Tag: Political journalism

Leah Millis/Reuters Sarah Isgur Flores, a Republican spokeswoman who worked most recently for the Justice Department, has been hired by CNN to help with the network’s political coverage, propelling a Trump administration official directly into a news role for a top cable network. Her hiring as a “political editor,” not a commentator, led to internal and external criticism of CNN for placing a Republican political operative in a position to help guide daily political coverage, including 2020 presidential campaign news. In an internal memo on Wednesday announcing the hire, CNN’s Washington bureau chief, Sam Feist, said Ms. Isgur would spend the first few months getting to know CNN, and then “play a coordinating role” in covering politics. She previously worked as a deputy campaign manager for Carly Fiorina, a Republican who ran for president during the 2016 election. And years ago she retweeted a comment from a conservative news outlet that referred to her new employer as the “Clinton News Network.” Mr. Feist’s memo on Wednesday came after a flurry of concern — and in some cases, deep frustration — voiced by members of the network’s political staff, according to two people familiar with the complaints. CNN has previously showed a willingness to hire employees from conservative-leaning news outlets and organizations, arguing that ideological diversity is helpful in ensuring robust coverage. Some prominent journalists have forged careers in news after working in politics, including George Stephanopoulos, who was hired as a contributing correspondent for ABC News in 1996 after serving as one of President Bill Clinton’s closest advisers. His move from the Clinton White House to ABC News — initially as a partisan member of a Sunday political panel, who would also do some reporting — raised hackles inside and outside the network at the time. David Axelrod, the chief political strategist for both of President Barack Obama’s campaigns, was hired by NBC News as an analyst in 2013, and has since moved to CNN. But Ms. Isgur is joining the network as a political editor, not a pundit, and departing an administration in which the president routinely criticizes the news media, including CNN.