NewsNation: A Haven for Tarnished Stars of the Left and Right

By J. Max Robins, August 3, 2022

The ink on Chris Cuomo’s signed contract with NewsNation was hardly even dry when The Daily Beast reported that Bill O’Reilly was in negotiations to join the nascent news network, too. Word that these two scandal-ridden ex-cable news stars were on their way to the barely watched outlet reminded me of what Peter Bart, my old boss at Variety, once told me: “Remember lad, they are saluting the general’s car, not the general.” The message in Bart’s quip still holds true. In the entertainment industry  — and the TV news biz is showbiz – it’s the institution that confers power on the individual, not the other way around.

NewsNation – launched last year out of what was formerly known as WGN America – has yet to make a dent in the TV news network wars with its pitch as a truly fair and balanced alternative to Fox News, MSNBC or Cuomo’s alma mater CNN. In an attempt to build brand awareness, the news net is opening up the checkbook for these tarnished stars at bargain basement prices, in what is a time-honored blueprint, albeit one that is seldom successful.

Stars on the Wane

The Cuomo signing and apparent O’Reilly negotiations have raised the profile of NewsNation, only not in a good way. From the right, Fox News took multiple shots at the Cuomo hiring, with the underlying theme that working at NewsNation was akin to joining the Witness Protection Program. From the left, the critics were even nastier, charging the network with putting out a welcome mat for alleged sexual predators, including Cuomo, O’Reilly and former Good Morning America executive producer Michael Corn, who left ABC News in the wake of harassment and assault allegations. On the surface, the chances of Cuomo or O’Reilly turning around the rookie news network’s fortunes appear to rest somewhere between zero and none. But oh, what a point-counterpoint that would make!

The Daily Beast, which broke the news on both O’Reilly and Cuomo, reported that the latter is being paid $700,000 – a fraction of his onetime multimillion dollar CNN pact. Obviously, Cuomo was of no interest to his pre-CNN employer, ABC News. Nobody from MSNBC knocked on the door of his Hampton’s estate either, even though the network’s biggest, star Rachel Maddow, is now a part-timer and Brian Williams, another longtime network news  fixture, left the building last December.

The taint of Cuomo’s CNN firing – after it was revealed he was advising his brother, then Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on sexual harassment charges – and his ensuing vitriol-filled $125 million lawsuit against the network, made him toxic. But even before scandal brought him down, big offers were not coming Cuomo’s way. His primetime success at CNN was much more about the news ratings surge through the Trump and Pandemic years than about Cuomo being a true box office draw. As the network’s founder Ted Turner liked to say: “At CNN, news is the star.”

Late last December, Bill O’Reilly was interviewed on NewsNation, and in his signature self-serving smug-mouthed way, he brayed about the many millions he’d made for Fox News during his almost 20-year run. Indeed, he was a remarkable ratings powerhouse as a mouthpiece, but his success had a lot more to do with his former boss, Roger Ailes. It was Ailes who built Fox News into an almighty money machine, spinning the America First style that super-served an underserved red state crowd. When Ailes hired O’Reilly in 1996, he was hosting the tabloid TV newsmagazine Inside Edition and was hardly a household name. To his credit, Ailes saw in O’Reilly’s barely contained white hot rage something that would connect with the same “silent majority” he had targeted in his political consultant days as Richard Nixon’s media horse (or in this case, elephant) whisperer.

Make Room For Tucker?

In 2016, O’Reilly was dropped from Fox News after it was revealed that millions had been paid to women who had charged him with sexual harassment. A similar fate felled Ailes the following year. In the wake of that dual ouster, Tucker Carlson, who had washed out multiple times elsewhere, emerged as Fox News’ biggest star, taking over the slot once held by Megyn Kelly, who made a disastrous off-brand stumble to NBC News. In a move that was good for the network’s business, if horrible for the cause of democracy, Carlson has veered even further right, in tandem with the rest of Fox News.

Last weekend, pieces in The New York Times, Washington Post and public radio’s On the Media chronicled how Rupert Murdoch had soured on Donald Trump. All these outlets noted that not only had Trump been repeatedly dinged by Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, but Fox News as well. At the same time, Carlson was photographed last weekend yukking it up with The Donald and Marjorie Taylor Greene at Trump’s controversial Bedminster golf tournament. Maybe it was just Carlson’s bad luck that his public bromance with Trump coincided with the chilling of the Murdoch-Trump relationship. Or maybe Carlson believes he’s a big enough star to go against Murdoch and his powerful brand. Stranger things have happened.  Beware Tucker. To paraphrase Ted Turner, Fox News is the real star, not you.

Still, no reason for Carlson to be too concerned. If all else fails, there will certainly be a warm seat waiting for him at NewsNation.

J. Max Robins (@jmaxrobins) is  executive director of the Center for Communication. The former editor-in-chief of Broadcasting & Cable, he has contributed to publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Columbia Journalism Review and Forbes. Read more from J. Max Robins at www.jmaxrobins.com

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