For Jeff Zucker, the new president of CNN Worldwide, Job No. 1 is to create stars and conjure up a sense of excitement at the previously moribund cable news network. One thing is clear: Zucker certainly has a sense of urgency.
Once, following its impressive coverage of Desert Storm, CNN dominated the cable-news landscape. Then, throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century, it committed the cardinal sin for any company: It believed its press clippings and became complacent. Over the past decade, it has meandered from one broadcast style to another and slipped far behind the Fox News Channel in the television ratings. It even found itself locked in a struggle with MSNBC for No. 2 in the cable sweepstakes.
Zucker recognizes that television news is a business in which strong personalities command the steadiest and strongest followings. At NBC's “Today” show, back in his glory days, he helped make Katie Couric into America's Sweetheart and boosted the career of Matt Lauer. Zucker showed an understanding of what the market wanted — and he provided it.
Today, with viewers in the United States now enjoying so many alternatives, the journalists with the most clearly defined on-air styles have the best shots of cutting through the cable clutter. In prime time, for example, they tend to talk tough and sometimes even look a little tough, too. Above all, though, throughout the broadcast day their most marketable asset is their innate ability to make viewers care about what they're saying.
Zucker wants to grab viewers by their lapels. By plucking Jake Tapper and Chris Cuomo from ABC News, for instance, he has already begun to demonstrate that he wants journalists who can define just as much of a viewer's TV-watching experience as the content itself — more so, actually.
Admit it. Your viewing habits have changed. Do you really watch a particular news program for the content anymore? The news is virtually the same everywhere. Instead, viewers tune in to catch the antics of their favorite anchors and hosts. The most successful journalists today are no longer mere news readers and reporters. They have become brands of their own.
Ironically, for CNN – a network forever in search of an identity — this modern-day phenomenon was kick-started by one of its own, Christiane Amanpour. She tirelessly traveled the globe's hot spots and breathlessly reported what the heads of state were thinking, saying and doing. Amanpour became recognized in the United States and around the world as the journalist you wanted to watch in times of foreign turmoil.
Amanpour, who a few years ago bolted to ABC News from CNN, had the kind of persona that Zucker craves in his on-air talent. The new prototype of CNN TV journalist possesses the television-news credibility — and a touch of pizzazz as well. CNN has earned a reputation as The Most Trusted Name in News (with apologies to Walter Cronkite) because people tend to flock to it in times of very big news events — coverage of the death of Osama bin Laden, a tsunami abroad, a killer hurricane somewhere in the U.S.
But when the public's interest in the catastrophe abates, they flip off CNN and go somewhere else for the more mundane, everyday news.
Zucker intends to change all of that. During his long career at NBC, he helped make the “Today” show into a dynamo. He succeeded in making the breakfast-hour news seem interesting by injecting a touch of show biz into the proceedings — while making Couric the genre's biggest star. But his reputation suffered when he took on the network's entertainment division. In a sense, he, like the network he is running, wants to make a major comeback.
Some folks have noted that CNN's coverage recently of the chaos at the Daytona 500 race, when parts of a car flew into the grandstand and injured dozens of spectators, might have seemed over the top. Same with the fatal lion mauling in California this week. Perhaps it was. But so what?
You know what really matters? We are talking about CNN. That means the network is having an impact on us. Somewhere, Jeff Zucker must be smiling.
