Former CNN anchor Don Lemon trashed his ex-boss and “unqualified” white men in general in a long-winded, racially charged essay about the end of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Lemon’s outrageous comments came in a Substack screed published Thursday that noted Chris Licht came from CBS to CNN, where he eventually axed the journo.
The journo referred to Licht, who was an executive producer for Colbert before becoming chair and CEO of CNN, as “one of the most spectacular examples of a white man failing up that I have witnessed in this industry.
“Profoundly unqualified. Visibly incompetent. Elevated anyway,” the ex-anchor raved. “Because that is how that world protects certain people and discards others. And the people it discards are almost always the ones making the powerful uncomfortable.”
Licht’s tumultuous 13-month reign at CNN — which included a mandate from higher-ups to move the network’s left-leaning coverage toward the political center — was marred by slumping ratings and sinking employee morale, as well as the disastrous launch of a new morning show.
That program was helmed by Kaitlan Collins, Poppy Harlow and Lemon, who was ousted after he made sexist remarks about politician Nikki Haley and clashed with his co-anchors.
In his blog post, titled “Don’t cry for Stephen Colbert. Cry for the First Amendment,” Lemon did not address his own missteps but opted to focus on race.
TV “is a world that has been extraordinarily good to a very specific kind of person. White men who fail spectacularly and are promoted for it,” he wrote.
“White men who make catastrophic decisions and are handed bigger offices for it. White men who are visibly, demonstrably unqualified and are given more power anyway.”
Lemon claimed his ouster stemmed from his criticism of Republicans.
“The networks didn’t like me asking conservatives hard questions. CNN didn’t like the mirror I was holding up every night,” he wrote.
“So they pushed me out. And I thought: if it happened to me it will happen to others. It will trickle down. Or up. Depending on how you look at it. Now it has trickled all the way to late night television.”
Lemon noted Colbert’s show was losing $40 million to $50 million a year, according to CBS.
But he emphasized what’s “also true” is that Colbert’s “cancellation” was announced “two days after Colbert publicly criticized Trump’s settlement with Paramount, CBS’s parent company, over a ’60 Minutes’ interview with Kamala Harris.“
Calling Colbert “brilliant,” Lemon said the late-night host will find a new chapter after his last show on Thursday, adding that the “real victim” is the First Amendment and journalism.
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