In the late afternoon of November 30, Jeff Zucker, president of CNN worldwide, called his main anchor and friend Chris Cuomo to a meeting in the network building. Also in attendance was chief marketing officer — and Zucker’s secret romantic partner — Allison Gollust. The two had an uncomfortable message to give.
Zucker told the anchor that CNN was suspending him due to unethical interactions with his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. The anchor was shocked and offered to resign. According to people with knowledge of the discussion, Zucker responded that Cuomo might be able to return.
Cuomo and Zucker were confidants, and the journalist didn’t bother to consult a lawyer.
Less than 24 hours later a letter reached CNN. It was from a lawyer representing a woman who had worked with Cuomo at ABC News and claimed that he had sexually assaulted her and tried to ensure her silence using “an abuse of power by CNN.”
A spokesperson for Cuomo denies the allegations, but the letter set off a chain of events that would soon dramatically affect one of the world’s most powerful journalism networks.
By the end of that week, Zucker would fire Cuomo, telling him that a string of scandals had become too much. Two months later, Zucker himself was forced to resign. Last Tuesday (15), CNN announced the departure of Gollust.
Zucker attributed his dismissal to his failure to publicize his relationship with Gollust, but other forces had created the conditions that led to his downfall.
CNN had dropped to third in cable ratings. A key investor had criticized the network’s programming, describing it as opinionated. Zucker had fallen out with a top executive at the parent company and created powerful enemies.
When the anchor was fired, the law firm hired to investigate his behavior turned its attention to Jeff Zucker — and his tenure in which intimacy with sources and employees was both a hallmark and an Achilles heel. His sudden departure threw CNN’s future into chaos.
Cuomo is hoping to wring tens of millions of dollars from the network, anchors are in revolt and officials speculate whether, without Zucker, Discovery Inc., which is on the way to becoming the new owner, will make sweeping changes.
On Tuesday night, in a memo announcing Gollust’s resignation, Jason Kilar, the parent company’s chief executive, said an internal investigation “found violations of company policy” by Cuomo, Zucker and Gollust. “This news is troubling, disappointing and, frankly, heartbreaking.”
A birthday party in the Hamptons
The ties between Zucker, Gollust and Chris Cuomo went back a long way, also involving Andrew Cuomo, who in August resigned as governor.
Zucker met Gollust on NBC when she was a young press officer for Today and he was the show’s executive producer. As he rose through the ranks to become chief executive of NBC Universal, the two continued to work together.
In 2011, Zucker left the network, and Gollust met Andrew Cuomo while hosting a party for the politician’s girlfriend. The beach event in the Hamptons was such a success that Cuomo asked her to work with him. The following year, she became the governor’s director of communications.
A few months later, in January 2013, CNN hired Jeff Zucker, and Gollust left Albany to work with her old boss, becoming the network’s director of communications.
following a script
CNN was struggling, with declining ratings and programming considered obsolete. On NBC, Zucker had turned the Today around, and triumphs followed with shows like “The Apprentice” and “Fear Factor” making waves and helping to convert Donald Trump and Joe Rogan into cultural landmarks.
One of Zucker’s first creations on CNN was a light morning show, New Day. He hired an ABC News who had shone as a war reporter, Chris Cuomo, to co-host.
Months later, ethical boundaries began to be pushed: in December 2013, Chris interviewed Andrew Cuomo about a train wreck in the Bronx. Media critics claimed it was impossible for anyone to speak about his brother impartially — Chris was later banned from covering Andrew-related matters.
The New Day was a modest success, but Chris Cuomo was polarizing, and Zucker remained loyal. In 2018, he offered the journalist a program at the coveted 9pm time slot. His combative style made him ideal for mocking then-President Donald Trump on air.
It didn’t take long for Cuomo Prime Time to become CNN’s highest-rated show, the success strengthening the bond between the two and earning the anchor a $6 million-a-year contract.
Keeping an eye on the audience
The arrival of the pandemic has boosted Zucker’s hypercompetitive instincts. During the Trump years, he led CNN to record audiences and annual profits of nearly $1 billion.
Andrew Cuomo was experiencing a special moment. His pronouncements on Covid were calm and informative, a stark contrast to Trump’s often muddled speeches. There was talk of the possibility of him running for president.
Then Chris Cuomo contracted the virus. He quarantined and streamed the show from his basement home; the audience went up even more. Zucker then lifted the anchor’s ban on interviewing his brother. From April 2020, the Cuomos began to reflect on the air about how the virus disturbed society and their lives.
Interactions began to seem less sympathetic after The Washington Post reported that the governor had helped his brother gain access to Covid tests, which were rare at the time. CNN defended the anchor, saying he “turned to whoever he could for help, as any human being would.”
One night in March 2021, Chris Cuomo said something on TV that helped precipitate his downfall — and, later, Zucker’s. The New York attorney general had just announced that she was investigating allegations of sexual harassment made against Andrew.
With the governor in trouble, Zucker once again banned the anchor from covering news about him. When Cuomo explained to viewers that he was going to keep his distance from the subject, he looked straight into the camera and denounced the harassment. “I have always been deeply concerned about these issues.”
The woman who had worked with him at ABC News watched in disbelief. She told the NYT that she was disturbed by the similarities between what she experienced and what happened to the women who accused the governor.
In May 2021, the Post reported that Chris Cuomo had been advising the governor’s staff on how to distance themselves from the sexual harassment scandal. CNN, which had just announced plans to merge with Discovery, said the talks were inappropriate but did not punish the anchor.
On August 3, New York Attorney General Letitia James released a critical report on sexual harassment by Andrew Cuomo. The topic was reported by CNN throughout the day — until 9 pm, when Chris Cuomo aired. A week later, the governor resigned.
Soon complaints about the younger Cuomo began to surface. Shelley Ross, his former boss at ABC, wrote in the NYT that he groped her at a party in 2005 — he apologized. CNN executives then asked the law firm Cravath Swaine & Moore to investigate the matter.
meeting at the office
The fateful letter that reached CNN was from Debra S. Katz, a lawyer specializing in sexual harassment cases. The woman who had worked with Cuomo at ABC News related a story that began in 2011 when she was a temporary employee. One day, after Cuomo offered him professional advice, he allegedly invited her to his office for lunch. When she arrived, there was no food. Instead, he pressured her to have sex, and when she refused, she was assaulted.
But the story did not end there. According to the lawyer’s letter, years later, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Cuomo contacted the woman, seemingly out of nowhere. He proposed doing a CNN report on the company she worked for as public relations. She tried to avoid any contact with the journalist, but CNN ran the material anyway.
According to the lawyer, the woman, who was “deeply traumatized”, does not want to become a pawn in an internal war between Zucker, Chris Cuomo and CNN and will not say anything more.
a clear sign
Two days after the letter was sent, Katz and a CNN attorney agreed that she would deliver evidence to substantiate the woman’s allegations. Before that, Zucker fired Cuomo.
A day later, the anchor hired Bryan Freedman, a Hollywood lawyer known for securing multimillion-dollar damages. On December 5, he sent a letter to CNN demanding that the network retain all documents relating to any contacts between any CNN employee and the New York governor’s office.
It was a clear sign that a key element of the defense will be pointing out that Zucker and others at CNN would have communicated with the politician, like Chris, but without being punished.
Shortly afterwards, a gossip website pointed out that Zucker and Gollust had been in a romantic relationship for years. The executive had the loyalty of the anchors and had earned the respect of many journalists by standing up to Trump, who had repeatedly attacked the network. But in late 2021 he began to fall for the esteem of his superiors, and the situation with Cuomo was just the latest stumbling block.
In November, Discovery shareholder John Malone said, “I’d like to see CNN go back to doing the kind of journalism it started with and to have real journalists. It would be refreshing.” The splinter led to questions about whether CNN’s future owners would seek to implement editorial changes.
In addition, the network’s ratings were plummeting, and Zucker maintained a strained relationship with Kilar. In August 2020, WarnerMedia’s chief executive announced changes to CNN’s corporate structure without consulting the network’s president — who days later missed a meeting to attend Chris Cuomo’s 50th birthday party.
‘I made a mistake’
In early January, Cravath’s investigation advanced, and the tenor of the questions began to change. Lawyers asked CNN employees how Zucker had handled Cuomo’s suspension and firing, what he knew about the anchor’s interactions with his brother, and whether anyone had knowledge of communications between the network’s president and Andrew Cuomo.
When the lawyers questioned Zucker and Gollust, they asked about the romance. The executive said that the relationship had become sexual in the pandemic. He did not reveal the fact to anyone in human resources or to his superiors. The case violated the company’s code of conduct.
On Monday, January 31, Zucker missed the CNN daily agenda meeting he used to lead. Nor was it for the following days. At 11 am on Wednesday, he sent an email to employees: he was resigning, because he didn’t reveal the romantic relationship from the beginning. “I made a mistake,” he wrote.
Kilar had contacted Zucker days before and told him he needed to leave CNN. Zucker asked to stay on until the Discovery merger is completed, in a few months. Kilar said no.
