Jeff Zucker Defends CNN’s Zimmerman Trial Coverage

CNN boss calls charges that the network ignored Egypt coup "a bunch of bunk"

Tired of the seemingly incessant coverage of the George Zimmerman trial on CNN? Jeff Zucker doesn't feel your pain.

Zucker, who stepped in as the boss of CNN earlier this year, said Friday that criticism over his network's coverage of the trial — which stems from the 2012 shooting of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin — is "a bunch of bunk," the Associated Press reports.

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Zucker went on to say that the network got the trial coverage "in the right balance," despite the fact that some have wondered if the coverage came at the expense of the covering the Egyptian coup, which saw the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi.

"I feel increasingly comfortable and confident that we got it in the right balance," Zucker said during an appearance at the IESE Business School in New York.

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Not everyone is in agreement with Zucker — including former CNN executive Sid Bedingfield, who wrote in an article for Gawker that "CNN's coverage of the George Zimmerman trial has shouldered aside the more important Egypt story on the network's U.S. channel."

Bedingfield went on to suggest that CNN ran the risk of sensationalizing a story that picks at America's racial scabs.

"Can we all agree that responsible news organizations should tread carefully when covering a story that evokes such strong emotions of our nation's racial history?" Bedingfield pondered.

"[A]nyone with a passing knowledge of [African American] history understands how this cast could tap into a very deep vein of suspicion and anger … Given that fact, is this the sort of trial that should receive the full-on Reality-TV show treatment? Probably not."

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