Jonathan Klein

Who is Jonathan Klein?

Jonathan Klein is an American media executive. He is the former president of CNN/U.S., who was responsible for management oversight of all programming, editorial tone and strategic direction of the network. Klein led CNN during its coverage of the 2008 presidential election, which resulted in the highest ratings in the history of the network. During his six years at the network, CNN recorded six straight years of double-digit profit growth. Klein was fired from CNN on September 24, 2010.

Named to this position in November 2004, one of Klein's first acts was to deploy a large contingent of U.S.-based correspondents to cover the Asian tsunami, including Anderson Cooper, Sanjay Gupta, Aaron Brown, and Soledad O'Brien. Previously, CNN would usually send locally-based overseas correspondents to cover breaking international stories. This tactic of "flooding the zone," as Klein called it, became a hallmark of CNN's breaking news coverage during his tenure, on major stories such as Hurricane Katrina, the Israel-Lebanon war, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the BP oil spill.