by Greta Van Susteren, FOX News
They did it again! CNN fires people just in time for Christmas! Make you sick?
People often ask why I left CNN…..I didn’t like management. I liked my colleagues in the news gathering but the corporate culture that seized management when AOL came in (Steve Case and Gerry Levin) was disgusting. Everything changed. Don’t get me wrong - I like corporate organization and a corporation should make money - what I don’t like is a mean spirited selfish management that, despite not doing its job of efficiently running the company, lines it pockets. And then the topper? because the management didn’t run the company well, CNN fires loyal people to meet some bottom line the management failed to meet. Blame the little guy not the way the company is run? Go figure! Well….CNN management did not disappoint me yesterday…meaning, it met my low expectations.
Frankly, in these tough economic times, there is / was a way NOT to have this happen at CNN.
Maybe CNN management should not have spent millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars on ads, billboards, plastic bags, full page newspaper and magazine color ads etc. saying how great they are and instead thought about the people who work there 24/7 and thought about their kids and their mortgages etc…because frankly CNN management is not thinking that this holiday season (or years past.) Think of how many CNN families could have a much different Christmas than they are now having if CNN had stopped talking about themselves in these ridiculous multi million dollar ad campaigns.
Want a specific example? Remember the ad campaign about CNN heroes show??? CNN was honoring heroes but the way they did it makes you wonder if it was not just a stunt! They placed millions of dollars of ads about itself all over the place (I can only imagine the cost!) That was absurd! The anchor was the giant person in the ad as though the anchor were a hero and the actual heroes? tiny, tiny pictures! Doesn’t that say it all? What was that message? You know the message…..
CNN goes way over the top with these multi million dollar ad campaigns - more than any other network - and does not think of the proverbial little guy……. the people who have been so loyal for years at CNN. Yes, yesterday CNN management fired - just in time for the holidays - a bunch of people….including many on air people who are my friends. Merry Christmas!
Yes, I confess I still have not recovered from the cruelty of the firings of my good friends in December 2001…I was so disappointed with CNN then, that within days that December 2001 I bolted for Fox….for a then lesser salary. I have never looked back.
