Originally published at: CNN suspends Chris Cuomo after documents show he researched brother Andrew's victims | Boing Boing
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“When Chris admitted to us that he had offered advice to his brother’s staff, he broke our rules and we acknowledged that publicly,” the spokesperson continued. “But we also appreciated the unique position he was in and understood his need to put family first and job second.”
Read: “We hoped it would kinda blow over and no one would know just how horrific his behavior was, but, shucks, now everyone knows so we have to pretend we have some sort of values”
WTF kind of advice could it possibly have been that would have been acceptable? Other than falling on his sword?
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It’s starting to feel like there would be more social good in preventing political/media dynasties than in allowing them
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So i drifted on down to tulsa, oklahoma to do me a late night talk show
Now i worked my way back home again, via boise, idhao
That’s how this business goes
I’ve been making extra money playing high school sock hops
I’m a big time guest mc
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It’s possible for one brother to not know or be in denial that his brother is a sexual assailant, I don’t think Andrew could have gotten away with his behavior for as long as he did if it was blatantly obvious to everyone in his life. Spouses don’t always know. Abusers can be very talented at gaslighting. Chris could, theoretically, have gone into this with good intentions, and helping his brother fall on his sword gracefully would have been the best thing to do. Weaponizing CNN against his brother’s victims, not so much.
The good thing about this is the reality based community is, of late, generally better at holding people to account, while Trump, Clarence Thomas, Jim Jordan, Kavanaugh, can be awful people with little in the way of consequences.
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When you read journalists and media folks saying things like “I would have helped my brother too, of course”, consider what they’re admitting to
Like Cuomo, they’re hoping the follow-up question “so you’ll be resigning from your position to do it, then?” will never be asked. That hope only grows (and is more accommodated by an employer and colleagues) the higher paid and higher profile the position.
This is an example. CNN gave Cuomo the benefit of the doubt far longer than the growing evidence should have allowed, and just suspended him instead of firing him once no-one could pretend there wasn’t a clear breach of ethics.
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Yeah it’s horrifying. If I had a family member accused of terrible things I might help pay for a lawyer or something but this kind of behavior is flat-out inexcusable.
CNN could have just kept the condemnation without adding this qualifier, but no. I think this is what’s known as “making a ‘but’ of oneself.”
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Chris Cuomo should have been far, far away from anything to do with his brother and NY politics.
Using his position to be privy to non-public material to help is brother is inexcusable.
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The upstate NY regional press, especially in Albany consistently reported on Cuomo’s bullying and verbally abusive behavior. They seemed to have stayed to mostly hints and oblique references to the sexual assault, but there were certainly things about him being creepy or a womanizer in the NYC Tabloids like the Post and Daily News. At least a couple of reporters seem to have been trying to cover sexual misconduct, but there were no accusers or on record accounts till now.
Likewise I was talking to one of the people I know who worked on the push for eliminating statutes of limitations on rape and sexual assault here in NY. Something Cuomo mostly opposed on grounds that it would bankrupt the Catholic Church (Not Creepy, Just Italian™)
Apparently several female, former NY Attorneys that worked under Cuomo. And later worked the campaign. Consistently made recommendations about women not being left alone with him, him being an asshole, a creep and so forth.
This was very much “open secret” territory. It seems like even people who had the briefest contact with Andrew, like the person I know who literally sat in an office with him for 15 minutes and didn’t speak. Heard something about it. Even if it wasn’t a specific accusation.
As for Chris and CNN. This isn’t the first time they’ve been criticized for Chis Cuomo’s show basically acting as part of his brother’s PR desk. It’s just louder and sticking hard because of how successful they were at using COVID to generate national attention.
That seems to have been the entire idea on the Cuomo end, that these two could bolster each other’s careers. And it’s a classic of the corrupt machine politics the Cuomos are all about. Denial is a powerful thing, but it’s impossible some one that close to Andrew Cuomo didn’t hear about and see this regularly.
CNN likewise knew exactly what they were getting into by hiring a prominent politician’s brother, and then letting him cover that same brother. The massive, massive conflict of interest here is obvious and they’ve been getting called out for it since it started.
Hell this isn’t even the first time Chris has been connected to a corruption investigation of Andrew.
CNN is finally acting on this knew it was coming problem. Now that actual authorities are involved.
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What Chris Cuomo did was fundamentally the same as Harvey Weinstein using former intelligence officers to dig up dirt on his victims so he could blackmail them into silence, except in this case he was using the resources of a multinational media group instead of retired spooks.
At this point, not only should he be fired, but he should be prosecuted for obstruction of justice and I assume that’s the reason why the NY AG is releasing this material.
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I wasn’t aware how much of an open secret it was. I’ve gotten used to discounting the Post and Daily News, but I guess they’re somewhat of a stopped clock. I liked their dad, from what I knew of him, sad to hear what they’re like.
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The apple didn’t fall far from the tree from what I remember. Mario Cuomo had the same swirl of corruption accusations and reputation as a bully as Andrew, though I don’t recall anything about sexual assault. He basically built the political machine his son inherited. That’s very much how politics works in NY State.
That would be a large reason why the coverage of Cuomo’s behavior never made it much past Albany and basically Brooklyn.
The Post and the Daily News were the only papers with somewhat national foot prints that seem to have picked any of it up. They really were just doing it for the sake of political smear and salacious muckraking. So it was easy to discount, and if they weren’t just lifting shit wholesale from much smaller papers in Albany it would have been the right call.
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Or maybe CNN should have never ever let him cover or comment on his own brother’s actions at all in the first place, never should have let him under the CNN banner enter into a dialog or reporting that could ever possibly harbor a conflict of interest whether one existed or not rather than letting him operate on his own recognizance. If you ask me CNN fucked up just as much as Cuomo.
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That’s a lot of words to say “yes, our company policy is ‘bros before hos’”.
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