Don Lemon To Keep His Job, Undergo 'Formal Training'
CNN will not fire Don Lemon. Instead, the host will undergo something called "formal training" for his remarks about women being used goods after the age of 40.
It's unclear if his training course will address his berating of co-host Kaitlan Collins earlier this year.
CNN CEO Chris Licht made the announcement about Lemon's status in an email Monday after temporarily benching him while pondering his future.
Lemon will return to "CNN This Morning" on Wednesday.
As we wrote Sunday, we didn't support CNN firing Lemon for his remarks about women. He's paid to give his opinion. His opinions are often poor. But it was his behavior that should have classified him as fireable.
We explained:
Hosts should not be able to scold colleagues and belittle them in front of staffers. In December, Lemon berated Kaitlan Collins for talking more than he liked during a segment they shared.
Mistreating a co-worker creates a toxic working environment, diminishing the ability of employees to perform at their best.
It was not Lemon’s job to scold Collins. Or his role to decide how often she can speak on a show she co-hosts.
But more fireable than even Lemon’s diva tendencies is his success, his lack of success that is.
Only viewers despise Lemon to the degree his colleagues do. Only Lemon’s pal Bomani Jones is draining ratings harder than he.
Don Lemon hosted the lowest-rated cable news show in primetime (among Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN) before his demotion last fall. Post-demotion, he derailed CNN’s morning show to lows not seen in a decade.
His struggles in the morning have rippled up the entire lineup. He tanks the channel so low during the morning hours that subsequent CNN hosts are unable to dig the network out of the hole.
CNN as a whole recently set a nine-year low with Demoted Don as the first face viewers see to start the day.
Apparently Demoted Don was privileged enough to survive offenses his counterparts would never have.
We wish Don well in his training course.