Chris Cuomo’s Ethical Issues on CNN Highlight Rise of Infotainment | American television industry

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New York Post columnist Maureen Callahan put it succinctly: One down. One to go.

After New York Governor Andrew Cuomo finally agreed to step down this week over allegations of sexual harassment, US media attention quickly turned to his brother Chris.

The 51-year-old CNN presenter, who is said to make $ 6 million on his top-rated show Cuomo Prime Time and who, despite his promise to maintain a journalistic distance from his brothers’ plight, has been accused of serious ethical violations.

This apparently includes advising the governor and his staff on his harassment scandal and the alleged cover-up of deaths in nursing homes; benefit from special access to Covid-19 tests; and lecture viewers for breaking his brothers’ quarantine rules, despite breaking them himself. In the early months of the pandemic, the governor even appeared on the Chriss show where they had fun as if they were part of a family WhatsApp group, not an elected official and a journalist in front of thousands of viewers.

But unlike Governor Cuomo, who ultimately resigned after threats of impeachment, Chris Cuomo on a timely public holiday has not faced any disciplinary action from his network and is so far expected to stay on the job. on air as one of CNN’s most prominent and successful journalists.

For some, CNN’s current backing of Cuomo isn’t just another celebrity avoiding the consequences; it symbolizes the disturbing evolution of American cable television news away from prime-time reporting. Indicators of a wider trend accelerated by the arrival of Donald Trump, cable networks have turned to highly profitable infotainment masquerading as news.

It is now a sector where renowned, high-paying animators attract large audiences and are subject to different journalistic standards.

Fox News has long been seen as opinion-driven, but even its prime-time hosts like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are now seen as extreme. Carlson, in particular, made his show a vehicle for barely concealed white nationalism and racist hissing. Fox’s liberal counterpart MSNBC has also moved, with its main star Rachel Maddow accused of becoming so anti-Trump that she peddled baseless conspiracy theories around Russian influence in the White House.

Chris Cuomo, left, and his brother Andrew: More of a WhatsApp family group than a reporter interviewing a governor. Photography: AP

But the Cuomo incident appears to underline that CNN, with 42 global bureaus and several Pulitzers, has also stopped playing the rules during prime time.

I’m shocked he’s made it this far without even receiving a suspension, said Kathleen Bartzen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The damage to CNN’s reputation during the Cuomo scandal is also considered dangerous given the attacks on the network and other American journalists during the Trump era, where the cry of fake news was used to undermine trust. of the public in journalism. CNN’s real ethics scandal can now serve to reinforce this broader lack of trust in American journalism.

Culver added: It’s not just that CNN has been this essential medium for decades. Actions like this tarnish other journalists. I’m more concerned that individual reporters covering a State Council meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, for example, will be criticized.

Cable news broadcasts in the United States are surprisingly little watched, given their influence. Despite an increase in viewership in 2020, Fox attracted an estimated daily audience of 3 million, CNN 1.8 million and MSNBC 1.6 million, according to the Pew Center for Journalism. Yet these audiences come to a country of 330 million people.

Yet like a lot of television, it’s not the number of eyes, it’s who they belong to. Cable news is obsessively followed by elected officials and their teams of assistants. It therefore strikes well above its audience weight. The host plays a special role in this regard. It’s a brand whose voice, personality, and toothpaste choice are projected onto the back of your retina, selling charm and reliability. And a great host can make a broadcaster a lot of money.

But, given that they frequently share a platform with journalists and often call themselves journalists, should these cable stars be subject to a different ethic as well?

Hosts have celebrity status and bring in a lot of money, so people in those positions often receive different treatment, said Ricardo Sandoval-Palos, public editor or ombudsman for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

Sandoval-Palos, a 40-year-old veteran journalist, receives up to 150 questions and complaints a day and considers his job as an advocate.

He is one of several independent US mediators, including The New York Times which dissolved its role in 2017 in favor of a staff-run center, and he believes there is an emerging difference. [on cable] between information and news.

Sandoval-Palos likened some US cable news to a choice news video game, in which viewers pre-select the outcome of actual events, from the real winner of the US election to whether Russia is spying on you.

Some say CNN chairman Jeff Zucker, who is stepping down at the end of 2021, is responsible for damaging CNN’s reputation for neutrality.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham addresses the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last year. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Rod Hicks, director of ethics and diversity at the Society of Professional Journalists, said: From what I see, Jeff Zucker said he wanted talent to have genuine reactions to the news they relate. For many of us who watch CNN now, we see comments that fall under the category of opinions.

The problem is, viewers don’t make this distinction. People hear it and to them it’s the news.

In America, the very concept of regulating the press is unthinkable to many.

But if journalists are the watchers of democracy, who is watching the watchers? And in the age of dangerous disinformation, should there be a clearer separation between what is news and what is not?

That’s the $ 64,000 question, said Susan McGregor, a researcher at Columbia Universitys Data Science Institute and former deputy director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism.

There is a huge concern that if we start telling people who is and is not a journalist, it is a step towards restricting freedom of speech or of the press.

She added: I don’t think everything on CNN is tainted, but they need to be more transparent. What really shocks is to claim the prestige of an ethical standard, while subverting it at the same time.

On Bidens’ inauguration day, Lauren Wolf, then a freelance writer for the New York Times, lost her job, apparently due to a tweet in which she claimed to have chills as she watched her plane land. It turned out he wasn’t wearing it, but his message was picked up by cable networks and she lost her position.

In response to a question from the Guardian about whether different journalistic standards applied to famous TV hosts, Wolf wrote: All I have to say on this is that yes, opinion is scrolling. more and more like news, it seems.

CNN, Fox and MSNBC have been contacted for comment.

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