Poor, poor Chris Wallace.
Well, perhaps poor is the incorrect word. Wallace comes from a prominent broadcasting family and he just scored a $9 million contract from his new employer, which doesn’t exactly make him penurious unless he lives like Floyd Mayweather or Saudi royalty. The problem is that his new employer — or at least the division he was employed at — is/was CNN+.
That’s the ambitious streaming service that cost $300 million to launch, according to the New York Post, but couldn’t draw more than 10,000 active users on any given day in the one month it was live. Right now, there’s probably some 18-year-old broadcasting himself playing the video game “Elden Ring” and yelling obscenities at the screen who’s drawing double those viewership numbers.
What’s more, Wallace had taken pot-shots at Fox News on his way out the door, implying the network was a hive of journalistic malpractice. Reports now state that Wallace is aiming to replace Chris Cuomo during CNN’s 9 p.m. primetime lineup.
Cuomo, you might remember, was fired by CNN for alleged sexual improprieties after being allowed to commit gross journalistic malpractice by propping up his brother’s lies about how well New York was doing battling COVID-19. (That brother, the now-former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was also forced out of office not due to gross gubernatorial malpractice, either, but — you guessed it — alleged sexual improprieties.)
Greg Gutfeld remains at Fox News, where he’s a co-host of “The Five.” On Thursday, as CNN+ announced it was shuttering its doors, he couldn’t help but gloat in the irony.
The first shot came during a segment about the scarcity of up-and-coming Democratic Party leadership, particularly since President Joe Biden seems a bit wobbly and Vice President Kamala Harris is nothing if not unready.
“OK, so you see Hillary was supposed to come back. You got Bernie, you got Mitt — the Democratic bench is thinner than Chris Wallace’s demo reel from CNN+,” Gutfeld quipped.
Fox’s Greg Gutfeld has been taking shots at Chris Wallace on The Five this evening: “The Democratic bench is thinner than Chris Wallace’s demo reel from CNN Plus.” pic.twitter.com/zzwXiAEN9X
— Kevin Tober (@KevinTober94) April 21, 2022
Later, during a bit about crime in New York City, the panel discussed the effect the controversial leadership of the Black Lives Matter movement in the city.
Referring to inflammatory comments made by BLM Greater New York co-founder Hawk Newsome on Thursday regarding New York City Mayor Eric Adams, co-host Joey Jones told Gutfeld, “Greg, this guy has appointed himself as leader of the BLM movement in New York. It’s the same guy who said there would be blood on the streets if Mayor Adams was elected.”
“BLM has done to black people what Chris Wallace did to CNN+: Entice them with a promise and then ditch them on the side of the road,” Gutfeld responded.
“I’m going to do this every segment, so just get used to it,” Gutfeld said, smiling.
During a segment on crime and poverty in New York City Gutfeld gets in another shot at Chris Wallace: “BLM has done to black people what Chris Wallace has done to CNN+. Entice them with a promise and then ditch them on the side of the road.” pic.twitter.com/oT4IwvTXnj
— Kevin Tober (@KevinTober94) April 21, 2022
During another segment, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro said, “I was sitting next to a guy who was drunk on a plane and he vomited all over me.”
“Was it Chris Wallace?” Gutfeld responded.
Judge Jeanine: “I was sitting next to a guy who was drunk on a plane and he vomited all over me.”
Gutfeld: “Was it Chris Wallace?” pic.twitter.com/USiBI8CYuf
— Kevin Tober (@KevinTober94) April 21, 2022
“You know, I had nothing to come up with, and that just fit perfectly. I’m done now, I think,” Gutfeld concluded.
Usually, one wouldn’t want to rub Wallace’s face in failure.
However, the veteran broadcaster made a big show about how stained he felt by his time at Fox News in the wake of the 2020 election.
During an interview in The New York Times in March, he couldn’t draw a specific line between any piece of reportage at Fox News and mass conspiracy theorizing, but you got the gist.
“I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion,” Wallace said.
“But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable.
“I spent a lot of 2021 looking to see if there was a different place for me to do my job,” he told the newspaper that long ago abandoned journalism to function as a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement in general.
Sources said he spent a lot of April of 2022 looking to see if there were a different place for him to do his job, as well.
SOURCE: Chris Wallace is “having daily breakdowns” over the “miserable launch” of @CNNplus. Wants a “CNN show or is threatening to walk” they go on. “He is having staffers count how many times a day his promo is playing”
— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) April 12, 2022
Former Mediaite managing editor Jon Nicosia reported on April 12 that sources inside the network said Wallace was “having daily breakdowns” over the “miserable launch” of the service. Furthermore, he was demanding a “CNN show or is threatening to walk.”
This is just an assumption, but I’m guessing there’s not an opening at “The Five.”
Authored by C. Douglas Golden via The Western Journal
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