CNN, Jeff Zucker – and January 6?

Fresh reports showing how cozy a relationship the Mainstream Media has with left-wing politicians surfaced on Friday. We now learn that several prominent anchors and correspondents at the Cable News Network (CNN) called their Bigger Boss at WarnerMedia to complain about the abrupt resignation – or firing – of former CEO Jeff Zucker. In that same crying jag, one of them actually mentioned the January 6 Committee as interested parties. That alone is telling. It tells us either that CNN always had a relationship with the American political left, or that its key personnel wish it had. And now that Jeff Zucker had to leave, they fear his leave-taking puts that relationship in jeopardy.

What CNN personnel said: the sources …

First, some context. Corporate begats have been a staple of world business life since the popularization of the joint-stock corporation about a century and a half ago. One corporation owns another, which owns a third, and so on. In this case, AT&T owns WarnerMedia, which owns CNN. That will shortly become relevant.

On Thursday 3 February, the Los Angeles Times ran with a story about a between and among:

• Jason Kilar, CEO of WarnerMedia, and
• Key staff at CNN.

That staff in turn included, among others:

• Jamie Gangel, Washington correspondent,
• Jim Acosta, the infamous anchor, and
• Jake Tapper, another Washington anchor.

The meeting ran for ninety minutes. How the Los Angeles Times got an audio recording of that meeting (or who recorded it!), the Times won’t say. National Review picked up on the Times report, and the newsletter Headline USA picked up on the NR report.

… the background …

In picking up on these reports in turn, CNAV offers this disclaimer: all these reports have their basis in an allegation of a surreptitious recording of what was supposed to be a private meeting. But again, the Los Angeles Times refuses to share or embed the recording, or say who made it, or who gave it to them. Other Mainstream Media organs have established a reputation for outright fabrication of the news. So while CNAV cannot imagine what would possess the Los Angeles Times to fabricate a story about a private meeting featuring such well-known participants as Jim Acosta and Jake Tapper, nevertheless CNAV must treat this story as unverified rumor, and ask its readers to take it with a grain of salt.

So if this recording exists and if the Los Angeles Times has described it accurately, the revelations should embarrass everyone.

This much we already know: CNN fired Chris Cuomo, brother of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.), without pay. They did this because Chris Cuomo shamelessly shilled for and protected his brother from sexual harassment allegations. So Chris Cuomo sued CNN to wring $6 million out of that company. In connection with that, Cuomo’s attorneys took Jeff Zucker’s deposition. And in that process, the lawyers turned up Jeff Zucker’s relationship with Allison Gollust, former communications director for then-Gov. Cuomo and now the “chief marketing officer” for CNN.

Allegedly, Jeff Zucker never disclosed that relationship at the proper time. So, he got the ax.

… and now the anguished wails

The Los Angeles Times quotes Jim Acosta first:

If we had not had Jeff here during the Trump administration, we would have probably been taken out and you would have something like Fox News lite on the air right now. It’s a rather delicate time, not just for this country but this business.

If anyone still views CNN, they might remember that the Trump White House Press Office revoked his press credentials. We may assume Jen Psaki gave them back. But this statement speaks volumes. Why should the times be delicate now, with an administration Jim Acosta likes?

Jake Tapper charged that without Jeff Zucker, CNN would have turned into “benign, vanilla gruel.” Then, in lighting into Mr. Kilar, Tapper blamed Chris Cuomo for Zucker’s firing.

He threatened. Jeff said we don’t negotiate with terrorists. Chris blew the place up. How do we get past that perception that this is the bad guy winning?

Jamie Gangel said three things. In no particular order, here are two of them:

I think we’ve heard a lot of corporate double talk. I think the company has made a terrible mistake by doing this.

And:

I do not think you have any appreciation for what you’ve done to this organization.

But she also allegedly said this, which maybe readers should take with a dram of salt. Because if Jamie Gangel actually said this, and is telling the truth, she just set off a dynamite charge.

The January 6 Committee cares about who leads CNN? Why?

Jamie Gangel says – again, according to this alleged recording – that she’s had telephone calls from four members of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack. (Yes, that is the real name of that Committee.) The four, according to Gangel, “felt devastated for our democracy” now that Jeff Zucker has left the firm. But she did not say, nor will anyone else say, who those four are. Any one of them, including the two tame Republicans (Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois), could have made one of those phone calls, if anyone did. But one would expect them to know better than to state for the record that they consider the leadership of a Mainstream Media organ of vital importance to democratic institutions.

CNAV will be first to observe that this is hearsay, and not a court in the land would admit it in evidence. So that leaves us with three possibilities.

First: the Los Angeles Times made the whole thing up. Maybe their circulation is as bad as that. We don’t know.

Second: Jamie Gangel made up her talks with January 6 Committee members. By not naming names, she made her story that much harder to check out. Or:

Third: four members of that Committee did tell a correspondent that the identity of her Big Boss mattered to them.

What can that mean?

Which members of that Committee talked as out-of-school as that, maybe none can determine. Again, all would have a motive. Cheney and Kinzinger might have a stronger motive than most. The Republican National Committee censured them both over the weekend. Still, that would account for only two of them. So at least two Democrats, and maybe three or four, made those phone calls.

Why should Jeff Zucker be that important to members of that Committee? Well, we already know that this Committee exists only to write:

1. Bills of attainder against any person who was at the Capitol, within five hundred yards of it, or at the Washington Monument rally, and
2. An ex post facto law saying it shall be unlawful to vote, or to have voted, for Donald J. Trump, or electors for Donald J. Trump.

So Donald J. Trump strikes such terror in certain hearts that they want a tame media organ to tell the world what a worse-than-jerk he is. But by virtue of what theory of republican government dare any of them call for tame media? Do they not know how close they come to violating the First Amendment?

Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom … of the press.

Maybe they do know.

We have heard Jen Psaki and elected officials beyond that Committee call explicitly for censorship. Thus far they want private entities to do their dirty work for them. Or maybe those Committee members wished their Senate counterparts could one day consider the nomination of Jeff Zucker to be Secretary of Information. And by that CNAV does not mean “technology.” Change Secretary to Minister, and the meaning becomes all too clear. Ministries of Information have in fact been Ministries of Propaganda.

Further support for that meeting taking place comes from Newsmax. According to them, Mr. John Stankey, CEO of AT&T, also felt the need to comment on Jeff Zucker’s leaving.

Jeff resigned, and the decision to resign was Jeff’s decision.

Why should that matter? The answer to that question raises another. What kind of anti-republican and anti-liberty cabal did Jeff Zucker assemble during his tenure at the helm of CNN? How dared he so twist the mission of the press to turn it into a de facto Department of Information?

Furthermore, what does this say of those who continue to view and listen to CNN? What kind of society do they want? A society that abolishes property (which is always “private”) and holds all things in common, perhaps. Such we can gather from the:

• Policies of this administration,
• Attitudes of members of the January 6 Committee and of House Democratic leadership, and
• Attitudes of, and inappropriate editorializing by, CNN anchors and correspondents.

Weep for these, weep for tyranny.