美国国家公共电台 NPR Amid Trump Attacks And Snubs, Zucker's CNN Reclaims Newsy Mission

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

President Trump¹ likes to attack the mainstream² media whenever he sees an opportunity. And his favorite punching bag is CNN. The network was recently shut out of a White House press briefing, and is often labeled by the president as, quote, "fake news." In normal times, a media executive might be uncomfortable, to say the least. But NPR's David Folkenflik says CNN chief Jeff Zucker is relishing³ the fight.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE⁴: It should not be a surprise that Jeff Zucker has a spring in his step. The network has performed strongly, riding public interest in Trump to relatively⁵ high ratings, huge digital audiences and record profits.

JEFF ZUCKER: The job of media is the accountability of government. And I think it's never been more important than it is today.

FOLKENFLIK: CNN has also stepped up to break big stories on Trump officials, especially those involving possible ties that people in Trump's circle and administration have to Russian figures. Yet, those scoops⁶ have led to primetime moments like this...

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It is fake. I mean, I watch CNN. It's so much anger and hatred⁷, and just the hatred. I don't watch it anymore because...

ZUCKER: A lot of this is red meat for his base.

FOLKENFLIK: Again, Jeff Zucker.

ZUCKER: He claims that CNN is unwatchable. But the only way he knows that is because he's watching obsessively⁸. We know that he spends his days and nights watching CNN.

FOLKENFLIK: CNN's media correspondent Brian Stelter often tracks the close correlation⁹ between Trump's tweets and what's just been shown on television news programs minutes before. It's uncanny.

I spoke¹⁰ with Zucker at his barebones office off CNN's newsroom here in New York the same day Trump's press secretary, Sean Spicer, shut out CNN, The New York Times and some other news outlets¹¹ from an off-camera press briefing. Spicer was unapologetic.

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SEAN SPICER: We're going to aggressively push back. We're just not going to sit back and let, you know, false narratives¹², false stories, inaccurate¹³ facts get out there.

FOLKENFLIK: As Zucker and I spoke, he received a call from CNN's Jake Tapper. Tapper's tough interviews and intensive fact checking have been joined by brief television essays. He gave Zucker a friendly heads-up about this rebuke¹⁴ the anchor was about to make on the air.

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JAKE TAPPER: A White House that has had some difficulty telling the truth, and that has seemed to have trouble getting up to speed on the basic competent functioning of government, and a president who seems particularly averse¹⁵ to any criticism.

FOLKENFLIK: Once more, Jeff Zucker.

ZUCKER: These are moves that governments around the world make when they're less sophisticated and want to block the press from doing its job.

FOLKENFLIK: Zucker says he has a clear message for his staff.

ZUCKER: Do not be intimidated¹⁶. Go where the story goes. Report the facts. Make sure you've got it right. And don't let things that the president says or that the White House does throw you off your game.

FOLKENFLIK: It may seem ironic¹⁷ that Zucker is rallying people around the idea of holding Trump accountable. When he was head of NBC, he helped to greenlight Trump's "Apprentice¹⁸" franchise¹⁹ that brought the real estate developer into millions of people's homes.

Zucker was also criticized during the campaign for directing CNN to carry so many Trump speeches live and to have so many interviews with him, giving other candidates far less time.

ZUCKER: I don't believe that the networks influenced the Republican primary election by the amount of coverage²⁰ that Trump rallies got. I do think that if we could go back, we probably wouldn't cover as many Trump rallies live as we did.

FOLKENFLIK: Trump has not given a formal interview to CNN since last June, which Zucker says has not influenced his network's coverage at all. Yesterday, as Vice²¹ President Pence made the rounds to talk on TV about Trump's addressed Congress, there was one notable exception - CNN, a network that is reveling, for the moment anyway, in its slightly outsider status. David Folkenflik, NPR News, New York.

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