CNN Fires Rick Sanchez

After a day of controversy brought on by his bizarre remarks about Jon Stewart and Jews, Rick Sanchez is out at CNN:

Rick Sanchez, a daytime anchor at CNN, was fired on Friday, a day after telling a radio interviewer that Jon Stewart was a bigot and that “everybody that runs CNN is a lot like Stewart.”

The latter comment was made shortly after Mr. Stewart’s faith, Judiasm, was invoked.

CNN said in a statement Friday evening, “Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well.”

Quite honestly, I’ve wondered why CNN didn’t can the guy sooner for bad ratings and even worse reporting.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Herb says:

    “Quite honestly, I’ve wondered why CNN didn’t can the guy sooner for bad ratings and even worse reporting. ”

    I thought that’s why they HIRED him….

  2. MarkedMan says:

    I listened to the interview, and I don’t think it was an offense worth being fired over. I don’t know anything about Sanchez, have never watched his show, so I can’t comment on other reasons to fire him. I think it was something he should have been asked to apologize for, or at least explain, since his comments could certainly have been interpreted as “John Stewart is a Jew, and a lot of his network bosses are Jews, and those Jews look down at people like me.” If that’s what he meant, it’s offensive, but not nearly in the same category as comments about some groups supposed lack of intelligence, or that it is a known fact that “Muslim life is cheap”.

    Of course, it is possible he was told to apologize and he refused.