One suspects that no one reported it because no one perceived it as wrong... wrong enough. But it was against the rules. Zucker, resigning, said: "I was required to disclose it when it began but I didn’t. I was wrong."
The top comment over at Fox is: "Zucker's relationship was no secret and was not the reason he was fired. It was an excuse to fire him after programming an 80% decline in viewership in one year. There is accountability when you work for a public company."
An interesting take on accountability, firing a person for a fake reason. If the reason given is fake, not only is CNN allowing him to evade public responsibility for his degradation of the substance of what was actually televised on CNN, but it is raising expectations that CNN is serious about the sex rule Zucker flouted. And now they're going to have to keep enforcing it, including retrospectively.
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111 comments:
Exactly the kind of thing that any normal person would ignore. Not my business.
The top comment over on the interwebs: Seems like the only person at CNN keeping their hands to themselves is Jeffrey Toobin.
"And now they're going to have to keep enforcing it, including retrospectively."
Are you familiar with this organization? Lol, no they're not. No they don't.
THIS IS CNN.
I was asked in last night's open thread “Nothing on the that POS Jeff Zucker?"
My answer: "I don’t care enough about him to sit down and write about him in my off hours. It’s not interesting to me."
This post isn't a contradiction because it's 8 in the morning and therefor not "my off hours."
I do go back to the blog in the afternoon or in the evening if I'm just in the mood to write or if something really interesting shows up in the news (or in my reading). But Jeff Zucker resigning doesn't get me running over to my desktop! It's possible that if I saw this particular article — with its hot Brian Stelter angle — I'd have jumped up and hopped to it.
And now they're going to have to keep enforcing it, including retrospectively.
Al Frankin should insist on that. Sauce for the goose...
I've often wondered who was paying to keep CNN on the air with it's current approach. That is, bizarre plays on reality mixed with breathless accounts of impending fascism that turns out to be...well, nothing. They've done this for years. And their ratings have been tripled by Fox News- for years. With a few exceptions during the Trump years when all True Believers wanted those breathless CNN reports about Trump's impending collapse to be true.
Who pays? You do. I do. We all did. The sponsors of that network were probably getting raped by their ad prices, even as they sunk. Even as CNN probably had to start throwing in free spots to keep those sponsors. So who pays for that? Not the companies doing the advertising. We did, in buying their products. They raised their prices to support that shithole of a network for years.
Might want to make note of who sponsors some of those shows. I would not necessarily call for a boycott. But maybe using some better judgement in who and what we support.
Coitus News Network
First of the fat dominoes to fall…
Isn't it obvious that CNN does not want to admit that Zucker seriously screwed the network, much more so than his subordinate?
CNN reminds me of a losing football team that hires a new coach and GM. They have to tear it all down and rebuild the entire team.
It was an excuse to fire him after programming an 80% decline in viewership in one year. There is accountability when you work for a public company
Zucker was doing exactly what he was charged to do and ratings matter only to the extent of defining the network’s influence. These corrupt ‘media’ outlets are trying to redefine the obligations of public companies. They are deliberately rejecting the shareholder value ethos in favor of an unapologetic propaganda agenda.
…and they couldn’t care less about ‘media’ critics lecturing them on how to ‘do better’…
CNN is garbage. Joe Rogan should take it over.
no one reported it because no one perceived it as wrong.
it WASN'T Wrong... For Them.
It's NOT Like they are Fox News, or the RNC; they are Lefties, you know; like Cuomo, Biden, or Clinton
For the Left, sex rules are ALWAYS no more than an excuse
It reminds me of nightclub ‘dress codes’. No one actually gives a shit about the dress code but they have to have some plausible reason to deny entrance to idiots who are clearly going to cause trouble. Weird how people are so uncomfortable about just stating their real reasons for doing things.
I worked at a "small" (assuming 11,000 worldwide employees is "small") software company that hired the "disgraced" former CEO of Intel who'd had to resign for an in-office affair also.
I'd honestly never heard of the guy before he became our CEO, and in his initial company-wide meeting he obliquely mentioned some past controversy about himself, so I looked it up and.... all the articles said it was completely consensual and had even ended amicably years prior, but he still had to resign as a procedural thing, not because anyone actually cared.
This CNN thing sounds very similar to that to me.
One suspects that no one reported it because no one perceived it as wrong...
Bingo! When an industry (news) has rewarded several generations of winning at any cost, bending the rules for a competitive advantage, maintaining hegemonic control over political careers through owning the meaning of production, and allowing the ends to justify the means...ethics, morals, and standards become imaginary.
The Great Left-Wing Awakening of sexual conduct perception began with Trump and their immediate retrospective attacks on Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, (and in due course) the saintly and generous Bill Gates and enlightened philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein.
The left was fully blind to perceived wrongs until Trump took away their competitive advantage. He was not "far right wing" at all, he was actually similar to themselves! So now, a clear line is emerging between ethics-focused and power-focused people on both the left an right. Let serious party realignment begin after our current era of purges.
CNN was -- it now seems -- clearly infested with sexual conduct issues from top to bottom. The fish indeed rotted from the head down. Only the blind loyalty of naïve (moralistic?) viewers kept it going.
I wonder when an academic will blame the troubles of this era on ergot contamination and drugged-filled bread, as a historian did with the French Revolution of 1789.
https://apnews.com/article/b023159303c4db7fa95c025ed9a4d8a0
It was an excuse to fire him after programming an 80% decline in viewership in one year.
CNN’s viewership is now measured in the hundreds of thousands. Why anyone would care, politically or financially, about such a tiny enterprise is beyond me — but to be fair, I haven’t owned a television in more than twenty years, so what do I know?
The opinion among the online pundits I read seems to be that he was fired because of his entanglement with and enablement of the ongoing Cuomo brothers scandals.
"We had to destroy the village to save it." - An urban legend from the Vietnam War era.
Discovery is buying CNN; ABC is cleaning house. Getting rid of the riff-raff.
I like Mickey Kaus's take, which due to the new Twitter lockout, I can't quote,( but I can paraphrase! [-ed]) which was that it's better to have been fired for having a relationship with a longtime friend, and a respected woman, than to be fired for running the network into the ground, from Zucker's POV, anyways.
Let's throw Hunter into Leavenworth for lying on his gun permit application, since public information makes it plain that he did so, if lying on forms is going to have actual consequences for the powerful now.
As much as I hate CNN, I don't understand the logic of "how come this wasn't reported to the public when everyone in the office knew"? I actually think something like this should be discreet. (Discrete? Can't recall.) Who would report publicly that their boss was in an inappropriate relationship, especially a consensual one? I get that it's hypocritical, and against company rules, so fine, fire him. But this is small fry compared to all the other reasons CNN and Zucker should be dragged through the coals.
hahaha....
During the question-and-answer session, anchor Jake Tapper said that Mr. Cuomo hired a lawyer who seemed eager to leak damaging information about Mr. Zucker unless they gave Mr. Cuomo severance.
“An outside observer might say, ‘Well, it looks like Chris Cuomo succeeded,’” Mr. Tapper said. “He threatened Jeff. Jeff said we don’t negotiate with terrorists. And Chris blew the place up. How do we get past that perception that this is the bad guy winning?”
Liars, extortionists, blackmail and greed. This is CNN.
CNN's website does far better than its programming, the programming is a loss leader.
So it seems like the Chief Marketing Officer of CNN was in a romantic relationship with a colleague, but did not disclose this fact. Was she supposed to — what were the rules? On suspects that top executives all had the same disclosure requirements, but maybe they were more strict if you were sleeping with someone beneath you (but not “lesser”) in the chain of command. Maybe CNN views female executives as too fragile to have moral agency in such cases.
On The Other Hand: if she gets . . canned, but it turns out that the affair was not the real reason for Zucker’s departure, then her termination might be based on pretext. Imagine the discovery!
So it seems like the Chief Marketing Officer of CNN was in a romantic relationship with a colleague, but did not disclose this fact. Was she supposed to — what were the rules? On suspects that top executives all had the same disclosure requirements, but maybe they were more strict if you were sleeping with someone beneath you (but not “lesser”) in the chain of command. Maybe CNN views female executives as too fragile to have moral agency in such cases.
On The Other Hand: if she gets . . canned, but it turns out that the affair was not the real reason for Zucker’s departure, then her termination might be based on pretext. Imagine the discovery!
Administrative encirclement. The people hired to order pencils and pads wind up in charge of the whole operation, in this case the human resources department.
And now they're going to have to keep enforcing it, including retrospectively.
They may have been fake news, but at least they were having a good time. Now that's over.
Now fire Brian Stelter, Jeffrey Zucker’s illegitimate son.
One suspects that no one reported it because no one perceived it as wrong... wrong enough.
I don't think this is correct and doesn't reflect typical corporate culture. Zucker was the head guy, it's not up to subordinates to police his behavior and it's very risky to be "reporting" behavior. Report to whom? Some underling is going to write a letter to the Board? Very unlikely. Why? Because there's nothing that says it will be taken seriously or that Zucker would be removed, which means he can find out who ratted and the virtuous truth teller will pay the price one way or the other.
It's only "not wrong enough" because the relationship was perceived as consensual, but it's only "not wrong enough" until the relationship falls apart and the subordinate, in the case the woman employee, sues the corporation.
Anyway, the official explanation isn't that the relationship itself has caused the termination, it's Zucker's failure to disclose it at the appropriate point, presumably when he was hired. In other words, it's not the crime, it's the cover up. Once again.
CNN’s viewership is now measured in the hundreds of thousands. Why anyone would care, politically or financially, about such a tiny enterprise is beyond me
Influence.
...and I mentioned yesterday television ratings don't tell the whole story. CNN videos embedded on Twitter reach many multiples more viewers than live cable/streaming and CNNs homepage is the/one of the most popular 'news' sites...
Not only was it consensual, but it was between relative equals. But as long as the left is going to eat themselves, moar popcorn!
But then again, didn't she work for Andrew Cuomo? It wasn't the "romantic relationship" that he was hiding, but the political one, which actually is pretty disgusting. Then again, we all pretend that George Stephanopoulis is an impartial journalist, everybody assumed that CNN was a player in the politics it pretended to report on.
Blogger Maynard said...
Isn't it obvious that CNN does not want to admit that Zucker seriously screwed the network, much more so than his subordinate?
Totally. If they fired him for sucking at his job, they'd have to admit they suck and change. This version is much better for CNN and particularly other management who contribute to the sucking. They get to keep their jobs and so does everyone else who sucks.
CNN's cable news outlet does nothing but damage the reputation of their actual news organization, CNN.com. At the end of the day, this is like Climategate, the skeptics could have written those emails, because there was nothing in them that skeptics hadn't already inferred. The fun was seeing them forced to own it.
Regarding "accountability." I agree with your analysis, but I think the commenter just got caught up in a bit of sloppy writing, using accountability instead of "consequences."
They're similar enough to mix up in a casual comment, but where they differ is important as you point out. Had the commenter formulated his sentence that there are consequences, rather than there is accountability, then I think there'd be no problem with that.
Stelter is the last person in the world I'd want to defend, but the general response to the article was that expecting him to rat on his own side was asking too much. Stelter is indeed vermin, but personal relations, confidentiality, loyalty, honor among thieves, and all that. Besides he spends all his time watching Fox, so he probably doesn't notice what's going on around him.
Why anyone would care, politically or financially, about such a tiny enterprise is beyond me
Legacy institutions are interesting to people even after they lose significance. They are still "significant" in large part because they've been around long enough to acquire some symbolic meaning. CNN personalities were major media players in earlier years and still have widespread name recognition that bloggers and writers for websites don't have. And of course -- sex.
Perhaps the pretext for his removal gives them cover to avoid paying severance or paying out his contract. The willful violation of corporate policy versus incompetence.
Unpopular opinion:
People dunking on CNN haven't watched CNN in years and years. What we have here is the same virtue signaling the left does.
People are shocked, SHOCKED I say, that Whoopi Goldberg said something offensive,and that powerful people in left wing organizations (CNN this time) have no morals, abuse their power, and sexual deviancy runs amuck.
if they fired him for running network to the ground, they'd officially admit that CNN sucks. Why do that, if an opportunity to go around that presents itself? Good PR move
The walls are closing in!
The walls are closing in!
It wasn't fake news, it was narrative - fiction - that their audience wanted to live in. It used the news genre in the fiction.
Blogger Temujin said...
I've often wondered who was paying to keep CNN on the air with it's current approach. That is, bizarre plays on reality mixed with breathless accounts of impending fascism that turns out to be...well, nothing. They've done this for years. And their ratings have been tripled by Fox News- for years. With a few exceptions during the Trump years when all True Believers wanted those breathless CNN reports about Trump's impending collapse to be true.
Who pays? You do. I do. We all did. The sponsors of that network were probably getting raped by their ad prices, even as they sunk. Even as CNN probably had to start throwing in free spots to keep those sponsors. So who pays for that? Not the companies doing the advertising. We did, in buying their products. They raised their prices to support that shithole of a network for years.
Might want to make note of who sponsors some of those shows. I would not necessarily call for a boycott. But maybe using some better judgement in who and what we support.
We all pay. A key revenue stream for CNN comes from fees per a subscriber from the cable companies.
Consensual adultery among colleagues is not a crime. Hypocrisy is not even a crime. It is a powerful pollutant though…ruining families, business associations, lives….but light is the best disinfectant, as they say. But for God’s sake, some of us ought to stand athwart Cancel culture and yell STOP.
There are ramifications to trying to do the right thing in any bureaucratic organization. You're never rewarded for it. And often, punished and scorned. Especially if it would end up reflecting badly on higher ups. Trust me on this.
Normally this would be a nothing burger but her employment with the corrupt Cuomo administration reveals the dangers when so-called reporters are inbedded with the government.
"they're going to have to keep enforcing it"
Maybe yes, maybe no. Rules are tools.
And now they're going to have to keep enforcing it, including retrospectively.
That's what lawyerly "facts and circumstances" are for. There can always be an excuse not to mete out the same punishment, if the decisionmakers don't want to. Perhaps the excuse could be "one didn't push through promotions of the other." Or "neither was the seniormost officer in the organisation." Whatever distinguishing factor is convenient to hand.
Many, many years ago, when CNN was strictly a Turner property, a friend who worked for one of the properties said that CNN was entirely funded from the profits of World Championship Wrestling. Left to it's own devices, CNN would fold, because there's now way that advertising and cable fees could support 24-hours news.
Seems rather apropos now, especially now
without Trump to crap on, Maddow isn't very interesting, either.
Russia!
Don't know why everyone is shocked by this. (Well, except for the part about their being women who'd actually have sex with Zucker, but I digress...). It seems obvious to me that Chris Wallace's move from Fox to CNN was the start of an effort to rebrand it as a serious news outlet and not the tabloidesque mess it had become. So, yeah, it was an open secret (very open since the woman in question had followed him from job to job over the past twenty years) and it only became a problem when the board decided that they needed to get rid of Zucker.
My take is "what did Zucker really do?" because as everyone seemed to know about this, then it wasn't a problem until it became a solution to another problem. It is not viewership issues, because that is reason enough for dismissal.
sitting on his moral high horse doing Jeff's biddling
Sounds a bit kinky.
A little something for the leftist Russia Russia trolls!
Enjoy!
Caroline said...
This is ridiculous. Consensual adultery among colleagues is not a crime. It kills families, damages societies and all sorts of associations, but for God’s sake some of us need to stand athwart cancel culture and yell STOP.
There is more to the story than that.
Gollust started working for the Cuomo's.
Gollust pillow talked Zucker into positive coverage of all of the Cuomo scandals.
Gollust also pillow talked her way to VP and Zucker's #2.
"...hot Brian Stelter..."
Three words that should never run consecutively.
I don't watch any cable. but I do watch snips of cable.
I've watched enough Stelter, Cuomo, and Maddow [et..al] to understand what lying propagandizing creeps they are.
Seems likely that, if Cuomo dropped a dime on Zucker during the ethics investigation of Cuomo, CNN had or thought they had a problem with a more senior executive violating ethics policies yet remaining. It may be they’re trying to remove an argument from a Cuomo lawsuit.
I worked at a massive financial firm that got rid of a very senior executive (possible heir apparent) for this exact same issue…not disclosing a relationship with a more junior employee to HR as policy required (not sure it was a direct reporting line issue.) In that case, though, it was adulterous, and the executive’s wife was also at the firm holding another quite senior job.
An interesting question, if everyone who knew included the people in the organization to whom he failed to disclose the relationship, then where is the harm to the organization? Or should any higher ups who knew be fired too?
They need Trump back. Without Trump they got nothin.
CNN can't publicly acknowledge the real reason, lest it alienate its remaining viewership, which primarily consists of neurotics.
"everyone knew" - the "knew" should definitely be in quotations, as it's a very tricky word. Really, everyone actually knew? Or did many suspect? Or many had heard rumors or speculation? Was it a smoke/fire thing? How much smoke?
There would have been HR hotlines or third party hotlines that you, as an employee, could have called to report whatever he or she "knew". But then be prepared to go through interviews, pressed to recount whether you knew first hand or, if not, what exactly was the basis for your report - and who did you hear it from, who did you speak to it about, did you discuss this with your boss and what did he or she say or do, why didn't any of those people you discussed this with also call us to report this alleged behavior, etc. All a very, very pleasant experience as Gospace notes.
And your this allegation would have been about the CNN president. "You come at the king, you best not miss." Sally327 has got that right.
I find interesting that the narrative is the violation was Zucker's 'failure to disclose/report.' Maybe I misunderstand, but I believe she was a Zucker subordinate. I wasn't an employment attorney, but I thought I'd learned in decades of HR training that having a sexual relationship with someone below you in the reporting structure was strictly forbidden - doesn't matter that the relationship was entered into on a strictly and mutually consensual basis - because relationships change and the fallout can be ugly (quid pro quo allegation may only be an inch away) and a hostile work environment claim may exist for everyone else.
As to "An interesting take on accountability, firing a person for a fake reason," insofar as I can tell, CNN hasn't issued any official statement at all for Zucker leaving. CNN has been silent; Zucker claims to have resigned. Who knows whether the truth will be known by the public. And even then, I'd be suspicious of whether we actually know whether that "truth" is accurate.
Prof A, in the link you provide for the Fox News coverage of Brian Stelter, it says he was "doing Zucker's biddling."
"Biddling." Hmmm. A Freudian slip?
OK, so rules against sexual harrassment and giving jobs to your girlfriend, over others, is just no big whoop? Do you think if say Donald Trump junior did this, everyone at CNN would just yawn?
All these characers in Network News and in the Entertainment Industry know all the crap and unethical behavior that's going on, but they only disclose it when they have to. Or its convinient for them. Of course, at the same time they're crucifying anyone outside their little circle for the same behavior.
In any case, CNN = Certainly Not News. This network beclowned itself so much over the last 5 years, why would anyone take it seriously? I guess Libtards are no longer watching it and getting their daily "Hate Trump Fix", so the ratings suck. Good that the two poisonous dwarfs Stetler and Zucker will soon be gone, But they'll be replaced by people just as bad.
“ An interesting take on accountability, firing a person for a fake reason.” The firing of Mark Schlissel at the University of Michigan seems to have been similarly fake.
No one is going to be held accountable.
The Chinese government is not going to be held accountable for both creating and then not letting the rest of the world know about the Wuhan virus until too late.
Pres. Biden is not going to be held accountable for the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, the horrific mess at the border, his and his family's scandalous financial dealings in China and Ukraine, his racism (he threatened to filibuster the nomination of a black woman to SCOTUS back in Pres. Bush's day), for attempting to govern far to the left of what was represented during his campaign, and in general not just failing but refusing to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed".
The media in general are not going to be held accountable for allowing a man who is clearly incapable of handling the office of the President of the United States to win the office without having to actually campaign for it and to answer questions about key policies and his and his family's personal finances. They are not going to be held responsible for lying about the Tea Party and Black Lives Matter and the actual statistics regarding police shootings. They are not going to be held accountable for acting in a blatantly partisan fashion, silencing people speaking truth while promoting lies.
Hillary Clinton is not going to be held accountable for attempting to subvert democracy by using political influence to cover up gross security violations while in high public office that would have gotten anyone else jailed and while using government agencies to subvert democracy by planting and promoting false information in a (thank God!) failed attempt to win the Presidency.
The FBI is not going to be held responsible for destroying it's hard-earned reputation for honesty and integrity in order to serve political interests, including making sure that information that could reveal the participation of influential and powerful people in rape, perversion, and subversion of the electoral process never comes to light.
The CDC will never be held accountable for consistently crafting its messaging of information in such a fashion as to produce a given end that they desired instead of telling Americans the truth so that they could make their own fully informed decisions - thus destroying its credibility.
Why? Why is no one going to be held responsible? Because these people are all intertwined by blood, marriage, sex and finances and you can't cause one harm without the harm spreading to the people that they depend on for money and power.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action"
Ian Fleming
I credit/blame John Malone.
Biggest shareholder of one of the biggest cable networks. He has a personal interest in CNN.
He has mentioned several times that they need to get their act together and that, as one of their largest customers he is very unhappy.
He has said several times in recent months that he might buy it.
Would it be illegal to drive the price down by bad mouthing them and putting info like this out? I doubt it.
Once the price is low enough he swoops in and buys.
Malone is also a pretty major trump supporter as well as being distinctly liberal (as in classical liberal)
Perhaps he could get Ron Paul to replace the Vanderbilt kid in prime time? I'd turn my TV on to watch that.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
What Lucien said at 8:34.
How does this affect her future?
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action"
Ian Fleming
I credit/blame John Malone.
Biggest shareholder of one of the biggest cable networks. He has a personal interest in CNN.
He has mentioned several times that they need to get their act together and that, as one of their largest customers he is very unhappy.
He has said several times in recent months that he might buy it.
Would it be illegal to drive the price down by bad mouthing them and putting info like this out? I doubt it.
Once the price is low enough he swoops in and buys.
Malone is also a pretty major trump supporter as well as being distinctly liberal (as in classical liberal)
Perhaps he could get Ron Paul to replace the Vanderbilt kid in prime time? I'd turn my TV on to watch that.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
"They need Trump back. Without Trump they got nothin."
CNN treated Trump worse than Spotify treats musicians. He should get a cut.
Does the CNN employee handbook create a joint disclosure obligation? Or is it only the higher salaried employee who has this sacred duty?
Does anyone promulgating this rule actually believe that the rule will be followed? Or is it an expedient to be invoked whenever it's convenient to get rid of someone?
" raising expectations that CNN is serious "
No, it is meeting expectations that CNN will essentially trivialize anything that goes against their interest, or use an expired #metoo moment to avoid admitting they are on the precipice of bankruptcy.
"Zucker's relationship was no secret and was not the reason he was fired. It was an excuse to fire him after programming an 80% decline in viewership in one year.
This can be a valid reason if you need to avoid legal threats. One time, when I was chief of Surgery, a surgeon applied for staff membership. We all knew he was a crook but would have been sued in a New York minute if we said so. The bad doctors all had lawyers on retainer. So we found an error in his application. I sent him a nice letter saying that we would love to have him as a colleague but the application said any false statement was grounds for rejection. Goodbye.
Zucker probably had a golden parachute clause in his contract with a morals exception.
with its hot Brian Stelter angle
Probably the only time in history a woman has written "Hot" and "Brian Stelter" in the same sentence.
Megyn Kelly intimates that he continually promoted her over others more deserving, and that there is more to know. That’s a fire-able offense, but should have happened years ago. Other people in the network are outraged that Gollust is not resigning or being fired as well. She’ll be leaving soon, I suspect. She’ll not be able to lead people who despise her for this escapade.
“Zucker” is “sugar” in German. Fun fact.
“Gollust pillow talked Zucker into positive coverage of all of the Cuomo scandals.
Gollust also pillow talked her way to VP and Zucker's #2.”
That must be some mighty fine “pillow talk”…
On second thought, dat’s the pillow-talking he gets for the pillow-talking he got!
“Zucker” is “sugar” in German. Fun fact.
Like the ADL, they’ve changed the definition. “Zucker” is now “mud”…
At this point, would CNN know how to report this story straight even if it wanted to?
RonF: "Why? Why is no one going to be held responsible? Because these people are all intertwined by blood, marriage, sex and finances and you can't cause one harm without the harm spreading to the people that they depend on for money and power."
"The how, when and why of Rome's fall is complex and oft-debated by historians. "The Fall of Rome" generally refers to the way in which the imperial nation changed over the course of hundreds of years until its form was unrecognizable."
Left Bank of the Charles: "An interesting question, if everyone who knew included the people in the organization to whom he failed to disclose the relationship, then where is the harm to the organization?"
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!
Jesus.
This is from a 12/7/21 article about the Cuomo firing. It applies equally to yesterday's firing of zucker:
In a recent interview on WMAL radio in Washington, D.C., DiGenova provided his explanation for what many pundits are theorizing about: the real reason CNN fired its highest-rated performer, Chris Cuomo.
DiGenova claims the reason may be one man, Jon Malone, who’s a major shareholder in a company that’s currently acquiring CNN.
https://thenewamerican.com/cnns-new-owner-could-make-the-outlet-more-conservative/
I think that "a major shareholder" is incorrect. My understanding is that he is "the" major shareholder. Not a majority but more than anyone else.
I am also not sure if the merger has taken place yet. I thought not but Megan Kelly yesterday was talking as if it had. If it has not, it looks like it will soon.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Iman said...
“Gollust pillow talked Zucker into positive coverage of all of the Cuomo scandals.
Gollust also pillow talked her way to VP and Zucker's #2.”
That must be some mighty fine “pillow talk”…
On second thought, dat’s the pillow-talking he gets for the pillow-talking he got!
Look at a picture of Zucker.
Look at a picture of Gollust.
Those 2 pictures are worth 1000 words.
Progressive/fascist's worst nightmare when the new sheriff comes to town at CNN. Maybe he's already there?
From Wikipedia
Malone's political beliefs have been described as libertarian.[39] He is on the board of directors for the Cato Institute. He donated US$250,000 to Donald Trump's inauguration in 2017, with colleague Greg Maffei, Liberty Media, and Liberty Interactive each donating a further US$250,000.
I read that people are asking why Gollust was not also terminated for not disclosing their relationship. With an affair between employees at different levels there is always the question of voluntariness, at least at the outset, and even when the junior makes the same employer change after the senior. (CF. Thomas/Hill)
Up to the senior to disclose.
The people who ignored it didn't have to worry about favoritism for Gollust affecting their jobs. The ones who might have been affected by favoritism would look around and see that everyone knew about the affair and so would not complain about the rule violation because their circumstances would go from "not favorite" to "actively disliked". You can go to HR with a rule violation that is not common knowledge, but with this, who wouldn't expect complaints to do more (personal) harm than good?
This clears up one mystery. I always wondered how Brian Stelter landed a television show. I can see now that Jeff Zucker looked at Stelter and marveled at his stage presence. Zucker felt that with the passing of Charley Rose and Matt Lauer the women of America needed a new heart throb to deliver news in a way that engaged not just their minds but their hearts and other pulsating points of fandom. In his long career in news, Jeff Zucker had never encountered a newsman with Stelter's raw sexual magnetism. It's true that Stelter didn't have Zucker's height or heft, but, for all that, Stelter looked quite a lot like Jeff, so how could women resist. And indeed it was true. While it's true that not that many people watched Stelter, it's undeniable that some of them were women. Joy Behar, for example, depended upon him to clear up many vexatious news stories.
What was the damaging action that caused CNN to seek a pretext against Zucker? Was it promoting his girlfriend so high that she helped shape CNN policy? changing CNN policy from being the source for breaking news to be the source for breaking news into propaganda breakfast-food bits? not arranging to get paid for services rendered while destroying the other possible income source - viewer interest? But there had to be a pretext because CNN simply could not say: "Our coverage is terrible; our viewer numbers are irreversibly declining; it's Zucker's fault" because then the financial property, CNN, would vanish. Or was the damaging action interfering in the Wisconsin election? A tech lord on record as interfering through his Tech and Civil Society group with the election processes mandated by the legislature? Does it matter? No. Though I think it's pretty clear that honest election officials in Wisconsin cities found themselves in Jurassic Park, so to speak, because a way had been found to recreate the robber barons of the 1890's and launch them into Wisconsin, dribbling cash about. This did not affect the outcome of the 2020 election at all (see CNN for good coverage of this point) so I guess this question seems remote to most - like recreating a mastodon from its DNA. Why bother? But still it wasn't right. But I don't think our little election woes up here in Wisconsin mattered in CNN's decision as much as CNN's general viability. I think the Board decided that Zucker, and hence CNN, was being run by a incompetent woman with no business sense.
Considering CNN is essentially a failed network at this point, firing everyone and starting over is a perfectly reasonable plan. This assumes CNN has still has any value as a brand. To me, CNN is synonymous with a bad joke, but I suspect there are enough people out there that still have some fond memories of when it at least pretended to be a legitimate news channel. See New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek.
There is also the risk of alienating their current, albeit meager, audience. If you are going to fire everyone you need to go all in with no regrets and no apologies and try to find a new audience. If you try to thread the needle by keeping some of the current failures, I don't think that will please much of anyone.
If I were John Malone I would not come in and clean house. I'd be a little more subtle. Leave all current hosts in place. Stick with some of the same propaganda.
But start tempering it with pro-liberal "you know, Trump wasn't all that bad", "maybe taxes are too high", "there do seem to be a lot of studies showing ivermectin works" "tonight's big story: a look at the fraud behind the 'no election fraud' story" and so on.
Don't drive the progfas away, although where are they gonna go? Keep them but deprogram them little by little.
I think Jon Malone could have a lot of fun with CNN.
John Henry
The new boss at CNN has reassured the demoralized employees there that the organization will continue to honor the legacy of Jeff Zucker. What a relief. They're not panicking. They have the legacy of Jeff Zucker to rally around. There are so few places that pedos can look for employment and acceptance Besides Hollywood of course..... Stelter should loosen up. He always appears in a suit and tie. He should dress more like Cuomo. Maybe wear a tight t-shirt or at least a polo on occasion. That will boost ratings. Cuomo used to be the stud muffin there. It's time for Stelter to step up and fill that part.
"My blood is boiling. Over and over and over again we are taught about the character of the people running America's newsrooms. And it never fails to disappoint."
A very pissed off sounding Megan Kelly yesterday to her guest Melissa Cronin of Radar Online.
Melissa broke the Zucker story in early January but it was ignored by the M5M.
Megan mentioned how the Edwards story was broken by the National Enquirer. She said it seems like only so-called gossip sheets do real news anymore.
Kelly and Cronin also mentioned that Katie Couric claims to have been passed over for a promotion for objecting to Gollust being forced onto her show at a or person when they already had one and stood not needed another.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Having an adulterous affair with a colleague, absent sexual harassment or favoritism, may be a sin, but when did it become a firing offense or anyone else’s business?
What? We are pretending that people in the broadcast news hierarchy are pillars of morality now?
John henry: "If I were John Malone I would not come in and clean house. I'd be a little more subtle. Leave all current hosts in place. Stick with some of the same propaganda."
That's not how John Malone, who came of age in the wild wild west of early cable TV, and his handpicked Discovery CEO David Zaslov "roll".
This is where Malone/Zaslov are heading:
"There’s a place for CNN in the proposed $43 billion combination of WarnerMedia and Discovery" -- billionaire media mogul John Malone told CNBC
“A coward’s way out would be to sell [CNN] or spin it off and then sell it,” said the cable TV pioneer and longtime chairman of Liberty Media.
“I do believe good journalism could have a role in this future portfolio that Discovery-TimeWarner’s going to represent,” Malone added
“I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” said the cable TV pioneer and longtime chairman of Liberty Media, which is a major shareholder in Discovery.
Something tells me NeverTrump/Consservative Inc. Grifters/Lincoln Pedophile Project-ers and their LLR Fangrrrrrls are going to have to find a new "go to" source for their "news" and Truthy Truthiest Truth-tellinng!
Think of John Malone as a fearless and incredibly successful lifelong business change/strategy change executor with some of the same sensibilities, (normal person sensibilities) that billionaire Phil Anschutz possesses....which is why Phil pulled the plug on the Always Democratical / NeverTrump-NeverConservative FakeCons at the Weekly Standard.
John Henry: "Don't drive the progfas away, although where are they gonna go? Keep them but deprogram them little by little."
CNN is a financial "blip" in the coming WarnerMedia And Discovery balance sheet.
Malone and Zaslov aren't the types to move slowly.
If I were Brian "tater" Stelter, I would be contacting the Idaho Potato Growers Association immediately for future work.
Gollust = Gollum lust
Do you think there is any truth to the rumor Hasbro Toys is seeking to contract Stelter for their androgynous "Mr/Mrs/Mx Stelter-head" toy?
"An interesting take on accountability, firing a person for a fake reason."
Zucker wasn't fired. He resigned.
John Henry is correct about the John Malone involvement. I think it was a few months ago I read that he was asked what he was going to do about CNN. The expectation was that he would push for it to be sold. Instead he said that he thought CNN had real value IF it could be turned back into a straight, hard news network. He thought there was a real market for actual news.I told a friend a few weeks ago that I thought that by summer the entire on air staff would be replaced and CNN rebranded. It would be nice if I were right.
C’mon, Achilles… Zucker loves it when she calls ‘im Big Poppa.
I always wondered how Brian Stelter landed a television show. I can see now that Jeff Zucker looked at Stelter and marveled at his stage presence.
Stelter was Zucker's mini-me. It must have been a thrill for Zucker to look at Stelter's show and think he was on television himself.
Say you're Jeff Zucker and you've made opposition to Trump the basis of your business plan. Trump goes and ... what? What's your new plan? Jan. 6th all the time? That's not going to work. You have a year to figure this out and you do ... nothing? No wonder Zucker was fired. He was asleep at the switch -- or maybe too busy getting laid.
Her real name is:
Gollust Aftar Mi
But she changed it for business reasons.
John henry at 12:37
If I were John Malone I would not come in and clean house. I'd be a little more subtle. ... I think Jon Malone could have a lot of fun with CNN.
LOL
Shocked at the treatment of Zucker? Google "Easterbrook $105 million"
So I confused Jeff Zucker and Mark Zuckerberg in my comment. My bad.
Two Tech Lords whose names start with Zuck. One ran CNN, the other ran Facebook. One poured money into the Wisconsin election through The Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR); the other explained that that money had no influence on the election. I guess I wonder whether the Zuckerburg groups had access to Facebook data on people in Wisconsin and whether that access was then used to target potential Dem voters and disregard potential Republicans. Or to target potential weak Wisconsin election officials. Their bad.
Stelter's only real job was to kiss Zucker's ass.
That's the only thing he had high ratings for...
The moral media. ah ah ah
“Gollust pillow talked Zucker into positive coverage of all of the Cuomo scandals.
Gollust also pillow talked her way to VP and Zucker's #2.”
It sure as hell wasn't MyPillow talk.
Go-llust.
Really?
Read that biglaw firm Cravath still investigating the Cuomo situation for CNN. So I think the stated reason for Zucker's departure is accurate.
Zucker resigned (under pressure). I’m sure a deal was struck for his exit and the GF was the easiest rules infraction to cite. It’s also the best reason to be terminated that allows him to still get a job. Getting another job is a lot tougher if he’s fired for running CNN’s ratings or using his network to protect Gov Cuomo and the rest of the Democrat Party. The guy is a bias hack that destroyed a once objective news network. He’s a menace that got his GF promoted over other qualified candidates. I hope those other candidates sue him and use this “reason” against him.
Readering: "Read that biglaw firm Cravath still investigating the Cuomo situation for CNN. So I think the stated reason for Zucker's departure is accurate."
LOL
Yes, of course you do. It's merely a coincidence WarnerMedia-Discovery is walking in the door any day now......its all just a coincidence that this affair which lasted from 1996 onward comes to a head right about the very moment new management, which has publicly stated they were going to shake things up actually shows up.
But then again, you were a big hoax dossier and hoax collusion truther, so it all makes sense.
Earnest Prole: "Gollust = Gollum lust"
As one wag put it today re Zucker: "ugliest Weeble in the box"
And no, I don't care if my criticism of Zucker causes NeverTrumpers and LLR's to curl up in a ball and cry.
Those of us who gave up on MSM because they advocate for causes, rather than report facts, would love to have a news organization that could perform the latter.
Good luck to Malone in this endeavor, and good riddance to the likes of Zucker and Cuomo.
From an article today on the American Lawyer website entitled, How Cravath's Cuomo Investigation Led to Jeff Zucker's Resignation at CNN:
"WarnerMedia, a longtime client of Cravath, hired the firm to investigate CNN star anchor Chris Cuomo’s dealings with his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal last year that ultimately led to his resignation....
As part of that investigation, Cravath attorneys interviewed Jeff Zucker and CNN executive vice president and chief marketing officer Allison Gollust last week. According to a report in The New York Times, those interviews were conducted in part because CNN executives believed the dispute over Cuomo’s firing might lead to litigation.
The interviews of Zucker and Gollust revealed on the record what many in the media landscape already knew: the two had a long-running, consensual relationship."
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