We need to talk about CNN and the Cuomo brothers — and not just their shared fascination with the N-word.
On Wednesday, following yet another appearance by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on his little brother’s CNN program, the network refused again to explain how it justifies what is, by all appearances, an ongoing lapse in editorial judgment. Put as simply as possible, it is unethical for a news network to allow one of its hosts to interview a guest who is both a family member and an elected official. The inherent conflicts of interest are clear.
But what CNN has done by allowing Gov. Cuomo to appear regularly on Chris Cuomo’s program, effectively transforming the network into the governor’s personal public relations shop amid the Empire State’s disastrous mishandling of its coronavirus response, is beyond unethical. It is downright scandalous. If there is a person at CNN who can convincingly defend the near-dozen softball Cuomo-Cuomo interviews conducted since the start of the pandemic, they have yet to come forward. Network spokespersons did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
“Obviously, I think you’re the best politician in the country,” the younger Cuomo said during his most recent interview with his older brother. “I hope you feel good about what you did for your people because I know they appreciate it. … I’ve never seen anything like what you did, and that’s why I’m so happy to have had you on the show.”
The CNN host added, “I hope you are able to appreciate what you did in your state and what it means for the rest of the country now and what it will always mean to those who love and care about you the most. I’m wowed by what you did and, more importantly, I’m wowed by how you did it.”
Chris Cuomo continued, showering his brother with praise even after the governor had left.
“Of course, I’m not objective, but let’s call it straight,” the CNN host said. “Look at the state. Look at the numbers. Look at New Jersey. Look at Connecticut. Look how they came together. Yeah, he’s my brother. … But the results are there for all to see.”
Not objective but true,the facts tell the story.NY had & has its struggles but they’re doing way better than what we see elsewhere & no way that happens without the Luv Guv dishing the real 24/7.He works with relentless intensity & NY’s better for it.And as a brother, I am proud. pic.twitter.com/M1TrAtQwCo
— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) June 25, 2020
The lesser Cuomo’s evaluation of his brother’s handling of the crisis is in direct contradiction with the facts.
The Wall Street Journal last week published a report examining the governor’s true record on the state’s pandemic response. It did not uncover a beacon of competent and effectual leadership. In fact, it found just the opposite. The Wall Street Journal’s investigation uncovered several serious government missteps, including:
• Insufficient isolation protocols. Hospitals often mixed infected patients with the uninfected early on, and the virus spread to non-Covid-19 units.
• Inadequate staff planning. Hospitals added hundreds of intensive-care beds but not always enough trained staff, leading to improper treatments and overlooked patients dying alone.
• Mixed messages. State, city government and hospital officials kept shifting guidelines about when exposed and ill front-line workers should return to work.
• Overreliance on government sources for key equipment. Hospitals turned to the state and federal government for hundreds of ventilators, but many were faulty or inadequate.
• Procurement-planning gaps. While leaders focused attention on procuring ventilators, hospitals didn’t always provide for adequate supplies of critical resources including oxygen, vital-signs monitors and dialysis machines.
• Incomplete staff-protection policies. Many hospitals provided staff with insufficient protective equipment and testing.
ProPublica painted a similarly dark picture of present-day New York, including that the Empire State has 10 times the number of COVID-19 deaths as California. ProPublica likewise found a pattern of reckless ineptitude on the part of Andrew Cuomo’s office.
There is also the uncomfortable and shocking fact that Cuomo’s policy of forcing long-term care facilities to accept infectious COVID-19 patients is linked directly to New York’s nursing home death toll, higher than any other state, as my Washington Examiner colleague Kaylee McGhee notes.
Yet, in his many appearances on CNN, the man who has overseen the deadliest state response to the pandemic has not been pressed to defend or explain his policies. Rather, he has been treated to gags involving comically oversized testing swabs and questions about whether he has any presidential ambitions. From watching the Cuomo-Cuomo interviews, one would never know that there was anything amiss in New York. From watching the Cuomo-Cuomo interviews, one would think that all was well in the state that has suffered 31,257 coronavirus deaths.
How does CNN defend this?
The entire point of the news industry is to keep the public well informed. This mission is rarely as important as it is now, as the country struggles to overcome a viral outbreak. But no one who has watched CNN’s Cuomo-Cuomo act is any wiser for it. No public interest has been served, and it is this simple, inescapable fact that makes CNN’s decision to allow these interviews to occur on a regular basis so totally confounding.
If there is a reasonable explanation for what CNN has done for New York’s governor — and surely, there must be something to explain this enormous lapse in journalism ethics — it has yet to provide one.
Indeed, the only thing the network has offered is its silence — and the snickering of the Cuomo boys.
