__________________________________________________________________________
- John Malone is chairman of Liberty Media, Discovery’s largest shareholder
- He previously donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration, and told of wanting to restore CNN to impartial journalism after years of left-wing bias
- After CNN chief Jeff Zucker’s relationship with colleague Allison Gollust was revealed, Malone reportedly made it clear policies must be followed
- CNN will be folded into Discovery as part of a $43billion deal
- Zucker was due to stay on in some capacity and even take a bigger role at Discovery, but now has been cast out
- AT&T boss John Stankey was told of the affair from WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar – with whom Zucker has always had a frosty relationship
- CNN is now investigating if Zucker had an inappropriate relationship with Andrew Cuomo, former Governor of New York
- A source tells Rolling Stone that Gollust and Zucker were also advising Cuomo at the start of the pandemic – like Chris was fired for doing
CNN’s left-wing bias may become a thing of the past when it is spun off to Discovery later this year, with the largest shareholder of the network’s new owners eager to restore it to impartiality.
John Malone, a billionaire Trump donor, is the CEO of Liberty Media, Discovery’s largest shareholder. He retains a 25 percent voting share in Discovery, which will take control of WarnerMedia and its assets – including CNN – later this year.
With Jeff Zucker gone, that seems more likely than ever. null
It’s unclear which political direction Discovery CEO David Zaslav wants to take the network in. On Friday morning, he shocked CNBC hosts by calling the network ‘the leader of news to the left’.
Mediaite interpreted his remark as a reference to the political left however he has since clarified that he was talking about the ‘left’ side of the company portfolio, with sports being on the ‘right’.
On CNBC, he refused to talk about the scandal, but said: ‘Jeff is a good friend of mine. I can’t speak to this issue. We don’t own the company yet. In terms of CNN+ we couldn’t be more excited about the fact that they’ve been hiring great journalists.’
Rose Rambles... 