Chris Cuomo burns down the house. Maybe we should just hold back to admire the flames.
On Wednesday, Cuomo asked an arbitrator to award him $ 125 million because CNN fired him for what even a first-year journalism student would have understood as cruel ethical violations.
Cuomo’s Trumpian-style lack of ethics is old news. But his rationale for demanding enough money to make a tech exec jealous is really new: I was not the only dishonest journalist on CNN Payroll.
Cuomo pulls lemon into the mud
Exhibition no. (What’s rich is how quickly Cuomo went to nude journalistic ethics to save his brother Andrew, the former New York governor.)
In November, actor Jussie Smollett said under oath that Lemon tipped him off that Chicago police did not buy his claim that a pair of evil-wearing MAGA hats came out of a snowstorm to beat him and a Rope to wrap around his neck.
Now, in Lemon’s defense, hardly anyone outside the CNN corridors believed Smollett’s saga when the fable was first told. It should not have been shocking to learn that Chicago police officers, hearing more credible yarns from crazy eighth-graders, had their doubts.
But I digress. Don Lemon’s decision as a self-proclaimed journalist to alert Smollett that the police were on him was an ethical violation almost as bad as helping a politician – who’s just your brother bring together a defense against allegations of sexual harassment.
More from Tim Swarens: She is a hero who challenged Putin on live TV. Now she is in a Russian prison cell.
“Intervening in the ongoing investigation by texting Smollett was an indispensable violation of ethics,” Cuomo’s lawyers wrote in the arbitration. “But CNN did nothing; Lemon was by no means disciplined.
Inexcusable violation of ethics. Patron looks the other way. Cuomo knows all about such things.
Attorney Blast and Toobin
For the exhibition no. Magazine.
CNN welcomed Toobin back to the family last June despite what Cuomo’s lawyers described as a “sordid act of sexual harassment”.
Ethical violations. Sexual harassment. Chris Cuomo. Somehow these words just keep colliding.
Permanent daylight saving time ?: Great government better keep my hands off my watch!
For Exhibit 3, Team Cuomo calls on former CNN President Jeff Zucker, who resigned in February after revealing his personal relationship with Chief Marketing Officer Allison Gollust. Gollust also resigned.
“As long as CNN’s ratings were not violated, Sugar and Gollust were more than willing to ignore major transgressions by CNN personalities such as Don Lemon and Jake Tapper, or even engage in blatant misconduct,” Cuomo’s lawyers said. .
Finally, Cuomo comes to the crux of it. It was, is and will always be about ratings. What is the value of an old-fashioned ethical standard or two weighed in on the balance of a journalistic celebrity who has enough eyes to pay for rock-star lies?
Ukraine War Diary: I grew up in Russia. Now I am fighting in Kyiv for Ukraine
Let’s be honest: on one level, CNN is the best reality television series. Who needs “Desperate Housewives of Missoula” when Cuomo vs. Lemon vs.
However, on another level – one that I like to call the real world – the timing of Cuomo’s high dive into the Bulli Moss is sad. After all, it’s a war on. I mean a real war, not the one in CNN’s C-suite.
War coverage is exceptional
CNN journalists have shown a masterful level of skill and professionalism – and in many cases remarkable courage – to cover the war in Ukraine. This should be their time both to report the news without internal distractions and also to get deserved recognition from their viewers and their journalistic colleagues.
Ukraine War Diary: As Russia moves forward, Illarion Pavliuk makes a stop en route to Kyiv
Chris Cuomo showed why it is important to call and discipline bad journalism evenly, including ethical violations.
His former CNN colleagues – along with journalists from dozens of other news outlets – have been showing every day for the past three weeks why good journalism is so vital.
Cuomo can finally get his money. But I will put my money on the other journalists, those who understand that the needs of their audience are far more important than serving themselves.
Tim Swarens is the Deputy Opinion Editor of USA TODAY.
You can read different opinions from our Contributors Board and other writers on the Opinion Front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion Newsletter. To reply to a column, send a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chris Cuomo pulls down CNN even though former colleagues cover the war
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