CNN Replaces Anchor On Maternity Leave, Remains The Most Trusted Name In Screwing Things Up
Female staff members at CNN are pissed off after “new Day” co-anchor Kate Bolduan was replaced on Friday during her maternity leave by Alisyn Camerota, who had been filling in for Bolduan during her absence. First of all, that’s a pretty gross move. Second, the spelling ‘Alisyn’ a sign of everything that is wrong with everything. And third, I’ve been in shoes similar to Bolduan’s and it sucks.
A few years ago I worked at a local hospital. When I got pregnant, I was given a very generous maternity leave and someone was hired to temporarily take over my job while I was gone. When I came back from leave, one of my co-workers made it known in no uncertain terms that she preferred my replacement to me and shared this with our boss. Loudly.
Welcome back! Glad to be here.
Having someone else temporarily do your job can be really uncomfortable, despite the benefit you get in return. And it’s because of situations like this one, which understandably has other women at CNN very angry. An anonymous source told Page Six that the way CNN President Jeff Zucker handled the change was inappropriate:
”The manner in which Jeff did it is angering female staffers ”¦ They took [Bolduan] out while she was on maternity leave and buried it on a day when there’s serious news.”
New Day has been suffering from poor ratings and rumors of discord between the show’s three hosts, Bolduan, Chris Cuomo, and Michaela Pereira. But according to The Daily Mail, “…it was expected that CNN would wait until Bolduan returned from spending time with new baby Cecilia to make any changes.”
Right. Because that would be the non-shitty thing to do.
Taking maternity leave is difficult enough as it is, whether you only take a few weeks off or a few months. When you take months off, as Bolduan (who has been off since September) and I did, sometimes there is stress around taking your job back from whoever was doing it while you were gone, whether that is self-induced or company-induced. If companies like CNN are going to offer generous leaves to their employees, then their employees should be able to take advantage of them without fearing for their jobs.
(Photo: Twitter via @goinsidemedia)
