A last round of pink slips were doled out to workers hired by the Cable News Network’s short-lived streaming platform CNN+ on Wednesday, according to the Daily Beast, which reports the last 20 or so employees hired to launch the moribund project were finally cut loose.
That report said a department called the Interview Club largely constituted the final round of casualties at CNN+. Some of those impacted by Wednesday’s release allegedly felt they’d been strung along since the platform shutdown in April, just weeks after its launch.
The decision to nix CNN+ came in the aftermath of a massive merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery. One of the most high-profile moves made by CNN+ was the hiring of longtime Fox News veteran Chris Wallace, who was given a show called “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” where the veteran newsman interviews newsmakers running the gamut from business to entertainment. That program was moved to CNN’s cable station, where it got off to a very slow start Sunday.
Months after leaving Fox News at the end of 2021, Wallace was mocked by former colleague Greg Gutfeld who joked that CNN enticed the 74-year-old host with a tempting offer, then left him “on the side of the road” when CNN+ was shuttered.
Wallace told the New York Times he “no longer felt comfortable with the programming” at the right-wing media outlet he called home for nearly two decades. Fox News, which dominates the cable news ratings, is frequently criticized for attracting viewers with dubious reporting that fits a conservative narrative. That network frequently accuses CNN of pushing an opposite bias.
CNN told the Daily Beast that “Leadership has spent the past several months evaluating our business to ensure it is best positioned for the future.”
Those efforts have included adding 300 new jobs, the cable station said.
Business Insider reported Tuesday that CNN had also done away with the Interview Club, which was a CNN+ interactive property that allowed subscribers to ask questions of guests appearing on the network.
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