There’s an irony surrounding that declare: If Cuomo’s fame has already been injured, his arbitration demand itself could deepen the injuries. The 32-page criticism, in spite of everything, hinges a minimum of partly on un-journalistic arguments that’ll seemingly keep on with Cuomo, no matter his future skilled exploits.
The demand prolongs a CNN dysfunction funk that started in 2020, when community boss Jeff Zucker made an exception to present guidelines in order that Chris Cuomo might do a sequence of cheeky interviews along with his brother, then New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. That bled into 2021, with revelations that Chris Cuomo had helped Andrew Cuomo’s staffers rebut sexual-harassment allegations, and deepened final November, when the New York lawyer normal launched paperwork exposing the extent of Chris Cuomo’s involvement, serving to to set off the anchor’s dismissal from CNN (one other issue was a sexual-misconduct allegation towards Cuomo, which the arbitration demand calls “entirely fabricated.”) The scandal culminated early this yr, forcing Zucker to resign underneath strain, ostensibly for failing to reveal a relationship with fellow CNN govt Allison Gollust, who was just lately pressured out over alleged violations of firm guidelines. (Shortly after her departure, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal revealed studies that she’d mentioned interview subjects with Andrew Cuomo and exchanged “messages with Andrew and Chris Cuomo that the company deemed were in violation of the company’s standards.”)
And that’s the brief model of occasions.
Whatever journalistic sins he could have dedicated in aiding his brother, Chris Cuomo argues, Zucker and Gollust had been conscious of these actions and “in fact participated in and encouraged the same behavior.” A December submit by the Erik Wemple Blog criticized the hypocrisy of laying this entire mess at Chris Cuomo’s doorstep.
A spokesperson for Zucker and Gollust pushed again on Chris Cuomo’s criticism, denying claims that they suggested the governor or had information of the previous anchor’s actions.
But suppose for a second that Cuomo’s arbitration demand is a piece of factual perfection. Under that state of affairs, his protection quantities to “we were all in on it.” If Cuomo had been a low- or mid-level worker at CNN, maybe that might be a legitimate argument. But because the arbitration demand says, Cuomo “is an internationally recognized and respected journalist and news anchor” and his program “was for years a ratings leader for CNN.”
This chiseled, cocksure, multimillionaire anchor can’t reduce his personal accountability by pointing to his bosses. Nor can they slough it off on him.
According to the demand, Cuomo’s employment contract has a provision requiring the community to “make reasonable efforts to instruct its employees not to make any intentionally disparaging comments regarding [Cuomo] in the context of [Cuomo’s] business and professional activities.”
Pause proper there: What? No self-respecting news group ought to suggest or comply with that provision. It’s unclear the way it wound up in Cuomo’s employment settlement.
Another query is whether or not a journalist ought to make a fuss about such a provision if it’s violated, but Cuomo’s arbitration demand dedicates greater than eight pages to presenting a “full account” of the “disparaging” feedback that got here Cuomo’s approach. Example: In May 2021, months earlier than Cuomo’s firing, CNN’s Jake Tapper informed Kara Swisher of the New York Times that he “cannot imagine a world in which anyone in journalism thinks that [Cuomo’s assistance to Gov. Cuomo] was appropriate.”
The Erik Wemple Blog can not think about a world through which an “internationally recognized and respected journalist” would take umbrage at such a levelheaded critique. Tapper had loads of firm, because the demand makes clear, biking by way of all of the nameless quotes from CNN insiders blasting Cuomo. The doc notes, “CNN’s failure to undertake reasonable efforts to instruct its employees not to make intentionally disparaging comments regarding Cuomo is underscored by the volume and frequency of such disparaging comments.”
An different interpretation is that Cuomo’s conduct was worthy of disparagement.
Another Cuomo self-own is available in a piece complaining of disparate self-discipline. It alleges moral transgressions by different distinguished CNN personalities, together with Tapper and onetime shut pal Don Lemon. Tapper had supplied some steerage to U.S. Army veteran Sean Parnell in launching a political profession in Republican politics, and Lemon had knowledgeable actor Jussie Smollett that police didn’t imagine his story. Somehow Cuomo discovered these unpunished cases “much more egregious” than his personal file of prolonged, although in the end futile, participation in a political pushback operation.
Timing issues right here. Tapper’s message to Parnell grew to become news in September 2020, and Lemon’s state of affairs surfaced in December 2021. Both of them postdate a report within the New York Times in April 2020 that Chris Cuomo had supplied recommendation to Andrew Cuomo’s employees. Which raises the query: Did CNN really feel constrained addressing different conditions due to the sunshine contact it utilized to Cuomo himself?
None of the foregoing, nevertheless, eclipses the monetary dimension of the criticism, which alleges that the firing left 19 months on his contract. “Cuomo would have been entitled to approximately $14,406,250.00 in base salary,” reads the criticism. The remainder of the $125 million demand seeks recompense for “future wages lost.” Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics studies that median pay for journalists in 2020 was $49,300.
There are limits to this high-horse evaluation of the Cuomo criticism. The former anchor employed a lawyer — Los Angeles-based Bryan Freedman — to pursue his declare over what he seen as a flawed and hypocritical administration resolution at CNN. Freedman’s job is to identify contract violations, no matter their implications for the journalistic ethos.
Nor would this be the primary time that arguments made in a authorized matter grind towards journalistic values or expose malpractice. Fox News, for example, argued in a defamation case that Tucker Carlson’s commentary was to not be taken severely; the criticism was tossed. The New York Times, in its protection towards Sarah Palin, sought to ascertain how little analysis an editor did earlier than inserting false claims in an editorial; it gained the case.
Embarrassing arguments, in different phrases, can repay.