Chris Cuomo Skips Avenatti News, Rest of CNN Barely Touches

For anyone who has watched CNN in 2018, the idea of the network skipping a story featuring Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti, or even being dragged kicking and screaming to it rather than enthusiastically covering it in every hour, would have been unthinkable before last night.

Or in the case of one of the biggest Avenatti promoters Chris Cuomo, didn’t cover it at all.

https://twitter.com/MattWolking/status/1062920676527497216

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Alisyn Camerota, who has interviewed Avenatti in the past and even expressed skepticism over some of the allegations he’s made, is a frequent on-air lecturer on feminism and #MeToo. She didn’t mention his name either Thursday morning, even while her co-host, John Berman, briefly reported Avenatti’s denial.

TMZ tweeted their story at 5:46 p.m. The first mention on CNN was by Erin Burnett, when she teased at the top of her show on Wednesday, at 7:01 p.m. In the intervening hour and 15 minutes, the AP confirmed the report, as did Fox News, Buzzfeed, and other news networks. Mediaite’s post went live at 5:59 pm. After Burnett teased it, her actual segment was at 7:41 pm. EST.

Later in the evening on Cuomo Prime Time, Chris Cuomo made no mention of the story, even as breaking news. Not that he is, in general, opposed to reporting stories that are just allegations, or even ones with no corroboration or even arrests made.

After Cuomo was Don Lemon‘s show, which mentioned Avenatti once, in the second hour at 11:29 p.m., for a 2-minute segment, which consisted in large part of his denial and comments from his wife, but nothing from police or the accuser.

On Thursday, after a brief mention on the morning show New Day, the story was not reported on during CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto, a two-hour show.

Avenatti has been a fixture on CNN. During the Don Lemon segment, they referred to him as a “household name.” His client, Stormy Daniels, and her allegations about Donald Trump have been a gigantic story for CNN. As judicial confirmation hearings took place on Capitol Hill, Avenatti and his other client, Julie Swetnick, accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of participating in multiple gang rapes, another story CNN ran exhaustively.

But he did not. And he avoided the topic on social media, too. And even after he was called out on Twitter by consultant Matt Wolking as skipping the story, his only response was to troll a person who was replying to the thread, calling their “trash talk” weak.

Usually, Cuomo is more than happy to tweet about Avenatti.

 

Chris Cuomo Skips Avenatti News, Rest of CNN Barely Touches