Chris Cuomo is fabulist Brian Williams all over again, but this time with a side order of Typhoid Mary, and the Guardians of Journalism remain in hiding to protect their precious place at the golden trough.
Imagine if CNN’s Chris Cuomo was Fox News’s Sean Hannity, and it was Sean Hannity who tested positive for the coronavirus. It was Sean Hannity who then announced he would continue to host his weeknight show from home while ill, but do so bravely and selflessly from the lonely confines of his basement quarantine.
Imagine Sean Hannity then making the show all about Sean Hannity, all about Sean Hannity’s noble sacrifice to quarantine himself, all about his loneliness at being removed from a family that is just one flight of stairs away, a flight he dare not ascend for fear of infecting them — his worst fear, something he could not live with.
Imagine if Sean Hannity went so far as to shame those unwilling to make his sacrifice — if, night after night, he sanctimoniously exploited his role as a coronavirus victim to lecture America about following the rules, respecting the guidelines, about how dangerous and selfish those are who do not make the sacrifices Sean Hannity is making.
Imagine Sean Hannity and Fox News making Sean Hannity’s emergence from his basement a network event, an event centered on a brave and magnanimous hero who gave up so much for so long, who had been through a month of hell in order to protect his loved ones and the rest of us from his infection.
And now imagine if we discovered it was all a lie, a fraud.
Now imagine if we discovered Sean Hannity not only violated his quarantine, but went outside.
Now imagine if we discovered Sean Hannity — while knowing he was infected with a deadly disease already responsible for the death of 45,000 Americans — was out and about with his wife and kids on Easter Sunday, had taken a 30 minute drive around the hot spots of New York to hang around outside at a property he’s developing in East Hampton.
And now imagine, if after discovering all that, we learned Sean Hannity’s wife and 14-year-old son tested positive for the coronavirus.
And in imagining that, we all see the same outcome for Sean Hannity, a just outcome of public disgrace and unemployment.
But it was not Sean Hannity who, night after night, lied to his viewers about a selfless and grueling quarantine we now know he flagrantly and recklessly violated… It was Chris Cuomo.
And it was not Fox News that staged a fake news event surrounding Sean Hannity’s basement resurrection…. It was CNN.
And it was Chris Cuomo who — unforgivably — while knowing he was infected and therefore infectious, ran around New York with his family, gallivanted around in a state with the world’s hottest hot spot, and risked infecting others for no valid reason.
And now Cuomo’s wife and teenage son have tested positive. Thankfully, Cuomo’s wife appears to be okay, but despite his age, Cuomo’s son could still be in for a very rough time.
So what we have in Chris Cuomo and CNN is a Rathergate-level media scandal, and a narcissistic sociopath who knew he was infectious with a deadly disease and still ran around in public.
So where are the Guardians of Journalism?
Where are the Guardians of Journalism who assure and reassure us they are unbiased and objective monitors of their storied institution?
Where’s CNN’s Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy? Where’s the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, Margaret Sullivan, and Paul Farhi?
Where’s Fox News’s Howard Kurtz? The New York Times’s Ben Smith, the Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik, NBC’s Dylan Byers, Politico’s Jack Shafer… Where’s Pro Publica, where are the godless fact checkers?
I reached out to a few of these media writers. The Post’s Erik Wemple was the only one who responded on the record: “The way that CNN portrayed Chris Cuomo’s self-isolation and his eventual reintegration is a matter of public concern, just like the primetime programming on any other network.”
While I appreciate the response, there’s simply nothing on any other news network that rises to this level of fraud, recklessness, and hypocrisy.
I don’t want to single out Wemple. He was the only one good enough to comment. But my God, what a group of corrupt toadies and phonies…
The entire corporate media are right now blasting away at everyday people out protesting for their human rights during this lockdown, while they look the other way as one of their very own not only violated his quarantine while infectious with a deadly disease, but openly and brazenly lied about his role as America’s Quarantine Hero.
Do the media not grasp that when they look the other way, the mud gets on all of them? Do they not understand that their enabling of this corruption muddies their own reputation? It’s the ultimate naked emperor moment. We all know what Cuomo did, and we all know that the Guardians of Journalism know, so we can only judge their silence as consent — consent for blatant and obscene fraud in their own storied institution — which is apparently okay — you know, as long as it’s not Sean Hannity and serves an “approved” political outcome and protects the trough.
Shame on all of you.
We see you.
Never forget that we see you.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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