West News Wire: In a sudden departure that coincides with other CNN changes, CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood announced he is leaving the news organization.
In a tweet published on Friday, Harwood declared, “Today’s my last day at CNN.” He described himself as “fortunate to serve the greatest in American media” and expressed pride in his work, which included positions at the St. Petersburg Times, Wall Street Journal, NBC, and CNN.
He wrote on Twitter, “Look forward to figuring out what’s next.”
CNN issued a statement saying, “We appreciate John’s efforts covering the White House and we wish him the best.”
After thirty years on the air, CNN terminated its once-weekly “Reliable Sources” media analysis program last month, and host Brian Stelter left the organization. The show appeared to be an early casualty in CNN’s effort to be less confrontational politically a priority of Chris Licht, who became the network’s chairman and CEO in the spring, and his boss, David Zaslav, head of the Warner Bros. Discovery parent company.
Harwood came to CNN in 2020 from CNBC, where he was chief White House correspondent.
About two hours before Harwood announced he was leaving CNN, he was on-air discussing President Joe Biden’s speech Thursday, in which Biden called former President Donald Trump an extremist treat to the nation.
Harwood said that Biden’s “core point in that political speech about the threat to democracy is true. Now that is something that is not easy for us as journalists to say. We’re brought up to believe there’s two different political parties with different points of view, and we don’t take sides in honest disagreements between them.
“But that’s not what we are talking about. These are not honest disagreements. The Republican party right now is led by a dishonest demagogue,” Harwood said, in part.
