CNN’s controversial anchor Lou Dobbs, the CNN anchor many progressives love to hate, may be pondering a jump to Fox Business News, the New York Times reports:
The anchor Lou Dobbs appears to be exploring an exit from CNN, his longtime employer.
Certainly, Fox continues to aggressively bolster its on-air talent, most recently with the hiring of John Stossel, the libertarian investigative journalist from ABC News, for its spin-off channel, Fox Business. Mr. Dobbs, an administration critic who calls himself an independent, met for dinner with Roger E. Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting.
One of the people said Mr. Dobbs is a potential hire for the Fox Business Network, the ratings starved, two-year-old spin-off of Fox News. Mr. Ailes has shown willingness to raid other networks for Fox Business talent, adding the controversial radio host Don Imus this month and bringing aboard Mr. Stossel in a few weeks.
And it would likely be a good “fit” for Dobbs. Glenn Beck’s CNN show didn’t really go anywhere until Beck moved over to Fox, which had an audience more sympathetic to his message. Dobbs remains controversial at CNN, however, at Fox his center-right (some progressive would insist it is just right and not center) perspective would have a receptive audience and might garner bigger ratings int he longrun. Ailes has also over the years shown himself to be a very smart news executive and talent recruiter — supremely tuned into to his networks’ demographics.
Dobbs has been under fire at CNN, particularly from Latino groups who have started a boycott to get him off the air due to his anti-immigration stance.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.