Ms. Zirinsky said new producers would be installed in “short order.”
Her ascension was widely celebrated throughout the network. She was greeted with a roaring ovation from the CBS News staff when she addressed them for the first time on Monday. Far from being isolated at “48 Hours,” Ms. Zirinsky has been a sounding board and a trusted counselor to employees across CBS News for years. There will be no listening tour required before she begins to make moves at the network.
“I don’t charge per hour,” she said of her frequent open-door sessions with employees.
Mr. Rhodes, 45, who joined the network as president eight years ago and took over the news division in 2015, will be free on March 1, though he said he would continue on as an adviser. During his tenure, he tried to modernize a news division long used to conducting business a certain way. He introduced a 24-hour digital news outlet, CBSN, and helped usher in several transitions, including the successful handoff of “CBS Sunday Morning” from Charles Osgood to Jane Pauley.
Two recent transitions — at the “CBS Evening News” and “Face the Nation” — have been rockier, with ratings declines at both shows.
Two law firms that were hired last summer to look into the news division’s culture were also critical of the treatment of women at “60 Minutes.” The lawyers wrote that there was a perception among some on the staff that Mr. Rhodes “failed to promote and retain certain qualified female employees,” according to a draft report of the investigation reviewed by The New York Times. But they also said there was not a toxic atmosphere for women within the wider news division and that they did not believe Mr. Rhodes favored men over women.
It will now be left to Ms. Zirinsky to deal with the repercussions.
“There was some tough stuff that happened,” she said. “The whole world is going through tough stuff. MeToo isn’t behind us. It’s part of us. We are now a different people because of it.”
Ms. Zirinsky is certainly in touch with what’s going on in the wider world. She is an avid Twitter user, regularly live-tweeting “48 Hours” broadcasts. On Saturday night, as one viewer said that the idea of an “all American” family was a fiction and that “we all have our secrets,” Ms. Zirinsky enthusiastically replied, “YOU ARE SO RIGHT.”
“I can’t let my social network skill set go awry,” she said, upon taking her new job.
Ms. Zirinsky said that “at her core” she was a producer, and that was why she wanted to retain the title “senior executive producer.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/business/media/cbs-news-susan-zirinsky.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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