Claim: New CNN CEO May Can High-Dollar, Low-Impact Money Sinks Like Anderson Cooper and Fake Jake Tapper

I previously mentioned this general story. But the reporting there was that CNN would likely pressure its Million Dollar Failures to voluntarily reduce their salaries.

This article claims he's looking to "axe" CNN's gold-plated dog turds.

Big-bucks talent will become history at CNN as the spiraling network's new honcho slashes budgets and takes aim at anxious anchors with oversized salaries, insiders say.

New CEO Mark Thompson is preparing ruthless cuts to remake the network as ratings plunge -- leaving Anderson Cooper, Chris Wallace, Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper facing dates with the axman, a source says.

"Anderson knows he's on the chopping block because he makes a whopping $20 million a year. He's already started looking for a new gig!" a network insider exclusively tells In Touch. "Chris Wallace takes $8 million and figures he's a likely target, too!"

There's a well-trafficked rumor that Arnold Schwarzenegger played a huge prank on Sylvester Stallone. The two had big egos and were in a big competition for box office supremacy in the mid-late eighties.

The rumor goes that Schwarzenegger deliberately leaked the lie that he was extremely interested in a script called Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! Stallone heard this, and then bought the rights to the script.

The film went on to bomb.

I don't know if that's true, but I'm pretty sure Fox News pulled a Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! with Chris Wallace and CNN.

Insiders say other network favorites -- including $15 million man Blitzer and $8 million gent Tapper -- are also bracing for the boot!

This article uses more exclamation points than I usually see in a credible news report.

This is interesting: The report claim that the Mark Thompson is looking to replace his Million Dollar Failures with people who can actually draw an audience:

Sources say he has no use for the star system and the hefty salaries that come with it. He's reportedly seeking to replace marquee names with talent who built their audiences on social media -- including former FOX and NBC anchor Megyn Kelly, who has 1.72 million subscribers on YouTube.

Is this true? Well, CNN's ratings are crap, of course. And Discovery-Warner head David Zaslav is looking to sell off parts of his ungainly media conglomerate. He's trying to cut the dysfunction out of CNN to make it an attractive buy for some other company.

I guess he's trying to pull a Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! with CNN.

But first he has to make it look like not-such-a-basketcase.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:30 PM

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