CNN chief Jeff Zucker lambastes Fox News as 'state-run TV,' 'pure propaganda machine'
- CNN president Jeff Zucker laid into chief rival Fox News on Thursday, arguing it is producing "propaganda" rather than journalism.
- "It is really state-run TV, it is a pure propaganda machine, and does an incredible disservice to this country," Zucker said.
CNN president Jeff Zucker laid into Fox News on Thursday, arguing that the competitor network is doing "an incredible disservice to this country" by delivering "propaganda" beneficial to the president, rather than news.
"It is really state-run TV, it is a pure propaganda machine, and does an incredible disservice to this country," Zucker said at a media industry conference on Thursday. "The idea that it's a news channel, I think, is really not the case at all."
Zucker added that there are "a handful of good journalists there" but said those reporters "are lost in what is a complete propaganda machine."
Zucker said that he agreed with longtime Fox News analyst Ralph Peters, who delivered a searing critique of the network in an email announcing his resignation this week.
Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, wrote that the cable news network has been transformed from a "legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices" into a "propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration."
This isn't the first time Zucker has criticized Fox publicly, but they may be his most strongly worded public comments he's made about his company's chief rival.
He repeated his claim that President Donald Trump's criticisms of the media, many of which have been directed at CNN, are dangerous.
"He has created an atmosphere in this country that has resonated around the world in a very unhealthy way that has whipped up anti-media sentiment that is dangerous and frankly harmful and potentially incredibly dangerous," Zucker said of Trump. "He doesn't even understand the danger he's causing to journalists and the danger he's doing to media organizations."
Fox News did not immediately return a request for comment.