CNN has fired anchor Chris Cuomo for helping his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, with his sexual harassment scandal. USA Today. Chris Cuomo was suspended from the network earlier this week, but today CNN fired him citing additional information discovered during the investigation. Cuomo used his journalism sources to look into the women that had accused his brother of sexual harassment. Cuomo had admitted that he had helped his brother but initially downplayed how much he did so. But the new evidence showed he was deeply involved in Andrew Cuomo's defense strategy and that his connections were abused.
My Comment:
This is a minor story about a third rate journalist at a joke of a news outlet. Normally I wouldn't cover it but I will in this case for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, I have absolutely nothing else to write about tonight, it's a very slow news day. But I do think that the scandal is real and Cuomo should be fired.
What the Cuomo brothers did is, of course, a violation of journalistic ethics. Chris used his contacts to dig up dirt about the women who accused his brother of sexual harassment. That's not the role journalists are supposed to play. They should not be the Governor of New York's hit squad. Indeed, Chris Cuomo's job should have been to help publicize those accounts and fairly cover the scandal.
Of course Chris Cuomo also should have recused himself from covering his brother. And not just during this scandal. There is no way that he wouldn't have been biased in his favor and thus should not have covered him at all. There are plenty of other people on CNN that could have covered Andrew Cuomo, why Chris was even allowed to have any professional interaction with him at all is beyond me.
Chris Cuomo's actions are fairly hypocritical as well. Though I am not a viewer of his, he is on a network that supported #MeToo. If this had been a Republican governor with a brother at Fox News, Chris Cuomo would have been all over this story and would rightly say that it was a journalistic mess. But when it's his own side, sexual harassment stories are something that should be put down by him.
Honestly though, this whole story is pretty hilarious as it assumes that there is anything resembling journalistic ethics left at CNN. Honestly they could have left Cuomo in his position at it wouldn't even have lowered my opinion of them any lower. Hell, even though firing Cuomo was the right thing to do and I can give them credit for that, I still think they are a totally unethical news outlet that isn't fit to be watched by anyone.
Finally, I do have to say that this is a pretty interesting footnote for Andrew Cuomo. Remember just a year ago when Andrew Cuomo was the media's darling and was widely considered a front runner for the Democrats in 2024? Now he is so toxic that he brought down one of the media with him. That's a long way to fall and he did it awfully quickly.
I also want to say that to this day I don't think it was actually the sex scandal that brought down Andrew Cuomo. Democrats (and Republicans for that matter) have survived more serious scandals than the one he faced. But I think he pissed off the wrong people with his nursing home scandal and how he hid stuff about that from his own party, so they went with #MeToo'ing him to save face. They probably didn't count on taking his journalist brother down with him, but sometimes collateral damage happens...
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