In the days after Ben Smith first reported on August 23 that Thompson was a leading candidate

 In the days after Ben Smith first reported on August 23 that Thompson was a leading candidate

surprising employees and observers alike, who expected Zaslav wasn’t in a rush to install a new general after Licht’s ill-fated year on the job—it was tricky to gauge how CNN’s long-suffering worker bees felt about the prospect of yet another shake-up in the C-suite. On the one hand, 

Thompson looked good on paper, a seasoned CEO who (unlike Licht, primarily known as a celebrated producer) had managed sprawling media organizations and knew his way around a complex P&L. On the other hand, I got a sense that the appetite for boat-rocking was low, and that people seemed perfectly happy with the interim leadership quartet of David Leavy, Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley, and Eric Sherling, who will all report to Thompson once he begins in October.

On Wednesday, however, I picked up on some early enthusiasm for the new boss. “I woke up feeling very encouraged,” said one CNN journalist. “He seems like the transformational leader we need at exactly this moment.” In the words of another, “He has led two enormous, complicated, world-class news organizations, both of which were highly scrutinized, and unlike others in those roles, he left them in better shape than he found them. You have to think, if he can’t make this work, then no one can.”