ABC News doesn’t want you to know that the sexual abuse claims against former ABC host Chris Cuomo happened at ABC. CNN recently fired Cuomo as a cable anchor.
Initial reports indicated that Cuomo had been fired because he repeatedly lied about helping to discredit accusers against Andrew Cuomo (the former governor of New York). On Sunday however, Cuomo was accused by a woman of sexual harassment at ABC. (Cuomo left ABC for CNN in 2013.)
But ABC doesn’t want you do know that. While all three networks covered the Cuomo firing from Sunday morning, only NBC mentioned that the incident occurred while he worked at ABC. This is what it looked like on Monday Good Morning America guest co-host TJ Holmes explained it: “We turn now to the new accusation against now fired CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. A former colleague at another network, not at CNN, is accusing him of sexual misconduct.”
What about another network? Yeah, TJ, that network is ABC, the one you’re broadcasting from.
Reporter Erielle Reshef repeated the preferred phrase of “another network.”
However, there are new accusations of sexual misconduct. Chris Cuomo was referred by a junior employee at another network. An attorney for the woman, who also represents one of Andrew Cuomo’s accusers, saying, “hearing the hypocrisy of Chris Cuomo’s on-air words and disgusted by his efforts to try to discredit these women, my client retained counsel to report his serious sexual misconduct against her to CNN.” A spokesperson for Chris, saying in a statement, “if the goal in making these false and unvetted accusations was to see Mr. Cuomo punished by CNN, that may explain his unwarranted termination.”
ABC is not new to this. Last week, ABC downplayed the initial suspension of Cuomo by CNN for working to dismiss the sexual accusers against his brother. The network only allowed 28 seconds for the negative news about their host on Tuesday.
On Sunday’s NBC Nightly News, reporter Kathy Park played a clip of CNN’s Reliable sourcesIn which the journalist pointed out that ABC had made the claim of abuse.
KATHY PARK: Another fallout for CNN’s anchor Chris Cuomo. He was fired last weekend and is now being investigated on a sexual misconduct accusation.
BRIAN STELTER [on CNN’s Reliable Sources, 12/05/21]: I have no idea what the allegation is right now. Nothing’s really been reported about it publicly other than the fact this staffer worked with Cuomo at ABC.
PARK: Cuomo’s rep says, “the apparently anonymous allegations are not true.”
Meanwhile on Monday, Cuomo quit his SiriusXM radio show. A Cuomo spokesman seemed to indicate that CNN President Jeff Zucker knew everything, at least about what he did to defend his brother. The statement said this about Zucker:
The highest respect and admiration Mr. Cuomo shows for Mr. Zucker is his. They were widely known to be extremely close and in regular contact, including about the details of Mr. Cuomo’s support for his brother. As Mr. Cuomo and other witnesses can confirm, there were no secrets..
How did CNN find out this information? These are the key questions. When will ABC journalists be able to admit these allegations against former colleagues? GMAWhat was the host’s experience at the network?
[Thanks to NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck for transcripts.]
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