President of CNN: Our Credibility Is Higher Than Ever

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by Amna El Tawil
 
CNN and president-elect Donald Trump have a rocky relationship and it comes as no secret they constantly accuse each other of all sorts of things. For instance, Trump tweeted on numerous occasions that CNN will lose its credibility. On the other hand, president of CNN, Jeff Zucker, claims their credibility is higher than ever.
 


In an interview with the New York Magazine, he was asked to state his opinion about Donald Trump’s “fake news” comment. Zucker said: “It’s just unfortunate that the most powerful person in the world is trying to delegitimize journalism and an organization that plays such a vital role in our democracy. I think he’s entitled to his opinion, but it’s — to use one of his favorite words — sad.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZmqhe_8jA0
When asked whether it would be difficult for CNN to get access to the incoming president, he said: “I think the era of access journalism as we’ve known it is over. It doesn’t worry me that Donald Trump hasn’t done an interview with CNN in eight months. I think our credibility is higher than ever, and our viewership is higher than ever, and our reporting is as strong as ever. One of the things I think this administration hasn’t figured out yet is that there’s only one television network that is seen in Beijing, Moscow, Seoul, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Baghdad, Tehran, and Damascus — and that’s CNN. The perception of Donald Trump in capitals around the world is shaped, in many ways, by CNN. Continuing to have an adversarial relationship with that network is a mistake.”
 
Zucker also said MSNBC ”Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski made a mistake by going to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago hotel to attempt to arrange an interview on New Year’s Eve: “I think in that case, optically, it would have been a lot better to have just made a phone call and ask for the interview.”
Asked if he ever spoke to Megyn Kelly about coming to CNN, Zucker said he “had one conversation” with the former Fox News star to host a show in primetime, but the conversation, “never got serious, it never got real.” Kelly opted to go to NBC News instead for reportedly millions less than the $25 million Fox had offered per year.