He’s one of a vanishing number of independent US ombudsmen, including the New York Times dissolving the role in 2017 in favor of a staff-run centre, and he believes there’s an “emerging difference between ‘information’ and ‘news’”. Sandoval-Palos, a veteran journalist of 40 years, receives up to 150 questions and complaints a day and considers his job to be “the audience’s defender”. “Hosts have celebrity status, and bring in a lot of money, so people in those positions often do get different treatment,” said Ricardo Sandoval-Palos, the public editor or ombudsman for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). And a great host can bring a broadcaster big bucks.īut, given they frequently share a platform with reporters and often call themselves “journalists”, should these cable stars also be subject to different ethics? They’re a brand whose voice, personality and choice of toothpaste is beamed on to the back of your retina, selling charm and trustworthiness. So it punches far above its audience weight. Cable news is obsessively followed by elected officials and their teams of aides. Yet, like a lot of TV, it isn’t the number of eyes, it’s who they belong to. Yet those audiences come in a country of 330 million people. Despite a rise in viewership in 2020, Fox pulled in an estimated daily audience of 3 million, CNN 1.8 million and MSNBC 1.6 million, according to the Pew Center for Journalism. I’m more worried about individual journalists covering a state council meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, for example, getting slammed.”Ĭable news shows in the US are surprisingly little watched, given their influence. Actions like this … tarnish other journalists. The genuine ethical scandal at CNN may now serve to reinforce that broader lack of faith in US journalism.Ĭulver added: “It’s not just that CNN has been this essential news outlet for decades. “I am shocked it’s gotten this far without him 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.ĬNN’s reputational battering during the Cuomo scandal is also seen as dangerous given the attacks endured by the network – and other US journalists – during the Trump era, where the cry of “fake news” was used to undermine public trust in journalism. Photograph: APīut the Cuomo incident seems to highlight that CNN, with 42 world bureaus and multiple Pulitzers, has also stopped playing by “the rules” in prime time. Fox’s liberal opposite number MSNBC has also moved, with its main star – Rachel Maddow – accused of becoming so anti-Trump that she peddled unfounded conspiracy theories around Russian influence in the White House.Ĭhris Cuomo, left, and his brother Andrew: more family WhatsApp group than a journalist interviewing a governor. Carlson, in particular, has made his show a vehicle for thinly concealed white nationalism and racist dog-whistling. It is now a sector where big-name hosts on big salaries bring in big audiences and are subject to different journalistic standards.įox News has long been seen as opinion-led, but even its primetime hosts – like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson – are now seen as extreme. Indicative of a broader trend accelerated by the arrival of Donald Trump, cable networks have shifted towards highly profitable “info-tainment” posing as news. In the early months of the pandemic, the governor even appeared on Chris’s show in which they joshed around like they were in a family WhatsApp group, not an elected public official and journalist in front of thousands of viewers.īut unlike Governor Cuomo, who finally resigned after threats of impeachment, Chris Cuomo – minus a conveniently timed holiday – has faced no disciplinary action from his network and is so far due to stay on air as one of CNN’s most prominent and successful journalists.įor some, CNN’s current backing of Cuomo isn’t just another celebrity avoiding consequences it symbolizes the worrying shift in American cable television news away from news reporting in their primetime hours. That includes apparently advising the governor and his staff during his harassment scandal and alleged cover-up of nursing home deaths receiving special access to Covid-19 testing and lecturing viewers for breaking his brother’s quarantine rules, despite breaking them himself. The 51-year-old CNN presenter, who allegedly earns $6m with his top-rated Cuomo Prime Time show and who despite promising to maintain journalistic distance from his brother’s travails, has been accused of serious ethical violations.
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