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CNN president Jeff Zucker joins board of Group Nine SPAC

09 March 2021
 Dan Ackermann

Group Nine Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) sponsored by media company Group Nine, is adding CNN president Jeff Zucker and Technicolor SA Vice Chair Melinda (Mindy) Mount to its board of directors, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Media watchers are obsessed with Zucker’s moves as he considers his next chapter after CNN. Zucker runs one of the world’s largest news organizations, and is credited with leading CNN’s digital transformation.

  • The idea behind the Group Nine SPAC is to consolidate digital properties to create scale.

Be smart: Group Nine's SPAC is uniquely structured to allow it raise money to acquire another company while potentially taking itself public in the process, all while facing much less financial scrutiny as it would with an IPO.

  • It's also unusual in having a company as a sponsor instead of an investment firm or group of individuals.
  • This positions Group Nine as a buyer of other media companies. The company could eventually combine with a company it buys and go public.
  • Few other SPACS have similarly complex tie-ups amid parties.

Details: Zucker and Mount join the two other independent members of GNAC’s board of directors, including co-founder and partner of Imagination Capital and a director of Lazard Ltd and Lazard Group Richard (Dick) Parsons, who is also the former Citigroup and Time Warner Chairman, and Reddit COO Jen Wong.

  • Group Nine Media CEO Ben Lerer leads GNAC as CEO and chairman. Group Nine Media president Brian Sugar is president and director.

Go deeper:

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.