HOLLYWOOD (CA)
Hollywood Reporter
June 12, 2019
By Marisa Guthrie
Following a year of scandal and upheaval, King takes the lead (and a new three-year deal) at ‘CBS This Morning’ as she opens up on Charlie Rose, that R. Kelly interview, advice from Oprah and becoming the face of the news division: “I am now a part of that history. Let’s see what we do.”
On March 5, Susan Zirinsky was in her “crummy little office” along a dark corridor in the labyrinth of CBS News headquarters on West 57th Street. It was just a temporary spot, since it was technically only her second day on the job as president of CBS News. In reality, she had been steering the 91-year-old division since early January, when acting CBS Corp. CEO Joe Ianniello announced that she would succeed David Rhodes.
Zirinsky was watching the live feed of Gayle King’s interview with R. Kelly, the R&B singer charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual abuse of young women. As the world now knows, an unhinged Kelly leaped from his seat in an explosion of tears, spittle and profanity. King remained almost motionless, offering a motherly entreaty: “Robert.”
“In this melee of histrionics, she did not lose the story — the accusations, the judicial ramifications, these kids, their parents,” says Zirinsky. “She was able to maintain editorial clarity in a situation that would have unnerved the best. And I just thought … Wow.”
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