CNN CEO Jeff Zucker resigned on Wednesday, citing a “consensual relationship” with a co-worker. That co-worker was his Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Allison Gollust, who acknowledged the relationship, which she claimed started recently. Gollust had not only worked closely with Zucker for many years at NBC and CNN, but she was, in between, a communications director for former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Others connected with the network said it was an open secret for years, much longer than she acknowledged.

That might explain why the Cuomos were allowed to breach all ethics and CNN was essentially promoting Andrew Cuomo as a pandemic hero during interviews with his brother Chris. Indeed, then there was a report that the recently fired Chris Cuomo’s lawyers had sent a letter to CNN, demanding the preservation of all communications between Zucker, comms chief Allison Gollust, and Andrew Cuomo. Chris Cuomo is trying to get the rest of his more than 18 million dollar paycheck that CNN is refusing to cut. So it looked like he was pulling the chain on what he knew in what I called “Fredo’s Revenge.” That would also suggest that there may be more yet to come in those communications that isn’t going to be good for CNN.

CNN is taking another hit this morning from a CNN “insider,” who is now saying that someone else at the network should get the boot — that’s Brian Stelter — because he didn’t expose the relationship that was an open secret about Zucker and Gollust.

‘The network needs to step up and fire Brian Stelter,’ a CNN insider tells DailyMail.com. ‘He is allegedly our top media reporter – yet he failed to report on the scoop that everyone in the office knew. And if he wants to say he didn’t know, he is truly terrible at his job.’ [….]

A cable news veteran, who wishes not to be named, spoke of the close relationship between Stelter and Zucker.

‘Brian Stelter should be calling his agent to start looking for another job,’ they said. ‘He’s been Jeff Zucker’s water boy for years and no one believes he didn’t know about all of this.’

The source added that Stelter often criticizes competing networks, like Fox News.

‘He’s been sitting on his moral high horse doing Jeff’s bidding and ripping Fox and every other media outlet that Jeff tells him to while his ratings crash and burn. Where was he on the biggest story at his own network after chastising everyone else?’

Stelter should get canned because he’s never done his job correctly, much less in an even-handed manner. I could pick any number of things he deserves to get canned for in addition to this. He should get canned for translating his job into just a continuing attack on Fox. That’s basically all he does. That’s not being a “media reporter” and that’s one reason he’s hasn’t been honest about CNN or Zucker.

However, if they canned people for not doing their job, they should get rid of most of the hosts/anchors and the top brass at that network that moved it into this disastrous direction. Yes, Zucker is part of the reason this has gone so bad. But a lot of the problem is still there. It’s the reason that they’ve not only become scandal-plagued but why their ratings have crashed into the basement, dropping an astounding 90 percent in the first week of the new year. The only option they have to save themselves, if that’s even possible, is to go back to straight news. Zucker going is a step in the right direction but there’s a lot more swamp to clean out.