According to Politico, CNN has hired Sarah Isgur as a political editor to coordinate their coverage of the 2020 election. From that article and other sources, here’s what I can piece together about her background:
Harvard Law School – president of the Federalist Society
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit – clerked for Judge Edith Jones, a Reagan nominee
Texans for Ted Cruz – political director
Romney for President – National Operations Day Advisor
Republican National Committee – Deputy Communications Director
Carly [Fiorina] for President – Deputy Campaign Manager
Department of Justice – Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ spokeswoman
Do you notice anything missing from that list? Isgur has never held a job even remotely connected to journalism. As Simon Maloy noted, “CNN has hired a person with zero experience producing news to oversee the production of news.” Up until she was hired by Jeff Sessions, Isgur spent her entire career working as a political operative for various Republican candidates and the RNC. It is hard to imagine what the hell CNN is thinking by putting her in charge of coordinating their 2020 election coverage.
Several people have been digging through Isgur’s Twitter feed. It is just what you might expect. There was that time she promoted a conspiracy theory about Planned Parenthood based on misleadingly-edited videos.
Watch the video Planned Parenthood & its media allies don’t want you to believe exists–> http://t.co/p8t2lR0AP5 via @MZHemingway
— Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons) September 17, 2015
Or the time she defended Trump’s Muslim ban.
Apparently Isgur thinks that Kellyanne Conway is a “real feminist.”
Here are Isgur’s thoughts about why voters are distrustful of reporters.
I could go on, but perhaps you get the idea. None of those tweets are surprising coming from a Republican political operative. But I fail to see anything in this woman’s past that indicates she can approach election coverage with a semblance of balance or objectivity. Even that wouldn’t be enough when we have a man in the White House who is attempting to annihilate the truth.
I realize that our current president has focused his media attacks primarily on CNN. But if this hire is their attempt to rectify that, as Jay Willis suggests, then I feel like a Vulcan from the Star Trek series surrounded by humans.
