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My Disastrous Appearance on CNN+ Shows Exactly Why It Failed
I’m ashamed to admit this: I thought this was my big break. It was anything but. This peek behind the curtain at the now-defunct CNN+ reveals exactly why it failed.
Before the cameras started to roll, I knew it was going to go terribly wrong.
I’m sitting in a studio at the Warner Media building at 30 Hudson Yard in New York City. The studio is tiny but there are backlit, fluorescent-colored panels lining every wall of the studio — perry winkle blue, mustard yellow, aquamarine — that I’m sure are designed to make it appear a bigger on TV.
The lobby was the same — Time Square-esgue digital screens, 40 feet high displaying promos for all of Warner Media’s biggest shows. The building outside the lobby is stunning — gray marble floor and high ceilings that echo under the stilettos of the women coming to and from their swanky offices, sandstone walls, and massive, modern, globe-like sculptures hanging here and there.
Don Lemon passes me in the hallway, almost fumbling a stack of papers while trying to scan his ID card and carrying a large latte or something.
No one is wearing a mask. Those were only handed out right before the cameras…
