Carl Bernstein Lauds Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav On Brian Stelter’s Last Day With CNN: He’s Committed to Understanding ‘Good Journalism’
Carl Bernstein offered his compliments to Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav as he eulogized Reliable Sources during his final appearance on the show.
The noted Watergate journalist joined Brian Stelter on Sunday for the latter’s last show before his departure from CNN. As he praised Stelter’s time on CNN and offered his thoughts about the role of the media, Bernstein pondered about how often he has seen “that a good editor or a good news organization turns down a good story.”
“I think as reporters and editors, we need to go to our management. If somebody has said ‘No, you can’t put that on the air,’ and we need to say ‘Look, here’s why this is a great story,'” Bernstein said. “I think both Jeff Zucker and David Zaslav have been committed through their years to understanding what good journalism is.”
Bernstein continued with his thought by referring to an interview Zaslav gave to Oprah Winfrey as he was about to take the reins of CNN, and how Zaslav expressed admiration for the film All the President’s Men.
“It’s about all the things that we’re talking about, how you go about getting the best attainable version of the truth,” Bernstein said.
I think Jeff Zucker was committed to that. It’s basic. It’s what we do. And, again, it is not about neutrality, it’s about fairness, it’s about doing the reporting, it’s about getting the multiple sources. All of cable news has commentary. It ought to have commentary. It should be labeled perhaps a little better as commentary. But that’s a function, too. Just as newspapers and old news organizations had editorial pages. We have room for both. We need to be doing both, but both need to be of the highest caliber.
Zucker was president of CNN until his ouster earlier this year for violating company policy with his undisclosed, consensual relationship with CNN’s Executive Vice President Allison Gollust.
Berstein’s praise for Zaslav comes as Zaslav and his fellow executives at the company have spoken about their interest in having CNN focus more on straight journalism and less on the opinionated content dominating cable news. Mediaite has previously noted how Zaslav has terminated several of the company’s assets recently due to financial concerns from the merger between Warner Brothers and Discovery. Stelter was reportedly making nearly $1 million annually.
Watch above, via CNN.
