CNN Memo-gate & the Secret Power Behind Zazworld
Welcome to The Daily Courant. Here’s what’s new at Puck.
Today, we lead with Dylan Byers‘ latest reporting on the Jeff Zucker-CNN-Jason Kilar melodrama: a quintuple-bylined report from The New York Times, a mysterious memo, a damning rebuttal, and a fortuitously-timed liquidity event capping an extraordinary epoch in the cable news business.
Then, below the fold, William D. Cohan uncovers the unlikely financial power behind David Zaslav’s soon-to-be Hollywood media empire. And stay tuned for the latest episode of our acclaimed weekly podcast, The Powers That Be, materializing on all your favorite streaming audio platforms overnight.
An extensive report from The Times, a damning statement from Gollust, and a fortuitously-timed liquidity event. This Warner Bros. Discovery deal really can’t close soon enough. Shortly before dusk on the east coast, on Tuesday evening, journalists began chattering about a New York Times piece that was soon to drop and perhaps gesture toward the next front in the Jeff Zucker-CNN-Jason Kilar imbroglio. And then there it was—a quintuple-bylined investigation that laid out the now-familiar timeline of events and added one critical new dimension to the story: in the heat of the #MeToo uprising, Chris Cuomo had used the CNN platform to try to placate a would-be accuser. His journalistic malpractice contributed to Zucker’s decision to fire him and helped set into motion the series of events that would ultimately lead to the ouster of both Zucker and his top aide and romantic partner, Allison Gollust.
The interest in the Times piece was short-lived, however. Less than an hour later, Kilar dropped his own bomb. In a memo to all CNN staff, Kilar said the investigation into the Brothers Cuomo had unearthed violations of company policies, “including CNN’s News Standards and Practices,” not just by Cuomo, but by Zucker and Gollust, as well. Gollust had resigned from the company, he announced. Kilar signed off with the now familiar refrain that he had “taken the right actions” and made “the right decisions,” but offered no further details about the violations in question. And so the staff at CNN, the broader media industry and the general public were left with nothing but questions and assumptions about an already vexing scandal.
It was the latest curious twist in a saga filled with them. Kilar had ascribed guilt to all three individuals, without specifying the crime. The memo had seemingly been lawyered within an inch of its life, sure, but it also effectively besmirched their reputations without procuring the receipts. The second shoe has dropped, some staffers exclaimed, and yet no one seemed to be able to say what that shoe was.
Hours after Kilar’s memo went out, Gollust shot back…
FOUR STORIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT 
Disney’s recent streaming success suggests some key factors that will dictate the winners and losers in the streaming arms race. JULIA ALEXANDER 
Sam Bankman-Fried epitomizes a new generation of mega-donors who are playing big-money politics by leveraging applied math. THEODORE SCHLEIFER 
Despite changing realities, Democrats are struggling to relinquish the identity politics surrounding their own Covid-era precautions. PETER HAMBY 
It’s the Newhouses, not John Malone, who will have the leverage to help Zaslav steer Warner Bros. Discovery toward streaming glory. WILLIAM D. COHAN
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