Really, how can anybody be surprised?

Transcripts released yesterday revealed that CNN host and beefcake star Chris Cuomo actively worked with his brother’s aides to defend then Gov. Andrew Cuomo from the many sexual harassment accusers whose accounts eventually forced the Governor to resign. Chris Cuomo. aka. “Fredo,” had looked in America’s face—you know, like Bill Clinton when he said he never has sex with “that woman”—in August and assured it that he ‘never made calls to the press” on behalf of his brother. But New York Attorney General Letitia James’ report revealed texts where Chris told aide Melissa DeRosa he would take up the allegations with his “sources,” and offered to help draft statements for his brother’s team. Cuomo used his CNN contacts dig up information about his brothers’ his accusers, presumably to discredit them. Another revelation in James’ documents was that Cuomo was working through a friend to approach actor Alec Baldwin about making a video defending Andrew.

In summary, Chris Cuomo used his contacts, sources and influence as a CNN journalist to actively assist an elected official, indeed to assist an official in avoiding the consequences of illegal acts. This is, duh, wildly unethical, unprofessional, and a breach of trust with both CNN and the public. Apparently it is even so unethical that other unethical journalists of the Left, who are usually hesitant to throw stones at fellow propagandists and fake news purveyors from inside their glass houses, have pointed their fingers at poor Chris like pod people identifying their next target for assimilation.

“Rolling Stone” published a story with the headline, “Chris Cuomo Caught Doing Something That Would Get Any Other Journalist Fired.”  Journalists from NPR, The Los Angeles Times, The Independent and other outlets have chimed in on social media, saying that his actions would have gotten any of them fired.

Strangely, CNN’s fake media ethicist Brain Stelter has not been heard from…

Of course Cuomo should be fired for this. But CNN has proven that it has no standards, scruples, or concern for competence, honesty, conflicts of interest or journalism ethics in general by keeping Cuomo on the air and paid like a baseball star as long as it has.

Ethics Alarms has clanged the ethics alarm so often on Cuomo that I hurt my wrist. This post writes itself, because I can just lift from previous posts. I wrote this two years ago, for example:

The incompetence, arrogance, ignorance and bias of Chris Cuomo is what finally drove me away from CNN as my early morning news source. The horrible, smirking Carol Costello couldn’t do it, as openly partisan and obnoxious about it as she was. At least Carol had some apparent intelligence and arguable qualifications for being a newsreader. Cuomo’s “qualifications” are only that he’s what passes for beefcake in the news business, had a famous father and has a powerful brother. I would say that his law degree is a qualification, except that he has proven repeatedly that something funny was going on with that, because he has tweeted out and recited many howlers that no real lawyer or D+ law student would ever think, much less broadcast.

Here’s the Ethics Alarms Chis Cuomo file. Here are representative excerpts from my commentary on Cuomo’s various adventures in idiocy:

• May29, 2019: “We know—there is no doubt about this, and Ethics Alarms has documented the fact—that Cuomo is really, truly, a dolt. He is the poster child for affirmative action for celebrity and politician offspring. An alleged lawyer, his every other reference to the law is incorrect. …He is the perfect example of that horrible species, the stupid person who thinks he’s smart. CNN keeps him employed because 1) he’s cute, 2) he seems to be a nice guy, and 3) he’s a typical knee-jerk progressive. Reading his twitter feed is profoundly depressing. He is at once glib, earnest, and incoherent.”
• August 18, 2018: “CNN cannot be taken seriously as a news organization as long as it continues to employ Chris Cuomo. I have concluded that Cuomo was only admitted to law school because his father was a popular governor of New York. No other explanation makes sense. Even after allegedly completing his three years, he doesn’t comprehend basic law or the Constitution. He has, for example, advanced public ignorance by stating that “hate speech” is not protested under the First Amendment. On another occasion, he said that it would be illegal for citizens to read leaked classified material available on the web, but that journalists could read it and then tell the public about it. The man is an idiot. He constantly utters legal and logical nonsense, and with the certitude that only a true idiot can muster. As a journalist he is biased and sloppy; as a pundit he is pompous and unqualified.”

Since that post, Cuomo’s rap sheet has only grown. For example, he was caught breaking the pandemic quarantine he had been promoting on the air, and lied about it. Hey, let’s pick one of his idiotic pronouncements at random; here’s one: “And please, show me where it says that protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful.”

He is, as I’ve written so often, an idiot as well as a hack. He is unqualified to report the news, analyze issues, or participate meaningfully in public discourse. CNN proved long ago, just as it proved by not firing Jeffrey Toobin for masturbating on a Zoom call and Don Lemon for appearing on the air drunk as a skunk, that it doesn’t care about professionalism or integrity. Cuomo’s conduct in this instance was exactly what an employer gets when it extends the King’s Pass to a star employee without ethics alarms. The only question with Cuomo was how bad the scandal would be, and when it would happen.

__________________

UPDATE: A few hours after this was posted, CNN announced that Chris Cuomo had been suspended “indefinitely.”