5 Correspondents from CNN Let Go, Entire Sister Network Gutted: Report
CNN’s latest round of cuts has led to the axing of five correspondents, according to new reports.
Chris Cillizza, Alison Kosik, Martin Savidge, Alex Field and Mary Ann Fox were let go, according to a report in Variety.
CNN’s sister network HLN, will be stripped of live programming, the report said, with the current “Morning Express” show being replaced with “CNN This Morning,” the report said.
+ Robin Meade and other HLN anchors will lose jobs. HLN will simulcast CNN This Morning in place of Meade’s show. Crime programming will be synergized with Discovery’s iD.
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) December 1, 2022
A report in The Washington Post said that overall, “hundreds” of people will lose their jobs at CNN. In its effort to assess the size of the cuts, CNBC estimated that about 400 people out of CNN’s roughly 4,400 workers were let go.
In running down the details, the Daily Mail noted that Cillizza formerly wrote for The Washington Post before joining CNN in 2017.
Kosik, 51, covered the New York Stock Exchange and has been with CNN for 15 years. The Mail estimated her salary to be between $100,000 and $145,143. Field, 31, has been working from CNN’s Hong Kong office and makes what the Mail estimated at $144,167. Savidge, 64, has worked as an anchor and correspondent at CNN’s Atlanta studio.
Chris Cillizza is one of the CNN staffers who have been let go in the latest round of layoffs by Chris Licht, according to @bristei:https://t.co/ZWDKSjkEYs pic.twitter.com/c4KhRYsi3O
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) December 1, 2022
Fox, Vice President of Northeast News, had been with CNN since 2014 and oversaw the New York Bureau. The Mail pegged her salary at around $1 million.
The demise of live programming at HLN means Robin Meade, 53, is out of a job after 21 years. The Mail estimated her salary at $3 million.
The memo from CNN boss Chris Licht to employees that was released Thursday, said that CNN is “also shifting our approach to paid contributors. In some areas, we will rely more on our CNN journalists,” according to CNBC.
CNN has over a hundred paid on-air contributors, most earn a six figure income to appear when needed. The highest profile contributors earn $500,000 annually for their sporadic part-time work. They’re the group being trimmed first, as hundreds of layoffs begin at the network.
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) December 1, 2022
Programming staff will “see some reductions in show staffs and, in some cases, the combination of teams for our dayside and weekend lineups,” the memo said.
In terms of its newsgathering efforts, Licht wrote that “We are restructuring across some of our beats, realigning resources to staff up in some units and in more areas around the country.”
CNN took a massive wrecking ball to what remains of HLN’s live programming by making the idiotic decision to pink-slip Robin Meade and the Morning Express crew as part of the company’s mass layoffs. https://t.co/vQXXvDKd2z
— Justin Gibson (@JGibsonDem) December 1, 2022
The memo from Licht announcing the cuts had a shout-out to Meade.
“I want to take a moment to thank Robin Meade — she is not only an exceptionally popular anchor, but also one of the longest-running morning hosts in history. I know the HLN audience will miss her and the other HLN talent,” Licht wrote.
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