CNN’s Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer have been denied salary raises while Chris Wallace will likely be forced to take a pay cut — even as rank-and-file journalists at the network brace for “inevitable” layoffs, according to a report from the online industry newsletter The Ankler.
The Ny Post reports Mark Thompson — the former BBC and New York Times boss who was brought in to overhaul CNN by Warner Bros. Discovery overlord David Zaslav — has told some of his highest paid and most recognizable stars to “take it or leave it.”
Thompson recently re-signed Tapper, CNN’s chief Washington correspondent who anchors “The Lead,” to a new three-year contract that will pay him the same $7 million annually that he had earned under the terms of his previous deal.
Blitzer, the 76-year-old longtime CNN veteran who anchors “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer,” has also been re-signed to a new three-year contract that will freeze his pay at roughly $3 million annually — the same sum of money he had been making before, the newsletter reported.
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Another online newsletter, Puck, disputed The Ankler report, saying it “got almost all the salary figures wrong — in some cases egregiously” and that Tapper and Blitzer “make millions more than $7 million and $3 million, respectively.”
But the online newsletter conceded that “the broader point about talent being forced to renew at equal or lower comps is true.”
John Berman, the co-anchor of “News Central” alongside Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner, had his contract renewed at the same $1 million per year salary, The Ankler reported.
Meanwhile, speculation about Wallace’s future at the network is sure to ramp up given that the 77-year-old former Fox News personality was reportedly told that he will have to accept a salary that is significantly less than the $8.5 million that he is earning under his current deal, according to The Ankler.
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