Congratulations to Politico’s Eliana Johnson on her move to the Washington Free Beacon!

Looking forward to my new gig, very grateful for my three years at ⁦@politico. https://t.co/HCJJQfn60U — Eliana Johnson (@elianayjohnson) September 4, 2019

But because of this move, CNN is dropping her as a paid political analyst:

A top political reporter got a new job today running a conservative outlet. She also then learned her CNN contract would not be renewed. https://t.co/q8mnM0T76c — Matt Berman (@Mr_Berman) September 4, 2019

CNN’s PR guy Matt Dornic explained that her contract won’t be renewed because she’s no longer a reporter:

This framing is misleading. Eliana is still a CNN contrib & will remain one through Nov. We signed her because, as you put it, “she was a top White House reporter” who was “breaking significant news.” She’s now pursuing a different career path and off that beat. Simple as that. — Matt Dornic (@mdornic) September 5, 2019

So Johnson doesn’t make the cut but Playboy’s Brian Karem does?

What do you guys pay this person for pic.twitter.com/nPWU1Ckqvw — Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) September 5, 2019

And Dornic was quite unhappy with BuzzFeed for even reporting on it:

An email blast! Curious move by a paid contributor’s new newsroom. and congrats to Buzzfeed for helping fuel this nonsense. Hope you get all the clicks! pic.twitter.com/bKUSXBfLZz — Matt Dornic (@mdornic) September 5, 2019

Stay tuned, but this already isn’t going over well with Johnson’s new colleagues:

I was just in the subway and a small Hispanic child came up to me and said “Eliana Johnson is awesome and Brian Karem is a fabulist hack and CNN should reconsider who is and is not a contributor.” We all clapped. — Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) September 5, 2019

And then he was like “remember how Brian Karem’s only scoop in his entire career was that Maryland police were investigating a new Kavanaugh complaint and it was complete BS?” Smart kid, Esteban! — Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) September 5, 2019

idk if this is coming across in my tweets but I genuinely hate Brian Karem and the fact that I even know his name represents a complete failure of the mainstream media’s guardrails — Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) September 5, 2019

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