Sure, there's climate change and the global surge of authoritarianism. But have you seen a CNN Panel? Now that's demoralizing. Various commentators from Both Sides are assembled around a venerable newsman—normally, Anderson Cooper or Jake Tapper—to speak in rapidly escalating tone and volume about the news-like objects of the day. Some, like Rick Santorum, are paid by CNN to defend the president no matter what he does. Some in the coming 2020 campaign cycle will be paid to promote Donald Trump's various opponents. And one, it seems, may be Sarah Isgur, the former chief spokesperson to Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.

Sarah Isgur LEAH MILLIS/Newscom

Yes, the ex-communications principal for Donald Trump's former attorney general may show up on some of the hundreds of CNN Panels to come. But she won't just be a Rick Santorum-style "CNN contributor." CNN has hired her as a "political editor" who, according to Politico, "will coordinate political coverage for the 2020 campaign." That's right: a just-departed Trump administration communications operative will help coordinate a major news network's coverage of his re-election campaign—and those of his Democratic opponents. This situation is complicated by a number of factors:

Isgur has no journalistic experience of any kind, but she did work for the Republican National Committee, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, and Mitt Romney.

Because of the conflict she brings to the job, CNN says Isgur will not play any role covering the Department of Justice. Is this the only area where there's a conflict?

AT&T acquired Time Warner, which owns CNN, last year—a deal which was met with opposition from the Justice Department that Isgur recently left. AT&T's CEO reportedly floated selling CNN at one point to get the deal through. A 30-year veteran executive of AT&T took control of properties including CNN, HBO, and Warner Bros. studios after the acquisition, promising a hands-off approach. CNN President Jeff Zucker reports directly to him.

The Washington Post reported that, because she'd criticized Trump during the campaign, he refused to hire her until Sessions brought her to the Oval Office and she promised our Large Adult President she would be loyal. Was it just a promise, or did she sign a loyalty oath or non-disclosure agreement like many other White House employees?

Did we mention she's a right-wing political operative who's never produced a news story?

Oh, there's also the tweets, as flagged by Vox's Aaron Rupar:

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Boom--> RT @FreeBeacon: The Clinton News Network is back! — Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons) June 17, 2014

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just saw 100 ft wave surfing clip on CNN...way more interesting that carney's surfing over "truth" and "accuracy" — Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons) October 29, 2013

No wonder some CNN employees are "demoralized" by the hire, according to a Daily Beast report. The network employs hundreds, if not thousands of actual journalists who do great work. Meanwhile, Isgur has also pushed conspiracy theories about Planned Parenthood, was "in regular contact" with the guy pushing the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, peddled the intriguing statistic that "92 percent of jobs lost in Obama's first term belonged to women," and...this:

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Left refuses 20wk ban on abortion (kills thousands) but demonizes conservatives over standing up for 2nd Amendment bc...guns. Cc @Lawrence — Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons) June 16, 2016

That's all standard operating procedure for a Republican operative, but it's the kind of information-sharing you don't associate with journalism. That, of course, would be the problem, assuming CNN hired her to be a journalist. The network is already in damage control, primarily by giving statements to Brian Stelter, the network's Chief Media Correspondent who hosts Reliable Sources, which is a media criticism show. Here was Stelter's initial insight into the hiring:

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"GOP operative joins CNN" is getting a LOT of criticism, especially from Dems. But love it or hate it, political insiders have been joining newsrooms for decades. The more viewpoints represented in newsrooms, the better. As for the critiques, @CNNPR declined to comment. — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 19, 2019

Love it or hate it, they just hired a political operative to run coverage of the candidate whose organization she just left, and Stelter can't offer anything beyond these platitudes about Different Perspectives in his role as...checks notes...a media critic. The problem with Isgur is not her "viewpoint"—though her politics have, in the past, made her a Reliable Source for bad information—but the fact that she was working for Trump like ten minutes ago. But while we're on the viewpoint discussion, will the next CNN Panel feature a Democratic Socialist now that Bernie Sanders is running and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a rising star in American politics?

A CNN Panel on the smaller end CNN

Don't hold your breath. Just look at the defense of the hire Stelter got from various CNN executives in his newsletter last night:

I have also spoken with CNN executives who defended Isgur's appointment. They described her an exceptional person whose political experience will improve CNN's coverage.

There are plenty of exceptional people who lost actual journalism jobs in just the last month or so, and have actual journalistic experience, and have none of Isgur's conflicts. They could do the job. In a best case, Isgur can "improve CNN's coverage" because she has sources in the administration. You know, because she just left.

The fact is, political insiders have been joining newsrooms for decades. The executives pointed to past examples like George Stephanopoulos, who went from Clinton White House to the ABC News anchor chair. (But Stephanopoulos moved much, much more slowly from politics to journalism. He was an ABC political analyst for several years before becoming a host.)

Stelter, to his credit, just dismantled that one.

"The notion that she isn't qualified for this role is absurd," a source told me Tuesday night. "There are plenty of examples of people going from high profile political jobs to news networks. George Stephanopolous. Nicolle Wallace. Dana Perino. Tim Russert. And those are anchors with huge platforms at their networks. She is one of more than a dozen people who will be helping coordinate our political coverage. She is highly qualified to do so."

Tim Russert is one thing. But is Dana Perino—a longtime fixture of The Five on Fox News—really what CNN is shooting for in its 2020 coverage? Maybe so. Meanwhile, Soledad O'Brien suggested on Twitter that the anchor comparison isn't even an apt one. And notice nowhere does this executive spell out Isgur's "high qualifications" to be a journalist, presumably because the executive does not see a difference between political communications—in which Isgur does have qualifications—and journalism.

Brian Stelter CNN

Certainly, no one at CNN could be dumb enough to think this hire will stop the president screaming at them that they're Fake News and getting in fights with Jim Acosta at every press conference. It will not convince the Red Hats that CNN is a trusted source of information. The best-case scenario is that Isgur's is closer to a Santorum role, going on-air to defend the president no matter what he does in order to create WWE conflict with other panelists. This offers zero value to the viewer—if I'm paid to defend the American League's designated-hitter rule regardless of the merits, would you put the same stock in my defense of the designated-hitter rule?—but it's better than a Republican operative overseeing coverage of Elizabeth Warren's campaign. Or the ex-boss to whom she promised loyalty in exchange for a job.

This is just another thing to look forward to about the 2020 campaign, which you can rest assured will be completely and utterly pooched by the various High Priests in the Church of Both Sides. Isgur must be hired so there can be Different Viewpoints, like the fact that Warren's Native American ancestry claim deserves 80 times the coverage that her plan to allow a corporation's employees to elect 40 percent of the corporate board does.

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That's because CNN President Jeff Zucker, who made his name in reality TV, considers politics to be the same game. He's called his pro-Trump panelists "characters in a drama." They are paid to stir up controversy and keep eyeballs glued to the screen, not to make viewers better informed about what's going on in the world. That's how you get someone like Jeffrey Lord, the longtime CNN contributor who called Trump "the Martin Luther King of healthcare" and then was invited back on CNN's airwaves twice more that day to defend his comments in discussions with African-American hosts and contributors. It was the most disgusting kind of theater, dragging the name of a Civil Rights icon through the mud as part of an effort to muddy the waters around the Republican plan to strip millions of people of their healthcare coverage.

But none of that was actually material to the people who make the final decisions about CNN's on-air programming. There's a kind of nihilism to it befitting of the Trump Era, a strict amorality in pursuit of eyeballs and advertising revenue. Very rarely does the notion break through that, for many people, politics is a matter of life and death. Unlike Survivor, the outcomes for many people are very real. It's not just about whether politicians will be "civil"—a sacrament in the Church of Both Sides—but whether they will make it even harder to see a doctor or go to college without taking on debt that will cripple you for the rest of your waking days.

This post has been updated.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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