CNN president Jeff Zucker rips Fox News, says he's interested in hiring Shepard Smit

The Daily Beast

“I think Shep’s a great journalist,” Zucker said during an on-stage interview with CNN's Brian Stelter at CNN’s Citizen Conference in New York. “I understand he’s not able to take any jobs for the foreseeable future. When he’s available, he is somebody who is very talented and I would be very open to talking to him.” Zucker also pushed back on Stelter saying that despite Fox News being driven by right-wing punditry, it does still employ serious journalists. “You repeat that line a lot and I think it’s one of the mistakes you make in your journalism,” Zucker told Stelter “Are there a handful of great journalists in that org? Sure. Are there are one or two really good anchors at that organization? Sure. But that doesn’t make it a news organization, that doesn’t make it a journalism endeavor...I think you often say there’s a difference between the news side and the opinion side. I think that I don’t see it that way, and I know that you report it that way a lot. I think you’re wrong.”