It is truly unbelievable how much influence the Me Too movement has on our society. Not only in America – from where of course it started – but also internationally. Who, for example, could have imagined a few years ago that the mighty president of CNN, Jeff Zucker, who has been running the liberal channel for ten years and is considered one of the top managers in television, was forced to resign from the station because he hid a romantic relationship he had with a colleague, also a high-ranking employee of CNN.
His resignation came at one of the worst moments for the well-known network. During the Trump era, its audience, thanks to CNN’s strong anti-Trump criticism, had increased significantly. However, since the election of Biden, it has dropped. The same happened to other channels – and newspapers – that followed a similar policy. On the other hand, the audience of the pro-Trump Fox News has reached record heights.
One might argue that Zucker’s decision to resign was an overreaction. In the final analysis, it was a consensual romantic relationship – between two divorced people, in fact.
So what?
The issue here is not just the relationship, but the fact that it was hidden from an investigation at CNN, which did investigate Chris Cuomo, one of the network’s star presenters. Cuomo was eventually fired for merely advising his brother, then governor of New York, regarding the latter’s sexual allegations.
Certainly this incident will be very difficult for those who work in the media outside of America to understand. Can you imagine, for example, something like this happening in Greece?
And yet, as with so many other things, the effects of Zucker’s resignation, and the reason why it happened, will have repercussions around the world.
The bottom line is that the time seems to have passed when leaders of all kinds were judged differently. And this is not just true of politics or the clergy, but also when applying to everyday life, even to owners and presidents of companies, large and small.
Indeed, the world has changed very much. At least from my point of view, it has changed for the better: there is less hypocrisy, greater equality, and greater security for women and men from sexual harassment and abuse.
$1.06 USD
