Jeff “Mother” Zucker, the CNN president and noted ventriloquist, has once again made his dummies so lifelike that viewers actually think they have minds of their own.
Just last month, Mother Zucker used the IFB (interrupt for broadcast) earphone technique to control Jake Tapper’s lips in his live interview with Kellyanne Conway. What showmanship!
Is it really that much of a stretch to think that Zucker would try his brand of ventriloquism once again? On his own network? While being interviewed (live!) by his own employee?
Well, last week, in an amazing display of his unique ventriloquism skills, Zucker seemed to control Brian Stelter from all the way across the couch. Not once could the audience see Zucker’s arm shoved up Stelter’s ventral regions, making his lips move obediently. How on earth did he do it?
Dressed in studied I-can’t-be-bothered-to-wear-a-tie casual, like the “Today Show” entertainment producer he really is, Zucker wore his collar open to the second button as if to defy viewers to see his Adam’s apple move while he makes his puppet talk. Augmented by the glare of both the top light and a key light off his polished pate, likely perpetrated by a dedicated CNN gaffer who hates him, Mother Zucker was in his full glory.
The ovoid, barracuda-toothed, and unapologetic Zucker sycophant Brian Stelter “interviewed” his boss. It was a stellar display of obsequiousness on par with the badinage of Carmen Ghia and Roger Debris in “The Producers.”
The “interview” was an unvarnished, but carefully crafted hit piece on Fox News, obviously designed to give Zucker a platform to propagandize his own legitimacy as a CNN president who was never a newsman.
Stelter the dummy started by mentioning the much unloved Shepard Smith’s departure from Fox News. Stelter’s lips moved as he pitched the sentence to his boss like a slow ball over home plate: “They [Fox] say they have dozens of great journalists.”
Zucker disagreed. “Yeah, well, you repeat that line a lot, and I think it’s one of the mistakes you make in your journalism, and I’m serious about this . . . ”
With that whack at dummy Brian, Zucker made Stelter’s eyes bulge and his barracuda smile tighten.
Zucker then threw both voices simultaneously, interrupting as Stelter opined there is a difference between the news side and the opinion side at Fox.
Zucker replied: “You often say that there’s this difference between their prime-time shows and the news side. There is no difference and I think that I don’t see it that way. I know that you report it that way a lot, I think you’re wrong.”
More eye-bulging and smile tightening in the dummy, who then asked: “So give me some evidence.”
And the puppet master shut him down with: “Watch it!”
And the crowd laughed.
Sigh.
It makes one wonder if ventriloquist and dummy were succinctly telling the real story of CNN’s decline: “Give me some evidence!” “Watch it!”