CNN head 'guilt-tripped' Andrew Cuomo to go on 'love-a-thon' shows with brother: book
Top executives at CNN repeatedly pressured former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to appear on his brother's primetime show during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new book.
In "What’s Left Unsaid," former Cuomo secretary Melissa DeRosa said that the network wanted to use the former governor to boost ratings. When she objected and told them he wasn't available to appear one particular evening, then-CNN president Jeff Zucker and chief marketing officer Allison Gollust called Andrew Cuomo and "guilt-tripped him into changing his mind," The Daily Beast reported.
"In DeRosa’s telling, this occurred at the height of the pandemic when the Cuomo brothers’ 'love-a-thon' segments had become a staple of CNN’s weeknight programming, with the network riding the wave of high ratings despite the obvious conflict of interest issues stemming from a CNN journalist interviewing his politician brother," The Beast's report stated.
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DeRosa writes that she didn't initially have a problem with the then-governor appearing on his brother Chris Cuomo's show and that media critics who normally would have criticized the appearances expressed approval.
“While things may have appeared rosy to viewers at home, behind the scenes the arrangement began to cause agita and became a source of consternation between the governor and me,” she writes.
Read the full report over at The Daily Beast.