NBC's Jeff Zucker: Cheerleading for his cheerleaders

If there were ever any doubt that today's wealthy media conglomerate czars are out of touch with reality, all you have to do is listen to Jeff Zucker at this morning's Business Week media summit. The NBC Universal CEO went out of his way to blast Jon Stewart's ongoing dissection of CNBC's ludicrously amped-up coverage of the stock market train wreck, saying that "just because someone who mocks authority says something doesn't mean it's true." Of course, that's the exact definition of being out of touch: When everyone else is looking at your financial network and seeing a bunch of ratings-obsessed charlatans who, though they surely knew better, talked up a host of terminally ill companies that were about to collapse, you look at your financial network and tell a media conference that "CNBC is a spectacular organization that's done a tremendous job."

The next thing you know, Zucker will be saying Ben Silverman is doing a wonderful job of running NBC too.

What I found especially appalling about Zucker's remarks was his faux populism. Here's a guy who travels on a corporate jet, whose salary, bonuses and stock options are probably right up there with most of AIG's bonus babies (Zucker doesn't have to disclose his compensation, but his predecessor in the job, Robert Wright, earned $17.8 million in 2006), yet he has the nerve to act like he's in the same boat with the rest of us, telling the audience, "Everybody wants to point a finger--I'm upset that my 401(k) isn't what it was too.... But to suggest that the business media is responsible for what's going on now is absurd."

BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis, who was at the media summit, has a great post up now saying that Zucker also made the specious argument that blaming CNBC for missing the financial crisis is like blaming the press for prompting the U.S. to go to war in Iraq. "Both are absurd," Zucker said. Actually, what's really absurd is  Zucker's imagining that CNBC did a good job. What the network really did was help fan a gigantic financial bubble, even when Jim Cramer and its other "experts"--as Stewart has repeatedly pointed out--were savvy enough to know that the companies they covered, and often touted, were involved in all sorts of shady conduct.

Zucker should be profusely apologizing and promising to make things right, not defending CNBC's hapless carnival act.   

Photo of NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker by the Associated Press

 

 

Comments

[Tom H]

Zucker is just another in a long line of hucksters who are cheerleaders for the financial products that have lead to a disaster. Jon Stewart called them on it. Good for him.

[Magnus]

How can a guy like Jeff Zucker become the CEO for NBC Universal? I don't expect CEO's to be in touch with reality. But since the key to good management is to allocate responsibility to the experts on your payroll, I do expect a man such as Zucker to be in touch with his own communications department, and anyone who has taken a Communications 101 class knows the value of admitting your mistakes (or at least the value of not adressing them in public discourse) and moving on.

It seems as if Zucker has let his ego get in the way of business, or perhaps it is just a common trait in the company's internal culture to wear blinkers. Either way, it is a really bad signal to send to the stakeholders of NBC Universal.

[Shawn]

Jeff Zucker is a tool. Heaven forbid that we expect CNBC's financial experts to be . . . experts, or that we hold them to task for failing to identify the single biggest financial crisis of our lifetime. That would be unfair.

Unfair? He sounds like a spoiled child who doesn't get his way. Unfair! Unfair! I can hear that little Zucker foot stomping down in the dust for emphasis. Unfair.

Yes Jeffrey, such is life. Grow up.

[Josey]

Maybe the SEC/FCC ought to investigate Zucker. Gotta wonder whether as a businessman with a business interest in the companies his quasi-news organization promotes, whether he has personally profited from market manipulation.

[boo bear]

Yea I liked the part that said the public was tired of hearing the media blamed for its coverage of financial news. "Frankly, I already think you're seeing a backlash," he said.

How out of touch can one person get? I go to Jon Stewart for fair and balanced news. And I am a registered republican!

[Karen Johnson]

CNBC is a joke. Which,from watching a few times in my doctors office, must bewhat they want. Perhaps if the network gets rid of Zucker and the 'air clowns' they could take themselves more seriously and in a year double their audience to a half million viewers. My cable service won't carry CNBC and I see why.

[Bush 2012]

Cramer is a liar and a wimp. Not man enough to make these comments calmly and politely to Stewarts face. Shame. Cramer and Santelli keep protecting the Wall Street fat cats to the tune of trillions of dollars, while complaining about losers who lost their jobs and can't pay their mortgage. Or yell and scream about lazy, overpaid American autoworkers. Yeah, like AIG exec's earned their bonuses. But Santelli won't complain a word about them.

[Cornyn Wilde]

Like we should listen to the guy who's intitutionalized NBC's fourth place rating status. Somebody should tell Zucker that you can't live of Today Show residuals forever.

[slappy magoo]

Probably a sloppy analogy, but Zucker's reminding me of a comic who suddenly insists on being taken seriously, but then, when caught telling a lie or acting unintentionally foolish, says "What do you want from me, I'm a comedian!"

Or way back when, during the press build-up for Paul Verhoeven's cult "classic" Showgirls. He & screenwriter Joe Ezsterhaus (sp?) kept talking about how important the movie was, how it was going to break new ground, how it was going to change the face of movies. Then when it was released and widely considered so-bad-it's-funny, their instant tactic was to say "Of course! We MEANT it to be funny! A satirical Russ Meyer homage! If you don't like it, you don't "get it!"

And so it goes with Zucker. CNBC is controlled more by the entertainment brain trust of NBC than the news. But they WANT to be taken seriously as a news outlet...until now, that they're caught not just dropping the ball, but dropping thousands of ginormous elephantine balls on the American public. "hey, it's not easy making business news entertaining!" So, apparently, you take the news aspect out of it, the reporting, the investigating, and keep the entertainment factor.

And we as a people move one step closer to Mike Judge's Idiocracy becoming a reality. Let's use sports drinks to irrigate our farmland! It's got electrolyes!

[TruthandConsequences]

This best job this guy has done has been in managing his career. Ever since he gained a "wunderkind" reputation as a "Today" show producer, he somehow has mesmerized NBC/GE. Ever since, from what I can tell by NBC's ratings it has been a case of failing upward.