He nearly ruined a perfectly great network. He made a few positive changes early on, but the rest has been almost universally wrong. I used to love CNN. I admired its mission and also its ability to be an American innovation that had truly global reach that was rivaled by nobody else other than the BBC. Working for CNN was a career goal for me for a long time. I miss the days of ten years ago when you could still tune into CNN Domestic at almost anytime of the day, night, or weekend and still get at least some semblance of news.
CNN is not completely ruined. It still has a great core and a lot of great people working there. I'm cautiously optimistic that the Discovery merger will be for the better. John Malone has already signaled that he wants CNN to return to its roots. Let's hope that happens. I also hope they seriously consider Ken Jautz to take over – he'd be the right person to do it.
How very odd. He's resigning over a consensual relationship, with zero evidence of a misuse of power/authority. Stepping back for a moment, I just find that truly bizarre.
As for what this means for CNN... I can't imagine that there will be any sudden change of direction. Especially not (as some here seem to expect) towards some kind of hard news renaissance. CNN isn't going to win ratings by dishing up rolling news. And it's certainly not going to be more profitable doing that.
As for CNN International: the only real chance of an increase in the content it produces is if the merger with Discovery motivates it -- in particular, as a complement to Discovery's portfolio of assets in Europe. But I think what's more likely is that the merger between Warner Bros and Discovery will lead to a much stronger focus on streaming. The future of CNN International looks more like CNN+ than CNN US.
We might not know the full story yet, but if Jeff Zucker was required to disclose the relationship, the fact there was the potential for a conflict of interest is alone grounds for dismissal.
Relationships in the workplace will always happen. Organisations have in the past had different policies, but generally companies have tightened up rules on disclosure, particularly when it involves staff who report to each other.
Brian Stelter's Reliable Sources newsletter suggests AT&T wanted this dealt with swiftly because of the pending deal between WarnerMedia and Discovery:
https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/message...a603be/raw
Omnipresent post_id=66739 time= user_id=858 Wrote:We might not know the full story yet, but if Jeff Zucker was required to disclose the relationship, the fact there was the potential for a conflict of interest is alone grounds for dismissal.
Relationships in the workplace will always happen. Organisations have in the past had different policies, but generally companies have tightened up rules on disclosure, particularly when it involves staff who report to each other.
Brian Stelter's Reliable Sources newsletter suggests AT&T wanted this dealt with swiftly because of the pending deal between WarnerMedia and Discovery:
https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/message...a603be/raw I understand that there are concerns about the potential for conflicts of interest. By their own admission, the two had been good friends for a long period of time - a fact that, I expect, was already widely known within CNN. Given a long-standing, close relationship between the two, the potential for / risk of favourable treatment already existed. I find it hard to imagine that the two sleeping together fundamentally changed that risk.
Zucker was boss, and whatever HR rules are in place were ultimately his responsibility. I'm certainly not saying that any breach of rules should be without sanction. But any sanction should be proportionate. Based on the facts as they've been presented - and with the important caveat that there may be relevant details that haven't come to light - I don't see how Zucker's dismissal/resignation is proportionate. Specifically, unless Zucker began to treat his private partner and professional subordinate differently within the workplace (eg. some form of favourable treatment that couldn't otherwise be justified), then this feels like mountains being made out of molehills.
Put a different way: if a lower-level executive had failed to disclose a consensual relationship with a direct report - but otherwise not made any decisions that were inappropriate or unjustified with respect to that direct report - then I struggle to imagine that such an executive would be sacked on the spot. Being in the top job obviously carries with it a higher degree of responsibility - and the higher up the hierarchy one is, the greater the risks/consequences to the organisation from any misjudgments. But it doesn't automatically follow that any transgression should result in one being shown the door.
I'm certain from the contributions in this thread that I'm not alone in really enjoying CNNI in the 90s and 00s.
The problem now is that, although I love America as a country, I am not American. I am British. I don't want to hear endless debates about gun laws, abortion, and so on because, in this country, these matters are pretty much settled. Proof of that is that the supposedly right-leaning GB News never touches those topics and nor does the Mail, Telegraph, and so on.
CNNI is just as rabid and frothing now as Fox News. It's unwatchable to me.
CNNI before used to give a much wider view of the world - perhaps not as wide as AJE but, after 30 mins, you had an idea of what was going on in the world.
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johnnyboy post_id=66769 time= user_id=925 Wrote:I'm certain from the contributions in this thread that I'm not alone in really enjoying CNNI in the 90s and 00s.
The problem now is that, although I love America as a country, I am not American. I am British. I don't want to hear endless debates about gun laws, abortion, and so on because, in this country, these matters are pretty much settled. Proof of that is that the supposedly right-leaning GB News never touches those topics and nor does the Mail, Telegraph, and so on.
CNNI is just as rabid and frothing now as Fox News. It's unwatchable to me.
CNNI before used to give a much wider view of the world - perhaps not as wide as AJE but, after 30 mins, you had an idea of what was going on in the world. The CNNI shows are still top notch , I like Connect the World, One World, Amanpour, Hala Gorani, the Global Brief etc.... the CNN US are the ones that really aren't really giving you much but rabid and frothing, it's sad for CNN US as much as international viewers. I always thought it was made no sense CNN was trying to compete with Fox News when they were offering two different products, especially in the evenings .
Sky303 post_id=66902 time= user_id=743 Wrote:johnnyboy post_id=66769 time= user_id=925 Wrote:I'm certain from the contributions in this thread that I'm not alone in really enjoying CNNI in the 90s and 00s.
The problem now is that, although I love America as a country, I am not American. I am British. I don't want to hear endless debates about gun laws, abortion, and so on because, in this country, these matters are pretty much settled. Proof of that is that the supposedly right-leaning GB News never touches those topics and nor does the Mail, Telegraph, and so on.
CNNI is just as rabid and frothing now as Fox News. It's unwatchable to me.
CNNI before used to give a much wider view of the world - perhaps not as wide as AJE but, after 30 mins, you had an idea of what was going on in the world. The CNNI shows are still top notch , I like Connect the World, One World, Amanpour, Hala Gorani, the Global Brief etc.... the CNN US are the ones that really aren't really giving you much but rabid and frothing, it's sad for CNN US as much as international viewers. I always thought it was made no sense CNN was trying to compete with Fox News when they were offering two different products, especially in the evenings .
Thanks for the heads up on these, Sky303.
I must tune in at the wrong times but when I flick over to the channel, it's Blitzer, Erin Burnett (who was great on CNBC), Cooper, et al. Just can't be ars*d to watch them.
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johnnyboy post_id=66769 time= user_id=925 Wrote:I'm certain from the contributions in this thread that I'm not alone in really enjoying CNNI in the 90s and 00s.
The problem now is that, although I love America as a country, I am not American. I am British. I don't want to hear endless debates about gun laws, abortion, and so on because, in this country, these matters are pretty much settled. Proof of that is that the supposedly right-leaning GB News never touches those topics and nor does the Mail, Telegraph, and so on.
CNNI is just as rabid and frothing now as Fox News. It's unwatchable to me.
CNNI before used to give a much wider view of the world - perhaps not as wide as AJE but, after 30 mins, you had an idea of what was going on in the world.
The actual International produced stuff while sometimes still a bit overly American focused (particularly during US overnights) does still try to have a range of stories from around the world and has improved from a few years back when with Trump it was heavily US coverage even on International shows. It’s not as comprehensice as AJE but I wouldn’t expect it to be. As others have mentioned shows like One World and The Global Brief are of a high standard and most of the London shows are strong.
That said some CNNI shows done from America are still too focussed on America - e.g First Move seems to be heavily focussed on US business whereas former business shows like World Business Today gave equal focus to Europe and Asia.
And yep the US content is really not proper news and not at all suited for international viewers excluding proper ‘American political nerds’ (not meant in a bad way - more to imply those who are REALLY into their US politics). And because CNNI has been so neglected under Zucker much of the CNNI schedule is simulcasts so we get far too much of US talking heads and US partisan debates. CNNI too basically shuts down for its own news for the weekend so weekends are diabolical - either niche taped programmes that very few surely tune in specifically for or Domestic simulcasts wholly unsuited for International viewers. Which is a shame as anchors like Anna Coren, Paula Newton. Cyril Vanier, Kristie and Lynda Kinkade for example don’t have regular slots so if CNNI really wanted to they could presumably cobble together some of their own weekend news bulletins.
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FrancisC post_id=70392 time= user_id=1108 Wrote:Expected new CNN Worldwide President:
https://twitter.com/dylanbyers/status/14...21095?s=21
If this is real, it will be saving grace for them. His credentials say it all: he successfully transformed Morning Joe from an opinion show to a more mature program with lots of exclusives and interviews with key newsmakers from a diversity of perspectives (Joe and Mika were also the only Republican-skewed personalities on air during the Lean Forward era of MSNBC). Then, he made CBS This Morning a very competitive broadcast by turning back into hard news and not the so-called magazine style show (he survived the rocky post-Charlie Rose era, but he left in the correct moment). And now he’s succeeding with making Stephen Colbert a true late night powerhouse, bringing together news and comedy in an era of uncertainty.
So, Licht has it all: cable news pedigree, network news pedigree, and factual entertainment pedigree. And, if he can turnaround CNN from a shoutfest to a much more polished channel where hard news, natural and respectful opinion and debate and maybe its Original Series and documentaries co-exist, viewers will return there. I hope the coverage of Ukraine is the first step on turning into that direction.
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Chris Licht confirmed as the new chief of CNN.
<t>I taught them everything......</t>
Axios is reporting that the 'op-eds' will be no more while CNN goes all in on news:
https://twitter.com/JimVandeHei/status/1..._zYPARzdNw
Fantastic news. What he helped build with CBS This Morning 10 years ago was phenomenal. He took a long-struggling morning show and turned it into a very engaging and dynamic two hours of news. He has a great reputation, and I think he'll probably be able to fill the morale void from Zucker's departure.
Hope he cleans up the mess and gets rid of all the talking head wannabees who are interested more in self-promotion and trending on Twitter than in delivering real, objective news.
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