Sad. Thought incest victims were victims, when did prosecutors start going after them?
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When they commit crimes?
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Part of it is that hour-long primetime segment on CNN where the story is totally off-limits because it’s his brother.
But that also means that folks who tune in then aren’t hearing a news story which they would otherwise hear.
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But aside from the distaste of a sexual harassment scandal and wishing the media were not involved in any possible way-what’s the actual problem?
I assume he did this consulting work as part of his personal time and not affiliated with his role in CNN. He also publicly stated that he could not cover the story and as far as Ive seen has held that standard.
Perhaps a lie by omission because he didn’t disclose that he was working with his brothers campaign, but he didn’t say anything to benefit his brother on air either so I don’t see the actual harm or why it would be any sort of a scandal that it was not mentioned on air.
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So don’t hire the family and friends of politicians? But then where would American “journalism” be?
Helping the family isn’t a get out of jail free card, but recusing yourself and disclosing that you cant/won’t cover a particular story is understandable.
@Castertroys comment on the loss of information to viewers seems the only casualty here but I don’t see how that was going to be avoided either way. If CNN ran with another anchor Chris would be accused (likely correctly) of being a back channel to his brothers campaign. I don’t see any way for CNN to wish themselves out of this problem. Complete public recusal seems the best option for all involved.
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Any action that a journalist takes in his off-time is involving himself in someone’s story. Politics, sports, entertainment, living, business, people, etc., everything is a story. Do we require that they be monks when they are not working? Or, is the issue that it’s his brother? Or that he’s involving himself in a “big story”? If the undisclosed story was that he spends his off-time advising a brownie troop on how to spin their story to increase cookie sales, would that be a problem? If not, then this is not about a reporter involving himself in a story.
Yeah
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Did you actually read my post? I didn’t say it was the greatest crime in the history of the world. But there’s no question he involved himself in a major news story and that’s actually a frowned-on thing. People get fired. He certainly knew better. I don’t make the rules; I’m telling you, from a position of actually knowing, what they are.
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I get that news anchors are supposed to come off as impartial, but that’s an implied expectation not a law. Also, did anyone who ever saw Chris Cuomo interview his brother ever believe for a minute that he was, in any way, impartial? I’m not sure that Hannity showed that much favoritism to Trump.
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It’s actually a fairly explicit expectation in the news workplace. Again, I know what the fuck I’m talking about here.
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I admit that I do not know the rules. In fact, I did not even know there were rules for journalists like we have in other professions where one can have one’s license revoked, be sued, and even go to jail for violating the rules. I learn something new every day.
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Fair enough. I did say myself that on a deeper level it’s not a reasonable thing. But on a more superficial one it keeps you out of this kind of trouble and it saves your employer unnecessary trouble too. Once in the newsroom we had to cover some abortion protesters at a local hospital and a lot of the staffers said they simply couldn’t cover it impartially, so I said I’ll go, I can keep my feelings out of it, and was thanked later for simply presenting the views of the protesters and the countering views of people who felt otherwise. You have to at least try or know you should hand it off, and that’s what happened. It makes the coverage better.
I’ll make a kind of not-guilty confession here: For my own sanity I decided there was no rule saying I had to do that stupid thing of pretending the arguments were equally valid. I didn’t try to make anyone’s arguments sound better than they really seemed.
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So I guess I missed that Chris got early access to testing, and even with that ended up with COVID.
I think the whole problem comes from the willingness of any number of American businesses to hire people because of their connections, celebrity, wealth, etc. Other than the fact that he is a son of the former Governor of N.Y., idk why Chris is even working at CNN. What made him so much more special than all the other journalist applicants for the job? Imo, people with close connections should be excluded from any significant platform with any real news organization, just as presumably we would not select someone to perform surgery just because his father was a famed surgeon. But that ship sailed long ago in journalism and many other areas of American business. And Americans seem to like to see our public life governed by those who did nothing more than win the luck sperm race.
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I don’t really watch TV so I rarely see Chris Cuomo do his thing, but certainly it’s a fact that being a TV news anchor doesn’t really require any core journalism skills. You need to be a pleasing presence on the air and you need to keep things moving in the show. You need to do some interviewing, now and then, but the whole thing militates against the “tough question” that ends the interview, because that’s a loss of control and it’s a no-no. Also TV news is one of the most hidebound, innovation-resistant professions I can think of. I have a small collection of Japanese kitchen knives including two from some pretty well-known bladesmiths. One uses the latest steels and blends traditional Japanese and Western knife elements in a really effective way. Another seals the blade-handle junction with a generous dollop of epoxy and in general is a highly respected but quite quirky guy. You don’t see quirky on the TV news and there’s a reason for that.
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No, but it’s hard to imagine how his handling could have been worse. The mind boggles.
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Chris kept his distance from the story rather than from his brother. As long as he is not overlapping his role as a journalist with his family ties it’s less of a problem.
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Chris has ‘been involved’ with his older brother since birth. If he had continued reporting on his brother I’d see a problem. Life’s isn’t tidy and Chris did not marry his job forsaking all others.
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I’d still say it’s a bit of a judgment lapse. If his brother wants to hire high-end PR help he can just get out the phone book.
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