Jeff Zucker, former head of CNN and now head of media investment fund RedBird IMI, believes the media is exaggerating polls showing former President Donald Trump leading Joe Biden.
Zucker told the Yahoo Finance Invest conference in New York that it was a “real possibility” that Trump could return to the White House. In preparing for this scenario and describing years of preparation for the 2024 election, Zucker said the “key” for the news media is to “not get caught up in early polls.” A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found Biden trailing Trump in five of the six states Biden helped win in 2020.
“This remains a huge mistake by the media,” he said. “If you looked at the polls in 1983, you would have thought that Ronald Reagan could not be re-elected. Or the 2011 poll: There was no way Barack Obama could have won re-election.”
While Zucker acknowledged that “the world has changed a lot since those earlier examples,” making sense of the survey results should remain a priority.
“I made that mistake during his tenure at CNN,” Zucker admitted. “I always try to be aware of these things. We often pay too much attention to surveys. … I think this is a time where a lot more reporting is needed” rather than dealing with the “horse race” reflected in the polls a year before Election Day.
Some print and digital media have painted a picture of what a second Trump administration might look like in terms of cabinet makeup and goals, Zucker said, and cable news should follow suit.
“We’re at a critical time in America and I think American democracy is very much at stake,” he said. As an example of the direction television networks should go, Zucker cited an interview ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos conducted with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) last weekend, in which Scalise was asked five times whether he believes that the 2020 election was stolen. Each time he refused to answer.
Asked about the coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas, Zucker said it was necessary to highlight Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians on October 7. “Overall, media coverage has been very strong,” he said, despite some inevitable errors due to the “fog of war.” Looking to the future, he said: “There are no two sides to terror, and I don’t think it can ever be forgotten.”
The situation in the Middle East has led to new research on the role that Twitter, now X, plays in the information equation. Although he did not mention Elon Musk by name, Zucker said the social media platform has declined over the year since Musk acquired the company for $44 billion.
“Twitter needs to look at what happened last year,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s the reliable news and information source it can and should be.”
Source: Deadline
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
