Numerous students attending a media leadership seminar at Yale University in April were surprised to hear former CNN President Jeff Zucker speak candidly about his removal from the network and his relationship with Allison Gollust. Zucker believed the network’s former owners used his relationship as a pretext for his removal. He compared his failure to disclose his relationship with Gollust to handing over a dangerous weapon, saying, “I gave them a gun, and they shot me with it.” Zucker’s criticisms of CNN have grown more frequent in recent times, and his unhappiness with the performance of its current leader Chris Licht is no secret.
CNN, which once regularly made more than $1 billion in yearly profit, generated only $750 million last year. Its ratings were also down more than 30% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same point in the 2020 presidential election cycle. Zucker has not been hiding away; he recently attended a Taylor Swift concert in Las Vegas with Gollust, and even started a new venture called RedBird IMI to acquire digital media, entertainment, sports, and news industry assets with $1 billion.
Zucker has been critical
