CNN President Jeff Zucker resigned from his position Wednesday following his disclosure of a consensual relationship between him and another executive at the company, chief marketing officer Allison Gollust.
Following the announcement of Zucker’s departure, CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota expressed a sense of sadness and frustration at the network.
“I feel it deeply personally, but also I think I speak for a lot of us and our colleagues. This is an incredible loss,” Camerota said. “These are two consenting adults who are both executives. That they can’t have a private relationship feels wrong on some level.”
“Jeff is a remarkable person and an incredible leader. He has this uncanny ability to make every one of us feel special and valuable in our own way, even though he is managing an international news organization of thousands of people. I don’t think that comes around all the time. It’s an incredible loss. It’s so regrettable.”
However, WarnerMedia, which owns CNN, has a “personal relationships” policy for all employees, which means their relationship can’t stay private like Camerota would’ve wanted it to remain.
The policy specifies that if any staffer enters a “personal relationship” with any other staffer over whom they could “influence the employment, advancement or hiring,” the relationship must be disclosed to the company’s human resources department.
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
