Longtime CNN executive Sam Feist is leaving the network next month to become the chief executive officer of C-SPAN, the nonprofit public affairs channel announced on Tuesday. Feist will be just the third CEO in the network’s 45-year history, replacing co-CEOs Susan Swain and Rob Kennedy, who had served in that role since 2012. After first joining CNN in 1989 as an intern, Feist quickly moved up the ranks and soon held just about every role imaginable at the cable news giant. After becoming the founding executive producer of The Situation Room, Feist eventually became the network’s Washington bureau chief, a position he’s held since 2011. “We’ll be sorry to see him go as Sam has become a CNN institution after almost 33 years of service to our company and our audiences,” CNN chief Mark Thompson said in a memo on Tuesday. “In my short time at CNN, I have come to know and appreciate Sam’s passion for CNN, for our people and for political journalism and will miss his good counsel.” Expressing how “excited” he is to “lead this essential institution,” Feist said in a statement that “C-SPAN is an American treasure” and our “democracy needs C-SPAN more than ever.” Kennedy will step down on May 17 and Swain will continue as the sole CEO until Feist joins C-SPAN at the end of June.
