The Shock Exit of CNN's President

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, Business News, News

4.2 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2022

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

CNN president Jeff Zucker suddenly resigned on Wednesday after announcing he had failed to disclose his romantic relationship with another senior executive. WSJ's Ben Mullin traces Zucker's long career and impact on CNN, and explores where the network goes from here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week, one of the most important media executives in the US abruptly resigned.
0:11.6	Jeff Zucker said he was stepping down as president of CNN.
0:16.2	How is shock for you when you heard that news?
0:19.4	I couldn't believe it.
0:20.9	I was completely taken off guard.
0:23.6	I was stunned.
0:25.8	And I just had to start typing.
0:28.9	Our colleague Ben Mullen covers the media.
0:31.4	Who is Jeff Zucker?
0:32.4	Can you just introduce us to him?
0:34.6	Yeah, Jeff Zucker is one of the biggest planets in the solar system of media.
0:41.5	Zucker's career has spanned some of the biggest jobs in television.
0:44.6	He was CEO of NBC Universal.
0:46.8	He produced a show for Disney.
0:49.0	And most recently, he's been running CNN, where Ben says he leaned hard into breaking
0:54.0	news and political coverage while attempting to build a big digital business off air.
0:59.0	Jeff really invested in turning journalists at CNN into these big cable news franchises.
1:07.7	He pushed CNN and probably by extension cable news generally toward these big wall-to-wall
1:15.8	cable news stories.
1:17.9	Critics might say that he also made CNN more polarizing and really leaned into big
1:24.0	cable news storylines that don't have some of the same nutritional value as other news
1:29.1	does.
	...

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