CNN's Oliver Darcy does his damnedest to avoid too deep a dive into Chris Cuomo's 'violation of traditional journalistic standards'

Sarah D | 9:08 PM on May 20, 2021

We can admit when we’ve made a mistake, and we’d like to take this moment to apologize to CNN’s Oliver Darcy.

See, when the Washington Post published their exposé revealing that CNN host Chris Cuomo had advised his brother, New York Gov. Chris Cuomo, on the sexual misconduct allegations against the latter, we assumed — understandably — that Oliver Darcy and Brian Stelter would bend over backward to avert their eyes, at least until they could find the Fox News angle.

But we were wrong. Darcy addressed the scandal this afternoon:

The revelation that Cuomo had advised his brother during strategy sessions has vexed staffers inside CNN. Multiple CNN staffers told me they were bothered by Cuomo's conduct and the violation of traditional journalistic standards. https://t.co/Dg5QWxOxNu

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) May 20, 2021

We should probably note that Darcy’s write-up doesn’t really contain any information that wasn’t already in the Washington Post’s article. In fact, it doesn’t really contain much of anything that could be construed as holding CNN to account.

There is this, though:

The revelation that Cuomo had advised his brother vexed staffers inside CNN. Multiple CNN staffers said they were bothered by Cuomo’s conduct and the violation of traditional journalistic standards.

Journalists typically do not engage in politics so that they can cover the news in an impartial manner.

CNN staffers were vexed, because journalists typically do not engage in politics so that they can cover the news in an impartial man— sorry, we can’t type the rest of that with a straight face.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA https://t.co/Qeo1qoVDOZ

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 20, 2021

https://twitter.com/dcnolava/status/1395461495618736129

Darcy’s write-up definitely would’ve contained a lot more self-righteous indignation if Chris Cuomo worked for Fox News.

If that was the best Oliver Darcy could muster on the subject of a primetime CNN anchor aiding in the coverup of Andrew Cuomo’s COVID19 misconduct while also helping Andrew Cuomo navigate allegations of sexual misconduct and CNN taking absolutely zero meaningful action to address it, then we don’t owe Darcy an apology at all. In fact, we’d say he owes us an apology. For sucking at journalism.

https://twitter.com/WDGoldstein/status/1395463644578828292