Is There Another Zucker Shoe?

Jeff Zucker
Photo: Bill O'Leary via Getty Images
Dylan Byers
February 4, 2022

In the last 48 hours, WarnerMedia C.E.O. Jason Kilar has traveled to New York, Washington and Atlanta to try to quell the anger among CNN staff who are fiercely loyal to Jeff Zucker, their now-former president, and dubious about Kilar’s motives for Zucker’s abrupt and merciless ouster. Their unyielding sympathy for a man who admittedly violated company policy by failing to disclose a romance with his comms chief Allison Gollust has raised some eyebrows in media circles, but it’s indicative of an undeniable truth at CNN: whatever his flaws, successes, and failures, Zucker had earned a Confucian-level filial piety from those whose careers he had helped to create and cultivate.