Former CNN Ethics Executive: Chris Cuomo Didn't Violate CNN's Ethics Standards Because CNN Has No Ethics Standards

No seriously, he meant that, but he means in it in the sense that CNN simply doesn't have any formal ethics standards. Everything is loosey-goosey and picky-choosy.

Which, I would add, permits the network to behave in the most extraordinarly biased manner.

I long argued that all media organizations must adopt a clear, written rule as to when the party of a politician caught in a scandal must be reported -- and in what paragraph.

Such a rule would stop media companies from playing Guess That Party when it's a Democrat, omitting the party affiliation completely, or burying it in paragraph 22.

But media companies have all refused to adopt such a simple rule.

For a very simple reason: They want maximum latitude for biased reporting.

They want the freedom to put the party affiliation right in the headline if the scandal-plagued pol is a Republican, and the freedom to omit it from the article altogether if it's a Democrat.

Rules limit discretion and "news discretion" is the straw that stirs the drink of media bias.

And of course that's the real reason CNN has not written any code of ethics on reporting.

They want to empower the Fredos, the Don LeMons, the Taters, the Prison Lips, and the Tappers to really explore the studio space of bias and conflict of interest.

Current and former employees have criticized the host of "Cuomo Prime Time" for the transgression, but a retired CNN ethics executive says the lack of clear cut policies are largely to blame.

"You won't see any rules that are etched in stone so that a violation could be a firing offense," said Steve Holmes, who retired from CNN in 2019 after working at the network for more than a decade.

"And I think you see sort of the results. I mean the Chris Cuomo thing, they can't say that he's violated any written policies because there aren't any, period," said Holmes, who reported to the executive vice president of news standards and practices when he was at CNN.

The media can't have any real conflict-of-interest standards -- half of them are very literally in bed with Democrat officials. They're either married to them or ****ing them on the side.

The rising tide of criticism from outside of CNN has even pressured Corporate Tools Tater and Tapper to raise questions about CNN's policies and Fredo's behavior.

"If Chris Cuomo wants to call into strategy sessions with his brother's aides, shouldn't he take a leave of absence from CNN?" Stelter asked.

Even a Potato now feels pressured by other media scumbags to admit this is a problem -- which CNN head honcho Jeff Zucker (himself no stranger to waking up in the potato bin at the supermarket!) continues to deny.

Zucker says that there's no point in issuing even a slap on the wrist to Fredo.

The former CNN ethics executive disagrees:

A slap on the wrist is better than nothing, Holmes said, and would serve as an acknowledgement that ethics matters to the network.

...

"For them to sort of just shrug their shoulders and slough it off is just to me like, 'Hold on people, don't you see how this looks?'" Holmes said.

"They could do that and take the criticism that it's too lenient," he said. "But what do they do when they don't do anything? What kind of signals does it send that you don't do anything?"

In a way, I'm on Zucker's and Fredo's side here.

The truth is that all mainstream media scumbags are working for the Democrat Party, and/or in literal bed with them.

Holmes is basically arguing for a regime of deceit in which the media goes through completely meaningless and insincere steps to prove a falsehood, that they have ethics and that they are professional journalists rather than Democrat Party plants.

I prefer the straight-up reveling in corruption of Zucker and Fredo.

Now, I'd rather an honest media, of course.

But we have not had that for decades and we will never have that.

So between the two remaining options, I prefer blatant, unapologetic, open corruption to the fakey-fake pretense of having any separation whatsoever from the DNC and the advocacy groups and pressure groups of the extreme left.

posted by Ace at 04:20 PM

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