The move from CNN political editor to political analyst is a significant one. As a political editor, Isgur would surely have shaped the network’s coverage in some way or other, though her precise duties were never terribly clear. At one point amid a backlash about the hire, CNN said that she would “coordinate coverage across TV and Digital,” as if there weren’t already hundreds of employees at CNN who tend that particular garden.

As articulated on multiple Twitter accounts, the knock against Isgur was twofold: 1) She had no journalism experience, having served in various communications roles for candidates — including Carly Fiorina — and for Attorney General Jeff Sessions. This wasn’t a particularly robust objection — media outlets need to hire people from all kinds of backgrounds; and 2) She worked in a key communications role for the most anti-media administration in U.S. history. This was a particularly robust objection. Though media outlets such as CNN are obligated to cover the Trump administration fairly, to show up at events where President Trump and his supporters show hostility toward the media, to bootstrap their way to comprehensive coverage when access is withdrawn, to fund extra security at Trump’s public events, there’s one thing they’re not obligated to do: Put Trump’s enablers on the payroll when they cycle out of administration positions.

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Among those disenchanted with Isgur’s accession to CNN was the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which managed to secure assurances from CNN that Isgur wouldn’t be involved in CNN’s work on Democratic debates. There was even a statement to that effect — from the DNC, that is: “The Democratic National Committee has sought and received assurances from CNN that the network’s new politics editor, Sarah Isgur, will not be involved in the debates that the channel hosts and moderates for the Democratic primary." That was a straight-up abdication of editorial independence.

And so was a subsequent concession, as the Daily Beast reported. Isgur would have “no editorial decision-making control over the network’s coverage of the 2020 elections,” CNN assured the DNC.

The tweet from Isgur on Friday afternoon delivered on those CNN assurances. As a political analyst, she’ll be like any other pundit.

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No two journalistic embarrassments are alike. Under the tenure of CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker, the network has promulgated excessive coverage of the poop cruise; waddled through a question-sharing scandal in the 2016 presidential election cycle; aired a ridiculous amount of unfiltered Trump rallies during the campaign; retracted an investigative piece on Trump associate Anthony Scaramucci; and so on.

Isgur’s diminishing portfolio nestles comfortably into this league. Impeccably managed news organizations don’t make mistakes whose undoing entails the surrender of journalistic independence. Yet that’s what has happened here, despite this statement from a CNN spokeswoman: “We can confirm that when Sarah came to us and proposed her role be adjusted to a political analyst instead, we agreed, and we look forward to her starting in that role.”