As head of CNN, Jeff Zucker was "the most craven TV executive of the Trump era"

https://newrepublic.com/article/165268/jeff-zucker-out-cnn-trump

Zucker, who was forced to step down as CNN president on Wednesday for failing to disclose an improper relationship with colleague Allison Gollust, wrecked CNN and did lasting damage to the country by promoting Donald Trump, says Alex Shephard. "It may be said that Zucker was, for a time, one of Trump’s most important enablers—first for gleefully handing the editorial reins over to Trump’s insurgent campaign, then for speaking out against the then-president’s constant stream of invective directed at the network and its journalists," says Shephard. "But his ties to Trump came at a cost. Trump, never one to see the benefits of a nuanced relationship, only wanted nonstop hagiography. CNN quickly became branded part of the liberal media—a label it had, more or less, eschewed—before entering into a post-Trump identity crisis." Shephard adds: "Were Zucker’s sins all that original? During the interminable 2016 election, other networks made the same calculus that Zucker did. Other executives did, as well: CBS’s Les Moonves, before being ousted amid multiple sexual assault allegations, famously told investors that Trump’s campaign “may not be good for America” but was 'damn good for CBS.' Still, no one attached themselves, remora-like, to the mogul with more gusto than Zucker. The defining shot of Zucker’s tenure at CNN may very well be a lingering look at an empty lectern at a Trump rally. Cable news aficionados can no doubt recall how those shots could extend indefinitely, almost as a piece of performance art about what stares back when you stare into the void. Deferring to no news event or editorial decision, the lectern long shots were a CNN mainstay, lingering on the lens with a fiendish determination as the network’s overstuffed panels of alleged experts shouted at each other off-screen. Flashy political conflict and substance-free debate between participants from America’s two political teams has long been a defining feature of American cable news television. But Zucker pushed it to, and past, its limits. Some of this, it should be stressed, was driven by a desire to accurately reflect the current makeup of our very broken politics. CNN, particularly in the early Trump years, featured a rotating cast of cable news stock characters who were intended to stand in for the president and his supporters. (In another accurate reflection of our broken politics, many of these were pushed out amid scandal.) But Zucker’s commitment to Trumpification wasn’t founded in the idea that CNN viewers deserved an accurate or nuanced view of those beliefs or politics. Rather, it was a cynical bet that as long as CNN could keep viewers twigged-out about Trump, the ratings would be well and duly goosed and the money would come in stacks. It worked for a long, long time. CNN was one of the big winners in the Trump media bonanza: In 2016, it raked in nearly a billion dollars in gross profit. The craven nature of Zucker’s strategies were as obvious as Trump’s unfitness for office and the consequent danger he posed to democracy and the rule of law. "