Inside CNN: From Anger to Fear

Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper
Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty
Dylan Byers
February 4, 2022

It’s been a week for the staff at CNN. Jeff Zucker, their admired leader, was forced to resign on Wednesday and, in the days since, no one from AT&T or WarnerMedia has provided them with satisfactory answers for why he was so abruptly and mercilessly defenestrated. In the view of dozens of CNN insiders that I’ve spoken with, the love and loyalty between Zucker and his comms chief, Allison Gollust, were well known. The two were genuinely best friends, work spouses, and intimately close advisers, who spent nearly every minute together, even on weekends, and if you called him she might be the one to answer his phone. Was the fact that Zucker had failed to disclose their Covid-era evolution to a more-than-platonic relationship really grounds for an immediate termination, many have wondered aloud, both in the newsroom and on-air?