In the days ahead, and possibly as early as Wednesday—or maybe even just as soon as this story is published—David Zaslav will announce that he has hired former New York Times Company C.E.O. and BBC director general Mark Thompson to serve as the next chairman and C.E.O. of CNN, two sources familiar with the company’s plans tell me. Thompson, an accomplished veteran of both television and digital media with a reputation for restructuring legacy media assets and pursuing innovative growth strategies, will inherit a storied news network that has been beset in recent years by dramatic leadership shakeups, diminished ratings and revenue, and the broader decline of the linear television industry.