CNN head Jeff Zucker: Fox News is Republican Party 'masquerading as a news channel'

Jeff Zucker, CNN's current president, said on Friday that the Republican Party is being run by Fox News and that networks like Fox are just telling people what they want to hear "and missing the story." According to Mediaite, Zucker was speaking to the annual meeting of the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, California.

“We happen to be in the news business as opposed to some other ‘fair and balanced’ news networks," Zucker said, referring to Fox. "The Republican Party is being run out of News Corp. headquarters masquerading as a cable news channel.”

He was quoted as saying that with Fox and MSNBC, "When you watch those channels you only hear what you want to hear -- and you miss the story."

Roger Ailes struck out at CNN and Zucker in December, claiming that CNN's sub-basement ratings in viewership mean that the network is "out of the news business."

“CNN is not and never will abandon our first and fundamental brand equity which is news and breaking news," Zucker responded, then launched a barb of his own, saying that Ailes' bellicose words are "silly criticism that’s meant to deflect [attention] from the book.”

Journalist Gabriel Sherman's book about Ailes and the empire he runs at Fox -- The Loudest Voice in the Room -- comes out January 21 and is rumored to be a blistering look at the former Nixon aide and the way he has enriched himself by dividing the nation.

[image of Jeff Zucker via Shutterstock.com]