“During a CNN internal town hall Tuesday, network chief Jeff Zucker said it’s not a conflict of interest for an executive of the network to host the president and First Lady in their home,” an insider familiar with the event told TheWrap.com.
Responding to an anonymous email question from a CNN staffer regarding an unnamed D.C. executive who hosted the Obamas — along with other parents — in their home for dinner, Zucker said there’s no issue.
“Zucker said no [it’s not a conflict] because he goes to cocktail parties all the time with different parents of his children’s friends,” the insider told TheWrap. “The dinner was for parents and kids from Sidwell Friends School [in D.C.], where President Obama sends his kids to school,” adding that it wasn’t a private dinner for the Obamas.
This sounds like it matches a Weekly Standard report on a dinner earlier in the month at the home of Virginia Moseley, a vice president and deputy Washington bureau chief at CNN, which they explained was a gathering of Sidwell Friends parents and their kids:
President Obama, Michelle Obama, and Malia Obama are dining at the home of CNN executive Virginia Moseley tonight, according to the White House pool report. Moseley's husband is Thomas Nides, a former (and probably future) aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The pool report added “After 3.5 hours at the private dinner, motorcade is rolling at 10:33 pm. No word on what was on the dinner menu. I've since learned the affluent neighborhood where we had been holding is called Spring Valley. Across the street and a few houses down from where POTUS was dining was stunning mansion of the ambassador of South Africa.”
