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.
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,” according to a report.
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, according to The Ankler newsletter.
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.
“Flat is the new up,” an agent who represents CNN talent told The Ankler when asked about the latest developments.
Another online newsletter, Puck, disuted 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.”
Reached by The Post on Thursday, a CNN spokesperson declined to comment.
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.
Puck reported that Berman’s salary “is a few hundred thousand north of $1 million.”
But the online newsletter conceded that “the broader point about talent being forced to renew at equal or lower comps is true.”
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.
Puck claimed that Wallace’s salary is actually $7 million.
Wallace, who was brought on board by former CNN President Jeff Zucker shortly before the executive was forced to resign over a years-long relationship with a subordinate, was spotted in Thompson’s office on Tuesday, according to The Ankler.
Insiders told the newsletter that CNN staffers are bracing for a “bloodbath” — or another round of layoffs on top of the hundreds of jobs that have already been slashed by Thompson as he continue an overhaul of the once-mighty cable news network after taking over earlier this year.
“If you are not getting an offer several months out, you are in a precarious place,” a CNN staffer told The Ankler. “That anxiety has trickled down and out and across the place.”
Thompson is reportedly preparing to either slash pay for the dozens of the network’s national correspondents — who are said to earn salaries that are in the mid-to-high six figures — or eliminate their positions entirely, according to the report.
CNN’s web site currently lists 92 people as on-air “reporters and correspondents.”
“Mark has made it known he doesn’t like the conventional style of TV packages we are doing,” one staffer told the newsletter. “He wants people who are edgy. He doesn’t want people who look like your traditional anchorman, and it turns out those [edgy] people are cheaper.”
Thompson is slashing costs due to declining revenues at the network, which has been beset by plummeting viewership as well as a bloated newsroom operation where the digital department and the on-air programming division operate separately despite producing similar work.
According to the report, some on-air correspondents may be asked to do things that are beyond their current job descriptions.
Reporters may soon be asked to write their own scripts and produce their own segments as well as record footage vertically for TikTok videos, according to The Ankler.
On-air talent may also be tasked with writing stories that will be posted to CNN’s digital platform.
“The place needs to be turned upside down,” one staffer told the newsletter.
“It’s not working because no one is watching. It needs a radical overhaul.”
