CNN President Jeff Zucker has abruptly quit his job because of an adult consensual affair that he failed to disclose in accordance with a company policy. If that issue intrigues you, read elsewhere. And if you want to read all the wonderful things his talking-head loyalists are saying about him – his “fairness,” his “commitment,” his “fearless” character, yetta yetta – trek over to Twitter.
For me, there is only his original sin. And that can never be forgiven.
Six years ago, when he was asked about Donald Trump’s meteoric rise as a ubiquitous public figure, Zucker reportedly laughed and said, “I have no regrets about the part that I played in his career.” By that point it was too late for regrets anyway, because Zucker had already done his part to make Trump a TV star in two mediums: brainless reality TV and the political realm. Indeed, on the cusp of the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, when Zucker voiced “no regrets,” Trump was already demonstrating that the political realm was a perfect vehicle for his brainlessness.
As Preston Beckman, a former NBC programming veep, told The New York Times back then, Zucker is “a ratings whore … But it’s one thing to be a ratings whore in prime time and it’s another thing to be a ratings whore when it comes to news.”
Zucker worked both worlds. When he was at NBC in 2004, he made Trump a household word by green-lighting “The Apprentice,” a veritable advertisement for the Trump lifestyle. There’s no way to know what percentage of his rally acolytes, in 2015 and 2016, were simply thrilled to see their favorite TV star in person, but rest assured it was sizable. Zucker is the guy who made it happen. And then, as CNN president during the ’16 campaign, he doubled down by airing Trump’s rallies from start to finish – a free advertising bonanza – without fact-checking anything.
Actually, let me amend that. Zucker didn’t just air the rallies from start to finish; he often started airing them before they even started. If you surfed to CNN at those moments, you discovered that the camera was trained on an empty podium, and underneath there was a chyron announcing “BREAKING NEWS: STAND BY FOR TRUMP TO SPEAK” or sometimes, just to mix it up a bit, “DONALD TRUMP EXPECTED TO SPEAK ANY MINUTE”.
Zucker did this because he loved the unpredictable drama – and, most importantly, the boffo ratings that went with it. As he remarked back in 2016, referring to Trump, “You never knew what he would say.” That criterion was reason enough to air those rallies in their entirety; never mind that so much of what he said was rhetorical vomit.
Meanwhile, we know now, from ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, that Zucker phoned the ’16 Trump campaign, lavishing obsequious praise and offering unsolicited advice. Zucker, Trump, and Cohen moved in the same New York social circles. Unfortunately for Zucker, his pal Cohen taped the phone calls. At one point Zucker told Cohen, “You guys have had great instincts, great guts, and great understanding of everything.” Zucker said of Trump, “Look, I want to do a weekly show with him and all this stuff.”
Zucker also shared an idea for how Trump could parry attacks from the other Republican candidates: “You know what you should do? Whoever is around him today should just be calling him a con man all day so that he gets so used to it, so that when he hears it from (Marco) Rubio, it doesn’t matter. ‘Hey, con man. Hey, con man. Hey, con man.'”
Wow, a backstage advisor to a demagogue; so much for CNN’s slogan, “The Most Trusted Name in News.” And yet, after Trump was elected, Zucker still insisted in an interview, “We didn’t bend over backward for Trump.” Whatever you say.
Granted, Zucker has made amends in recent years, most notably by tapping Jake Tapper to cover Trump with well-warranted vigilance, and airing Jim Acosta’s accountability journalism. But that’s like Dr. Frankenstein realizing the necessity of taking down the freak that he himself created. Too late, pal. The freak still roams free among us, hatching schemes for a 2024 takeover even as his 2020 post-election plots keep getting exposed, on a seemingly daily basis.
Last year, Zucker enthused to his CNN staffers, “I have this incredible seat in the very front row of history every day.” But he should forever be held responsible for the history he helped mold, and the damage his creation has wrought on the civic life of this benighted nation.
Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2022
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