By Don Irvine.
CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker is the latest media executive to chime in on how his company will cover the Trump administration, telling attendees at a dinner on Tuesday for the Committee to Protect Journalists that they plan on holding the new administration’s “feet to the fire,” according to CNN’s Brian Stelter:
“We will hold the new administration’s feet to the fire. And they should respect that, even if they don’t welcome it.”
Zucker added that “it is still too early to draw conclusions about how this administration will work with the media,” but, “I think it is fair to say that based on some of what we saw during the campaign, we have some reason for concern.”
It may not matter what Zucker and his colleagues in the liberal media think or how they plan to cover the Trump administration. What is clear is that the President-elect is rewriting the rules as they relate to the media. On Monday, Trump released a YouTube video on how the transition is going and what he plans to do in his first 100 days in office. That video, which bypassed the media, has now been viewed nearly 6.3 million times and has the media in a tizzy because they think that they should be the filter for all the news coming from Trump.
That video, along with the meetings that Trump has held with the media this week in New York, represent a new order as to how the media will cover Trump once he takes office. That new order may mean fewer press conferences and more direct-to-the-public videos, along with Trump’s ubiquitous tweets to spread the administration’s message—leaving the media to find another line of attack.
