Tuesday, June 08, 2021

8 June 2021: What Does CNN Gain from Continuing to Employ Chris Cuomo?

What Use Is Chris Cuomo to CNN?

It seems like just two-and-a-half weeks ago we asked an almost identical question! In this analysis piece, Charles C.W. Cooke takes a stab at answering it:

At this point in the proceedings, one is tempted to conclude that Chris Cuomo must have laced CNN’s corporate offices with dynamite and informed the powers that be that, if he goes, they go, too. What else could explain the network’s eternal tolerance for being embarrassed and degraded by the man? Here, at the tail end of his long experiment in deficiency, Cuomo resembles nothing more keenly than the inadequate tee-baller who gets to stay in past eight or nine strikes because his uncle coaches the team. His ratings are poor. His insights are vacuous. His conduct is a permanent source of ignominy. All the perfumes of Albany could not sweeten this little man. “What’s in a name?” inquired Shakespeare. Little did he know.

It is unclear why Cuomo was selected by CNN to begin with. He’s a lawyer who knows nothing of the law; a journalist who knows nothing of journalism; an American who knows nothing of America. His temper is third-rate, his interests are bewilderingly narrow, he possesses no discernible sense of shame or self-knowledge, and the opinions he proffers are so ruthlessly subordinated to expedience that hypocrisy is his default mode. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s maxim that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” was meant as an extolment of the virtues of personal growth. Cuomo seems to have taken it literally.

And that's just Cooke getting started. Here's his concluding paragraph (follow the link above for Cooke's presentation of examples of the questionable journalism and analysis Chris Cuomo has regularly produced while on CNN's payroll):

Alas, it is too late, for Cuomo and CNN have now dug themselves a hole from which they cannot escape. Their current position is that it was entirely acceptable for Chris Cuomo to cover his brother’s COVID response because that was a “human interest” story, but that it would be entirely unacceptable for Chris Cuomo to cover the sexual-harassment allegations against his brother because that would violate the longstanding rule against Chris Cuomo interviewing Andrew Cuomo, but that, despite this, Cuomo is still not allowed to help his brother in a private capacity, but that if he does do that it’s bad, but that it’s not bad enough to earn him a suspension, but that — oh good God, can’t they just find another anchor, already?

So what exactly do CNN's editors and managers gain by continuing to have its ethically-tainted, scandal-mired prime time show host represent the network? Because the longer this situation continues, the deeper and more thorough the house-cleaning will need to be to correct the network's deteriorating condition. Heads will need to roll at all levels of CNN's organization.

From the timeline:

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