Dumped CNN boss Jeff Zucker is ‘waging a proxy war’ against successor Chris Licht: ‘He should move on’
Ousted CNN boss Jeff Zucker continues to fume about being unceremoniously dumped by the network and is “waging a proxy war” against his successor, according to a report.
Zucker — who was replaced by Chris Licht last year after being pushed out for failing to disclose a long-term relationship with CNN exec Allison Gollust — has stoked dissension and refuses to fade from view, the New York Times reported Sunday.
“This is all very sad for Jeff,” Kenneth Lerer, co-founder of HuffPost and former chairman of BuzzFeed, told the Times. “He should move on with his life. It’s disheartening to see.”
Lerer — a friend of David Zaslav, CEO of CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery — told the outlet that Zucker’s criticism of Licht and CNN has “rankled” execs at the parent company. They suspect Zucker is the source of leaks to the press on the network’s lackluster operations, the Times reported.
Behind the scenes, Warner Bros. Discovery execs believe that Zucker, who still has a strong following at the network, is “waging a proxy war” against Licht, undermining his leadership from afar, three sources told the Times.
The difficulties Licht has faced in steering the network toward the center after years of left-leaning coverage — orchestrated to tremendous ratings by Zucker — were exposed last week in a searing profile in the Atlantic.
The 15,000-word expose noted that Licht continues to face pushback from some staff members loyal to Zucker. The former network chief has made his feelings about Licht known to friends and has been in frequent contact with current network anchors, according to the Times.
At a media conference in April, Zucker told the group he believed the network’s former owners used his relationship with Gollust — who was also in attendance — as a pretext for removing him, the Times reported, citing three people familiar with his comments.
“I gave them a gun, and they shot me with it,” Zucker said, according to the Times.
His relationship with Zaslav, a former golfing buddy, also quickly went down the tubes after the WBD boss named Licht as Zucker’s replacement.
Zaslav reportedly helped arrange a meeting between Licht and Zucker at Zucker’s ritzy estate in Amagansett to clear up any bad blood between the two. But afterward, the former CNN president grumbled that Licht didn’t take any of his pointers, said a person familiar with his feelings, the Times reported.
Zucker’s gripes about Licht’s management made their way back to Zaslav, who called them ironic given Zucker had once said Licht was the one executive who could do the job if he ever left the network, according to the Times.
Zucker — who had been president of CNN for nine years before he was let go in February 2022 — remains active in media circles, attending a Taylor Swift concert in Las Vegas with Gollust. Last month, he made an appearance at the Sports Emmy Awards at the invitation of Bryant Gumbel, along with disgraced former “Today” anchor Matt Lauer.
“It is wholly unsurprising that Jeff Zucker, the architect of CNN’s unprecedented success, would have deep misgivings about the direction the network has taken since he left,” said Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Zucker, told the Times.
She added that it was also no surprise “that he gets asked a lot, publicly and privately, and regularly from former colleagues, about what he thinks of CNN now.”
