Susan Zirinsky | |
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![]() Susan Zirinsky in 2021 | |
Born | New York City, U.S. | March 3, 1952
Alma mater | American University |
Occupation(s) | Journalist, producer, executive |
Employer | CBS |
Title | President See It Now Studios (2021–present) President and Senior Executive Producer of CBS News (2019–2021) Senior Executive Producer, 48 Hours (1996–2019) |
Spouse | |
Children | 1 |
Awards | Two Peabody Awards First Amendment Service News & Documentary Emmy Christopher Award Edward R. Murrow |
Susan Zirinsky (born March 3, 1952) is an American journalist and television news producer. She served as the President of CBS News from January 2019 until April 2021, when she was succeeded by Neeraj Khemlani and Wendy McMahon. [1] She previously served as executive producer of 48 Hours from 1996 to 2019. In 2003, she won a Primetime Emmy Award as producer of the documentary 9/11 , which aired on CBS in 2002. [2]
In 2013, Zirinsky was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Television & Film Awards. [3]
As CBS News President and Senior Executive Producer, Zirinsky was responsible for CBS News broadcasts and the division's newsgathering across all platforms including television, CBS News Radio, CBSNews.com and CBSN. [4] [5] Zirinsky is the first female President and Senior Executive Producer of CBS News. [6] [7]
Zirinsky was born in New York City and raised in Neponsit, Queens, the daughter of Cynthia (née Finkelstein) and Richard Zirinsky (1915–2002). Her sister, Barbara Zirinsky Faden, died in 1999 at age 50 of cancer. [8] Her mother founded Gracie Square Hospital in New York City and works as a mental health care professional. [9] Her father was a New York City real-estate developer. [10] [11] Named after her parents for their philanthropy, the Richard and Cynthia Zirinsky Center for Bipolar Disorder is located at Mount Sinai Beth Israel. [9] She married Joseph Peyronnin in 1984. Peyronnin is also a journalist and has won an Emmy Award. The couple covered the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In 1996 they adopted a baby girl from China, naming her Zoe. [12] [13]
Zirinsky graduated from the School of Communications at American University in Washington, D.C., and made a career in television journalism. [14] In 2009, she delivered the 123rd Commencement Address, School of Communication at American University. [15]
Zirinsky, then a 20-year-old sophomore at American University, joined the CBS News Washington Bureau in 1972. She worked as a weekend production clerk. In her senior year, she helped write stories about the Watergate Scandal. She continued working in various roles for CBS after graduation.
Zirinsky was assigned to cover the White House for CBS, which she did for over a decade. During this time she worked with Marcy McGinnis and Lesley Stahl, who became her mentor. She has also specialized in covering political campaigns and war assignments. She went with Dan Rather to Kuwait during the Gulf War, where she produced the news, and Rather reported live from Kuwait City.
Zirinsky was the senior executive producer of '48 Hours'. She also produces breaking news specials for CBS News. Her frequent collaborators include Bob Schieffer. [16] [17] [18] Her nickname in the newsroom is "Z". [19] [20] [21]
On March 1, 2019, Zirinsky became the first female President and Senior Executive Producer of CBS News, replacing David Rhodes. [22] [5] Rhodes will step down as president of CBS News amid falling ratings and the fallout from revelations from an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against CBS News figures, Rhodes and the CBS network said. [23] She was first offered the position in 2011, however she turned the job down because it would have taken her away from the work she loves, which is producing. [21]
Zirinsky is described as a media icon, [24] legendary, [25] and trail-blazing. [26] She is the second woman to be appointed head of a broadcast news network. [23] After Zirinsky was named president and senior executive producer of CBS News, employees said the mood was upbeat and hoped the appointment would boost morale after a scandal-plagued year. [27] Zirinsky takes her assignment when CBS' longtime chief Les Moonves was forced out following a series of reports accusing him of sexual harassment. [28] [29] [30] Charlie Rose was fired because of the same revelations [31] [32] and Jeff Fager, chief of 60 Minutes , was also forced out during Rose's departure. [33] [34]
The New York Times reported the employees at CBS greeted Zirinsky with a "roaring ovation." [35] Gayle King, co-anchor, CBS This Morning , was quoted as saying, "I was doing the happy dance. ... She is a badass in every sense of the word." [26]
The profession lacks female executives. In 167 years, The New York Times has had one female, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are at zero. NBC News and Fox News have each had one female news executive and USA Today has had three female top editors, including the current Editor in Chief Nicole Carroll. [26] On January 10, 2019, Showtime announced changes in the wake of Moonves being ousted at CBS. Jana Winograde became one of the new presidents of entertainment at the cable network. [36]
Over the years, Zirinsky has worked with Dan Rather, Lesley Stahl and Ed Bradley. Zirinsky said she has never forgotten them and in her office there are photos of all three newscasters. [16] In her role as president and Senior Executive Producer of CBS News, she is described as having to clean up after the bad boys, [21] [37] restore credibility at CBS, improve the ratings for the news programs that have seen their ratings slump, and chart the future for CBS News. With the announcement of Ryan Kadro, executive producer of CBS This Morning stepping down, high on her to-do list is finding a new executive producer for CBS This Morning. She was also charged with naming a full time permanent executive producer for 60 Minutes. [38]
Susan Zirinsky is president of See It Now Studios, which she founded in 2021 after leaving the CBS News presidency. [39] See It Now Studios is part of Paramount Global, which also owns CBS. The studio produced 51 hours of original nonfiction content in its first year primarily for the streaming service Paramount+." [40]
The 1987 film Broadcast News was based on Zirinsky's experience at the CBS News Washington Bureau in the early 1980s. She worked with director and screenwriter James L. Brooks and served as associate producer and technical advisor for the film. She also helped prepare actress Holly Hunter to portray her. Hunter job-shadowed Zirinsky and cut her hair into a bob cut to look similar to the producer. Zirinsky gave Hunter some of her clothes to wear in the film. Hunter was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. [41] [42]
Zirinsky has attended screenings of the film for young journalists and lectured about her career and the making of the film. [41] [43]
9/11 is a 2002 documentary film about the September 11 attacks in New York City, in which two planes were flown into the buildings of the World Trade Center, resulting in their destruction and the deaths of nearly 3,000 people. The film is from the point of view of the New York City Fire Department. The film was directed by brothers Jules and Gédéon Naudet and FDNY firefighter James Hanlon and produced by Susan Zirinsky of CBS News.
CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. CBS News television programs include the CBS Evening News, CBS Mornings, news magazine programs CBS News Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, and 48 Hours, and Sunday morning political affairs program Face the Nation. CBS News Radio produces hourly newscasts for hundreds of radio stations, and also oversees CBS News podcasts like The Takeout Podcast. CBS News also operates CBS News 24/7, a 24-hour digital news network.
Leslie Roy Moonves is an American media executive who was the chairman and CEO of CBS Corporation from 2003 until his resignation in September 2018 following numerous allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault and abuse. He has been married to TV personality Julie Chen since 2004.
Julie Suzanne Chen Moonves is an American television personality, news anchor, and producer for CBS. She has been the host of the American version of the CBS reality-television program Big Brother since its debut in July 2000.
Jeffrey B. Fager is an American television producer who is the former chairman of CBS News and former executive producer of 60 Minutes.
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Lesley Rene Stahl is an American television journalist. She has spent most of her career with CBS News, where she began as a producer in 1971. Since 1991, she has reported for CBS's 60 Minutes. She is known for her news and television investigations and award-winning foreign reporting. For her body of work she has earned various journalism awards including a Lifetime Achievement News and Documentary Emmy Award in 2003 for overall excellence in reporting.
48 Hours, known for a period of time as 48 Hours Mystery, is an American documentary news magazine television show broadcast on CBS. The show has been broadcast on the network since January 19, 1988 in the United States. The show airs Saturdays at 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time, as part of the network's placeholder Crimetime Saturday block; as such, it is currently one of only two remaining first-run prime time shows airing Saturday nights on the major U.S. broadcast television networks. The show sometimes airs two-hour editions or two consecutive one-hour editions, depending on the subject involved or to serve as counterprogramming against other networks. Judy Tygard was named senior executive producer in January 2019, replacing Susan Zirinsky, who served as executive producer since 1996 until her early 2019 appointment as president of CBS News.
John Frederick Dickerson is an American journalist and a reporter for CBS News. His future assignment will be co-anchoring CBS Evening News alongside Maurice DuBois beginning on January 27, 2025. His previous roles include 60 Minutes and CBS News' Election specials. Most recently, he was co-host of CBS This Morning along with Norah O'Donnell and Gayle King. and anchored “The Daily Report with John Dickerson” on CBS News 24/7. He served as an interim anchor of the CBS Evening News until Norah O'Donnell took over in the summer of 2019. Previously he was the host of Face the Nation on CBS News, the political director of CBS News, chief Washington correspondent for CBS News, and a political columnist for Slate magazine. Before joining Slate, Dickerson covered politics at Time magazine for 12 years, serving the last four years as its White House correspondent, and he is also a fill-in and substitute anchor for CBS Mornings, CBS Evening News, and Face The Nation.
Jonathan Klein is an American media and technology executive and entrepreneur. He is the former president of CNN/US and the co-founder and co-chairman of Tapp Media. He is a media analyst and thought leader with frequent appearances in the op-ed pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as network appearances on Bloomberg, CNN, CNBS, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR.
Nancy Tellem is the chief media officer and executive chairwoman of Eko, a start-up which has created an online platform. She is the onetime entertainment and digital media president of Microsoft Xbox Entertainment Studios, and a former president of CBS Network Television Entertainment Group, formerly CBS Entertainment Network and CBS Studios. She is co-founder and CEO of BasBlue, Inc, a nonprofit organization.
Albie Hecht is an American film and television producer and media executive. In 1997, Hecht was the president of film and TV entertainment for Nickelodeon before becoming president of the television channel Spike TV in 2003. In 2005, he founded and was CEO of the digital studio Worldwide Biggies. From 2013 to 2015, he also served as general manager of the TV channel, HLN, and is chief content officer of PocketWatch.
Marlene Sanders was an American television news correspondent, anchor, producer and executive who worked for ABC News in the 1960s and 1970s and moved to CBS News in 1978. She was the first woman to achieve several milestones in the then male-dominated field of television news.
Susan Spencer is an American television news reporter and correspondent for 48 Hours Mystery and CBS Sunday Morning.
Jeffrey Todd Glor is an American journalist who most recently was a co-host of CBS Saturday Morning from 2019 to 2024 and a CBS News special correspondent. He had also anchored the CBS Evening News from 2017 to 2019.
David Rhodes is an American media executive. He was named Executive Chairman of the Sky News Group in February 2023. In July 2021, he was hired to lead international business development at Sky, a subsidiary of US cable company Comcast Corp. He served as the president of CBS News from 2011 until 2019. He was the youngest network news president in the history of American television.
William Jack Small was an American broadcast journalist, executive, author, and educator.
Celebrity Big Brother, also known as Big Brother: Celebrity Edition, is a reality television spin-off series of the American adaptation of Big Brother created by John de Mol Jr.. The series began on February 7, 2018 on CBS in the United States and is simulcast in Canada on Global. The series is filmed at CBS Studio Center in sound stage eighteen located in Studio City, Los Angeles. Julie Chen Moonves reprises her role as host from Big Brother with Allison Grodner and Rich Meehan also returning as executive producers. The series is produced by Fly on the Wall Entertainment in association with Endemol Shine North America.
Joseph Felix Peyronnin III was the executive vice president and founder of Telemundo News (1998–2006), the former President of Fox News, and a former senior executive and producer at CBS News (1970–1995). He is currently an adjunct journalism professor at New York University, and has served as an associate professor of journalism at Hofstra University (2011–2019). Peyronnin is a long time Trustee of Vibrant Emotional Health, overseers of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, and a Trustee of Gracie Square Hospital in New York City. He has also been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 1994.
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The event will also pay tribute to the Zirinsky family, whose commitment to improving mental health services has spanned 50 years and 3 generations. Cynthia Zirinsky -- founder of Gracie Square Hospital and the Richard and Cynthia Zirinsky Center for Bipolar Disorder at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital -- will be honored along with her daughter, legendary CBS News producer Susan Zirinsky; her son-in-law, TV news innovator, Joe Peyronnin; and her granddaughter, Morgan Stanley executive Cynthia Eckes. For 5 decades of leadership and generous philanthropy, a member of the Zirinsky family has served continually on the MHA-NYC Board, changing the face of mental health care.
SOC honored alumna Susan Zirinsky as it celebrated 25 years as an independent school and generations of making media that matter. Susan Zirinsky, senior executive producer of the award-winning crime and justice series 48 Hours and senior executive producer of the primetime series 48 Hours: NCIS, Whistleblower, and of the 2013 documentary series Brooklyn D.A., was honored at the event with the SOC Dean's Award. It was presented 'in recognition of her role as a trailblazer, a mentor, and a transformational leader,' said SOC Dean Jeff Rutenbeck.
Susan Zirinsky, the CBS News executive known to her colleagues as 'Z,' is getting ready for a heady tenure as the new president of CBS News. Gayle King, one of her top anchors, on live TV on Monday morning described her as a 'badass.'
On Monday morning, incoming CBS News President Susan Zirinsky made an entrance worthy of a rock star. Loud cheers and applause arose from elated staff members as she stepped into the newsroom at the network's studios on Manhattan's West Side for the first time since her appointment was announced Sunday. Some of the people in the 'news hub' have worked with the producer, who is known as 'Z,' for many of her 46 years at CBS. Some were young women, who after seeing their company roiled by #MeToo scandals, were thrilled to watch the first female chief of the division take the reins.
'This action today is not directly related to the allegations surfaced in press reports, which continue to be investigated independently,' CBS News President David Rhodes said in a memo. 'However, he violated company policy and it is our commitment to uphold those policies at every level.'