WHAT MEDIA BIAS? CNN won't renew Eliana Johnson's contract after she moved from Politico to head the Washington Free Beacon

Congratulations to Politico’s Eliana Johnson on her move to the Washington Free Beacon!

Looking forward to my new gig, very grateful for my three years at ⁦@politico. https://t.co/HCJJQfn60U

— Eliana Johnson (@elianayjohnson) September 4, 2019

But because of this move, CNN is dropping her as a paid political analyst:

A top political reporter got a new job today running a conservative outlet.

She also then learned her CNN contract would not be renewed. https://t.co/q8mnM0T76c

— Matt Berman (@Mr_Berman) September 4, 2019

CNN’s PR guy Matt Dornic explained that her contract won’t be renewed because she’s no longer a reporter:

This framing is misleading. Eliana is still a CNN contrib & will remain one through Nov. We signed her because, as you put it, “she was a top White House reporter” who was “breaking significant news.” She’s now pursuing a different career path and off that beat. Simple as that.

— Matt Dornic (@mdornic) September 5, 2019

So Johnson doesn’t make the cut but Playboy’s Brian Karem does?

What do you guys pay this person for pic.twitter.com/nPWU1Ckqvw

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) September 5, 2019

And Dornic was quite unhappy with BuzzFeed for even reporting on it:

An email blast! Curious move by a paid contributor’s new newsroom. and congrats to Buzzfeed for helping fuel this nonsense. Hope you get all the clicks! pic.twitter.com/bKUSXBfLZz

— Matt Dornic (@mdornic) September 5, 2019

Recommended

Jimmy Kimmel's Oscars' Swipe at 'Countries Whose Leaders Don't Support Free Speech' Was, Well, STUPID

Doug P.

Advertisement

Stay tuned, but this already isn’t going over well with Johnson’s new colleagues:

I was just in the subway and a small Hispanic child came up to me and said “Eliana Johnson is awesome and Brian Karem is a fabulist hack and CNN should reconsider who is and is not a contributor.”

We all clapped.

— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) September 5, 2019

And then he was like “remember how Brian Karem’s only scoop in his entire career was that Maryland police were investigating a new Kavanaugh complaint and it was complete BS?” Smart kid, Esteban!

— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) September 5, 2019

idk if this is coming across in my tweets but I genuinely hate Brian Karem and the fact that I even know his name represents a complete failure of the mainstream media’s guardrails

— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) September 5, 2019

***