Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo on Wednesday filed an arbitration demand against the network. His December firing, it argues, has diminished his prospects: “Cuomo has had his journalistic integrity unjustifiably smeared, making it difficult if not impossible for Cuomo to find similar work in the future and damaging him in amounts exceeding $125 million.”
There’s an irony surrounding that claim: If Cuomo’s reputation has already been injured, his arbitration demand itself may deepen the wounds. The 32-page complaint, after all, hinges at least in part on un-journalistic arguments that’ll likely stick to Cuomo, whatever his future professional exploits.
The demand prolongs a CNN dysfunction funk that began in 2020, when network boss Jeff Zucker made an exception to existing rules so that Chris Cuomo could do a series of cheeky interviews with his brother, then New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. That bled into 2021, with revelations that Chris Cuomo had helped Andrew Cuomo’s staffers rebut sexual-harassment allegations, and deepened last November, when the New York attorney general released documents exposing the extent of Chris Cuomo’s involvement, helping to trigger the anchor’s dismissal from CNN (another factor was a sexual-misconduct allegation against Cuomo, which the arbitration demand calls “entirely fabricated.”) The scandal culminated early this year, forcing Zucker to resign under pressure, ostensibly for failing to disclose a relationship with fellow CNN executive...
A person in his 30s who demanded compensation for alleged foreign substances in cup noodles and the absence of meat in stir-fried pork was sentenced to prison in both the first trial and the appel...