the only judgment anymore. It is critical
that the future becomes, where are
we streaming?” (In the first month and a
half of its new lineup, CBS This Morning’s
total audience was down 6 percent
year over year to 2.84 million viewers;
Good Morning America was down
5 percent to 3.79 million, and To d a y was
down 2 percent to 3.69 million.)
Zirinsky, who famously inspired
Holly Hunter’s character in Broadcast
Ne ws, was named president of the
news division in early January,
succeeding David Rhodes. But she’d
been a major influence behind the
scenes for years. Since 1996, Zirinsky
ran 48 Hours, and she was the brains
behind CBS’s breaking news prime-
time specials and documentaries,
as well as a beloved mentor and spirit
animal for CBS journalists. Right
before Christmas, when it looked like
Rhodes was not going to renew his
contract, she got a call from acting CEO
Joe Ianniello. “When I talked to
people—executives, folks behind the
camera, in front of the camera—to a
person, it was: Z, Z, Z. You’ve gotta get
Susan,” said Ianniello. “This was a
moment for her to step up.”
Zirinsky has denied reports that
she regrets taking the job, but she
conceded, “It’s the toughest job I’ve
ever had. It’s not that I worried about
people not liking me. It was more,
would I make the right decisions? It’s
a big job in a changing environment.
It’s daunting, and I’m not gonna tell
you it’s not still daunting. I use fear as
a motivator. It’s my drug.”
Most daunting, perhaps, was the
need to turn around the fortunes of
CBS Evening News and CBS This
Morning, whose ratings troubles stood
in contrast to the perennial powerhouse
that is 60 Minutes. The morning show,
which accounts for more than $200
million in advertising revenue, was in a
particularly difficult position. After
debuting in 2012 to contend with To d a y
and Good Morning America, it enjoyed
a steady rise through 2016, with its star
lineup of Gayle King, Charlie Rose,
and Norah O’Donnell. At one point, it
came within a couple hundred thousand
viewers of second place. In 2017,
however, it started to plateau, and
gossip and tabloid leaks, Zirinsky got
the deals done in early May. King
stayed put (reportedly for $11 million
a year), Anthony Mason and Tony
Dokoupil joined her on the morning
show, Dickerson moved to 60 Minutes
(Golodryga had already left the
network), and O’Donnell got the Evening
Ne ws out of Washington, replacing
Jeff Glor, who was named cohost of
CBS This Morning: Saturday.
Zirinsky dismissed speculation
that the move to Washington
was engineered to please O’Donnell,
whose husband, chef Geoff Tracy,
operates several restaurants there.
Putting Evening News in the capital “gives
us an advantage that we are wired
into the most important story of the
next two years,” she said. “It’s the
center of gravity, where so much is
decided.” As for the role of broadcast
news in the age of Trump, “We have
to really be mindful of not taking a
point of view, because that’s what so
much of cable is,” she said. “I really
think people want a straight newscast
that gives all sides.”
Zirinsky was tasked with bringing
stability to CBS News during a
moment of instability at the corporate
level. The long-simmering murmurs
of a CBS-Viacom reunion blossomed
into active merger talks by mid-July,
when this article went to press. What
would a deal mean for CBS News?
How much longer will Ianniello be
Zirinsky’s boss? (Viacom CEO Bob
Bakish is the anticipated ringleader of
a combined organization.) How
much runway does she have before
she’s working within an entirely
different company altogether? Sources
close to the boardroom told me
that if CBS merged with Viacom, which
doesn’t have a news division, they
couldn’t envision any negative impact
on Zirinsky’s operation. Zirinsky
agrees. “Whatever happens, we’re
gonna be a really strong news division
that will be an asset,” she said.
“People do not walk around here
worried about, whither the company.
People here are excited that there
are investments being made, that
changes are happening, that we are
expanding, that we’re building a
company of the future. It’s life.”management was actively discussing
who could succeed septuagenarian
Rose. He’d undergone heart surgery
that winter, and there was a growing
sense that the sunset of his career was
fast approaching. The idea was to bring
another A-list personality into the mix,
someone who could seamlessly step
into Rose’s shoes. Two candidates that
CBS executives had focused on were
Willie Geist and Andrew Ross Sorkin,
and the network made passes at both
of them in 2017, months before Rose’s
downfall. By the time Rose was fired
that November, following a Washington
Post exposé that blew the lid off
more than a decade’s worth of sexualmisconduct allegations, no obvious
successor had been hired. Rhodes
ended up filling out the anchor chairs
in-house, adding John Dickerson and
Bianna Golodryga, but the chemistry
just wasn’t the same, and the ratings
took a turn for the worse.
Before Rhodes left, he put out
feelers to George Stephanopoulos and
Chris Wallace. Zirinsky ended
up focusing on internal candidates.
“I think there are some amazing
journalists in the field, but in my own
house, we had remarkable talent,
and so I felt very comfortable staying
inside,” she said. “Nothing was
broken. People may have been in the
wrong places, but everyone was
working hard. In spite of management
issues, in spite of what I’d call a series
of unfortunate events, everybody
was working hard.” The main priority
was locking down King. She was on fire
thanks to a string of major bookings,
most notably that viral R. Kelly
interview. After months of feverish“It’s daunting....I use fear as mymotivator.It’s my drug.”