Page Six reported recently that CNN has laid off Jane Velez-Mitchell, who hosted a 7 p.m. nightly news show on HLN. We don’t know much about her other reporting, but she was a big fan of HSUS, having its flaks on air a number of times, often to bash farming. JVM’s “reporting” on HSUS’s issues came across not as news but as advocacy –Velez-Mitchell herself is a vegan and animal rights activist and outspoken about it.
So the question is, will HSUS find a new home on some other talking head’s show? The leading candidate could be Al Sharpton, the race-baiting and consistently questioning host of MSNBC’s PoliticsNation.
HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle was on Sharpton’s show recently to discuss animal rights and the elections. Those elections, by the way, didn’t fare so well for HSUS, with the organization’s $1.5 million investment in an astroturf ballot measure in Maine rejected by voters, the same rebuff HSUS received when it ran a nearly identical initiative in 2004.
We’ll have to see if this alliance between the slick Pacelle and the hapless Sharpton turns into a regular on-air romance. But if things don’t work out, there’s always Al Jazeera.
