Fox News’ Howard Kurtz and his MediaBuzz panel chastised CNN’s top brass for allowing Chris Cuomo’s conduct to become a full-blown scandal for the network.
Kurtz, on this Sunday’s episode of his media-focused program, spoke to Fox Business’ Charles Gasparino and Fourth Watch writer Steve Krakauer about CNN’s decision to fire Cuomo in light of the newly-revealed actions he took to help his brother — former New York governor Andrew Cuomo — deal with sexual harassment accusations. CNN said they discovered “additional information” about their former prime-time host as part of their ongoing investigation, and now it has been reported that one of Cuomo’s former colleagues is accusing him of sexual misconduct as well.
Asked for his thoughts on CNN’s decision, Gasparino said the Chris Cuomo scandal represents “a failure of management in so many different ways.”
Chris stepped over the line, but you almost expect him to because that’s his brother and you know he’s close to your brother and you may step over the line. I’m just wondering, did Jeff Zucker ever sit down and say to Chris, ‘we know that you’re advising your brother…here are the rules of the road that you need to do or take leave of absence.’ Remember, they offered him a leave of absence to do that, and that’s
where the I think the real journalism ethics — or lack of ethics — come in here. What did Jeff Zucker do? What did he tell Chris? Did Chris just ignore these warnings? We need to to know all of that.
Krakauer followed up by breaking down Cuomo’s dishonesty to Zucker, and how his conduct threw out the rules of ethical journalism. Gasparino kept the focus on Zucker, however, asking “Why isn’t [the CNN chief] being held accountable here?…Why isn’t Jeff Zucker being held accountable for giving Chris Cuomo the rope?”
As the panel delved into Chris Cuomo’s attempts to dig up information on his brother’s accusers, Gasparino reiterated his point that it was “bad enough” Cuomo was involved in his brother’s strategy meetings.
“Jeff Zucker, why wasn’t he monitoring this from day one? What are you doing?” He asked.
Watch above, via Fox News.