Some believe that Zirinsky's appointment at CBS News is the “best thing that’s happened...in a very long time” to the third place network—but others wonder if the broadcast legend is “the best person to take a hard look and change what is necessary”
Susan Zirinsky, 67, the new president of CBS News, was in her office at the CBS Broadcast Center recently rummaging through her illustrious past, which happens to constitute a rich history of broadcast journalism, and the world itself. There’s a poster-size photo of Tank Man in Tiananmen Square, where Zirinsky oversaw the coverage when CBS had the only live broadcast of the protests by a major network. On a console, there was Dan Rather’s typewriter from the White House.
Zirinsky, aka “Z,” who’s been at CBS since Watergate, ascended to her job after a period of radical discontinuity. In less than 12 months, a cascade of #MeToo scandals brought down CBS titans Les Moonves, Jeff Fager, and Charlie Rose. Zirinsky had worked alongside Moonves and Fager for years. She considered them friends. “I felt sad. Those weren’t the people I knew,” she said, adding that she hasn’t talked to them since.
Zirinsky’s appointment is, undeniably, a restoration. And for many of her charges, that is exactly what was required. “Z running the news division is the best thing that’s happened to that group of people in a very long time,” one of my CBS sources said. But to others, Zirinsky’s appointment can seem like ancestor worship.
One question is whether there’s something fundamental about CBS News that means it’s destined to remain a third-place proposition, or whether Zirinsky can move the needle with her recent talent shake-ups atwhich moves to Washington, D.C., this fall with Norah O’Donnell, following her July 15 debut as anchor. “I wouldn’t put something on the air that I didn’t think was going to work,” said Zirinsky. “As a journalist and a producer, you don’t put a show on that you don’t think will work.
Zirinsky has denied reports that she regrets taking the job, but she conceded, “It’s the toughest job I’ve ever had. It’s not that I worried about people not liking me. It was more, would I make the right decisions? It’s a big job in a changing environment. It’s daunting, and I’m not gonna tell you it’s not still daunting. I use fear as a motivator. It’s my drug.”
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