Alex Berenson on Cuomo nursing home controversy, cancel culture
Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson offers insight on ‘America’s Newsroom.’
Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson is calling out CNN’s lack of coverage of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s nursing home coronavirus scandal, saying the network has a "conflict of interest" when it comes to primetime host, Chris Cuomo.
"CNN has a terrible conflict of interest here," Berenson told Bill Hemmer on "America’s Newsroom" on Tuesday, pointing out the dilemma the liberal network faces.
"I don’t see how CNN can not cover this, but I also don’t see how Chris Cuomo can cover his brother," he added later. "So I don’t know what they’re going to do."
The New York governor is facing bipartisan criticism over his directive, signed into law on March 25 and rescinded in May, which required nursing homes to accept coronavirus-positive patients released from hospitals.
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The governor’s brother, Chris Cuomo, is the anchor of CNN’s "Cuomo Prime Time." The nursing home controversy received no coverage on Chris Cuomo’s program on Monday, Hemmer said.
Berenson argued this conflict is not a new issue for the network.
"[It] was bad months ago, when Andrew Cuomo was being lionized as, you know, the hero of our time," he said. "And people were sort of ignoring the issues around nursing homes then."
For months, the embattled governor has largely found safe harbor during CNN’s primetime lineup. "CNN Tonight" anchor Don Lemon failed to report on the controversy in his two hours on-air. Anderson Cooper, however, did address the scandal Monday night for roughly five minutes. This was the first time he mentioned New York’s nursing home scandal since October, when he briefly confronted the governor on the issue during an interview.
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MSNBC completely avoided the subject throughout its primetime lineup on Monday night. Among the broadcast networks, NBC’s "Nightly News" spent one minute and 37 seconds on the subject, while ABC’s "World News Tonight" spent 33 seconds and "CBS Evening News" spent 25 seconds.
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.