Date: 17th January 2001

CNN Not Coffey's Cup Of Tea


The upheaval in CNN's executive ranks continued Tuesday as Shelby Coffey III, the news network's top business exec, announced his resignation. Coffey, along with overseeing all of CNN's business programs, had headed CNNfn, the company's financial-news unit, since Nov. 1999, succeeding Lou Dobbs, the onetime Moneyline anchor who walked out of the news organization following a bitter dispute with CNN Rick Kaplan (who was himself ousted last August).

Coffey had been actively pursued by CNN Chairman Tom Johnson, who had hired Coffee as editor of the Los Angeles Times when Johnson was an executive with the Times Mirror company. However, since Coffey came on board, CNNfn has been unable to make significant headway against its primary rival, CNBC. In an interview with today's (Wednesday) Washington Post, Coffey said that the parting was amicable, but recalled commentator Bill Moyers once asking him, "Why are you always pitching your tent on a volcano?" Coffey said that he had replied: "I think it's because I enjoy the challenge of it." Today's New York Daily News reported that Coffey is likely to be succeeded by Ken Jautz, currently an executive with the German TV network NTV.

Source: Studio Briefing