S
usan Zirinsky, 67, the new
president of CBS News, was in
her office at the CBS Broadcast
Center recently rummaging through
her illustrious past, which happens to
constitute a rich history of broadcast
journalism, and the world itself. There’s
a poster-size photo of Tank Man in
Tiananmen Square, where Zirinsky
oversaw the coverage when CBS had
the only live broadcast of the protests
by a major network. On a console,
there was Dan Rather’s typewriter from
the White House. Framed on the
wall, Edward R. Murrow’s coat hanger.
Zirinsky crouched down and pulled
out an ancient manila folder from a
filing drawer. Inside was Walter
Cronkite’s original Evening News script
from the night of Richard Nixon’s
resignation. “He tossed it in the trash,”
she said, “so I just took it out.”
The News Business
By Joe Pompeo
others, Zirinsky’s appointment
can seem like ancestor worship. “One
might argue,” said a veteran of
the network, “that what CBS needs
right now is somebody who really
understands the future, as opposed to
someone who’s a throwback to the
past. For a network in third place for
30 years in the evening, and for as
long as the morning show has existed,
is she the best person to take a hard
look and change what is necessary?”
One question is whether there’s
something fundamental about CBS
News that means it’s destined to
remain a third-place proposition, or
whether Zirinsky can move the needle
with her recent talent shake-ups at
CBS This Morning, where Gayle King
is now even more of a centerpiece,
and the CBS Evening News, which moves
to Washington, D.C., this fall with
Norah O’Donnell, following her July 15
debut as anchor. “I wouldn’t put
something on the air that I didn’t think
was going to work,” said Zirinsky.
“As a journalist and a producer, you
don’t put a show on that you don’t
think will work. What’s the measure
of success? To me, it’s producing a
solid program in the tradition of CBS’s
golden legacy. Even though I want
the numbers to increase, as we move
forward, numbers”—meaning
traditional television ratings—“will be
increasingly less important than the
core value of what we are providing the
viewer, or the mobile listener, or
whatever the device. The measure of
success will change along with the
platforms we appear on.” Take King’s
blockbuster R. Kelly interview from
March. “When there’s an R. Kelly, and
we start putting bits out online,” said
Zirinsky, “at the end of the day, there
were 40 million people who saw that.
So do I want the numbers to grow?
You’re damn straight I do, but that’s notZirinsky, aka “Z,” who’s been at CBS
since Watergate, ascended to her job
after a period of radical discontinuity.
In less than 12 months, a cascade of
#MeToo scandals brought down
CBS titans Les Moonves, Jeff Fager, and
Charlie Rose. Zirinsky had worked
alongside Moonves and Fager for years.
She considered them friends. “I felt
sad. Those weren’t the people I knew,”
she said, adding that she hasn’t talked
to them since. Can those relationships
be repaired? Zirinsky paused,
carefully considering her response.
“I think it’s difficult.”
Zirinsky’s appointment is, undeniably,
a restoration. And for many of her
charges, that is exactly what was
required. “Z running the news division
is the best thing that’s happened to
that group of people in a very long time,”
one of my CBS sources said. But toThe Legend of CBS NewsSusan Zirinsky lived past glories—but can she restore them?Gayle King, Susan Zirinsky, and
Norah O’Donnell.