Jeff Zucker Speaks Again…Even Though He Said He’s Not Doing Interviews This Year…

Deadline’s Dominic Patten writes about Jeff Zucker giving an interview to Walt Mossberg at the D11 Conference even though he said he wasn’t going to do that this first year.

Ok, technically a panel discussion is not an interview…

Still, speaking in public knowing full well it’ll get into the papers/trades/internet might as well be the same thing as giving an interview…

Anyway, Zucker threw a few grenades out…

“Those two channels are covering political news. We’re covering politics and much more,” Jeff Zucker said today of Fox News and MSNBC. “Our competition now is two political channels that have actually left most of the the actual news coverage to the side,” he also said. The CNN chief was appearing Wednesday with IAC chair Barry Diller at this year’s D11 conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes. “News is how you define it, we define it broadly as news and information. We’re expanding the audience that is watching CNN. In order to be successful, we need to bring new viewers,” he added stressing that elements of CNN programming have more in common with Discovery and Nat Geo than FNC and MSNBC. “The key to us is to make CNN essential on whatever platform it is on,” Zucker noted. He added that his cable news rivals “do a good job” at what they cover.

Also: All Things D’s Jason Del Rey writes about Zucker’s appearance…

Zucker became defensive when Mossberg brought up reporting inaccuracies that CNN has dealt with as it battles and pushes the 24-hour news cycle — namely that a suspect had been arrested shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings. Zucker pointed to the fact that CNN corrected its error within 45 minutes when others took hours to do the same.

“We made a mistake, we acknowledged it, we moved on,” he said.

Zucker also turned testy when asked by an audience member how the network balances the need to cover serious news with the lure of covering events such as the “poo-poo cruise,” which can lead to high ratings.

“Just because we were prescient enough to get to … that ship before anybody else,” doesn’t mean it’s not news worth covering, Zucker responded.

Update: The Hollywood Reporter’s Paul Bond has even more color…

When Wall Street Journal technology writer Walt Mossberg criticized CNN for taking too long to correct a mistaken report that an arrest had been made in the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing, Zucker struck back.

“That’s completely unfair. We made a mistake in Boston where we reported there had been an arrest. In fact, we corrected that mistake with 45 minutes,” he said, noting that other outlets made the same error but took longer to own up to it.

“The Boston Globe, who I think will probably win the Pulitzer Prize for its Boston coverage, actually didn’t correct it for hours,” Zucker said, also throwing Fox News into the mix.

“CNN gets held to a higher standard,” he said.

“We didn’t slander anybody; we didn’t cause any public harm in doing so. We didn’t, you know, lead a country into war with this mistake,” he said about the faulty arrest report. “You know who got it? You know who understood that we made a mistake and we acknowledged it? The audience.”