CNN torched by media critic for hiring Gingrich, Stephanie Cutter

Media critic David Zurawik has come down -- hard -- on CNN for rebooting its show "Crossfire" with Newt Gingrich and former Obama official Stephanie Cutter as co-hosts.

Zurawik writes:

It is hard to say who is worse, Cutter or Gingrich. I do not think I have ever seen as slavish and nasty a bunch of ideologues as the communications and adviser teams Obama surrounded himself with.

One month after he took office, I wrote that his administration was the most virulently anti-press since Richard Nixon's, and  I had my head taken off. I was thinking of folks like Anita Dunn and Cutter, and I was right. They think it is OK to criminalize the press for doing its job.

And how do some members of the press react? CNN invites Cutter to be a star on its network. People like Cutter do everything they can to keep reporters from getting certain information citizens have a right to out of the government, and CNN rewards them when they have cashed their last White House check with a big job. And she's now a lobbyist to boot!

I can't even do Gingrich. My head is exploding at the thought of him being rewarded with a job on CNN.

Gingrich is so compromised, with his PAC giving money to conservative politicians and then those politicians either being favorably mentioned or coming on the show, that CNN recently issued a ruling that said that the channel does not have to disclose Gingrich's conflicts of interest, because viewers know he's riddled with them.

"If I sound mad," he says, "it's because I am."

@eScarry