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[Newsbusters.Org] Now that former NBC News president Jeff Zucker is set to take over as president of CNN, the fate of the cable news network is an open question. In a Sunday discussion about the transition, CNN media critic Howard Kurtz and his guests passed over the network's left-of-center reporting, implying instead that CNN is somehow devoid of bias compared to its primary competitors, MSNBC and Fox News.During a segment on "Reliable Sources," panelist David Zurawik -- media critic for the Baltimore Sun newspaper -- asserted that the news organization is "the nation's last bastion of television journalism."
The former reporter for the Washington Post stated that Zucker, the former president and chief executive officer of NBC Universal, "will be up against the cautious culture of an Atlanta-based network that for years and years has stuck to a traditional news format."
Frank Sesno, director of George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs and another guest on Sunday's program, said that he cares about CNN "partly because of what it means to news and journalism" and what it means to the nation.
"This country needs this information through a broadcaster talking nationally and globally," he added.
The future of the network is important to the broadcast news industry, which is critical to the political health of the nation.
After noting that the network needs to make money since cable news is also a business, Kurtz asserted that "as a hard news network," CNN "does not attract loyal viewers when there is no breaking news in the way its cable news competitors can."