After offering an official written apology earlier this week, Rick Sanchez continues to do damage control for his outburst over Jon Stewart. This morning not only did he sit down with Good Morning America, but also gave interview to radio and online media. Even his former bosses at CNN think he's got a good chance at landing on his feet with a new TV gig somewhere.
Here's Sanchez's interview from GMA:
He takes full responsibility for the stupidity of his remarks, and blames them on being tired. He also claims "there's not a single Hispanic, there's not a single African-American," currently doing a regular primetime broadcast on cable news.
Sanchez also talked with WABC on the radio, before doing a quick interview with Mediaite, the website that brought Sanchez's initial remarks to a wider audience in the first place.
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(Those comments) had nothing to do with CNN, but it does have to do with the state of the media right now. And there's several things that are working right now that bother me as a person in the media. A) we've got one camp that is nothing but vitriol and ideologically driven. That's not good. We've got another side of the media that's nothing but milquetoast. They do nothing but want to read teleprompters and ask whatever questions are handed to them and go home. And I write about this in my book. That in and of itself has kind of made me crazy over the last several years. I try to do a different kind of newscast, it's very transparent, it involves social media, I ad-lib more than I read. I'm very involved. I write, I produce I gather my team at 7 in the morning. It's very different than the way the media has been. The other thing is I look at the landscape of the media and I don't see an African American, a Hispanic, an Asian anywhere near the prime time area of programming. All the top anchors are not in any way reflective of the minorities in the United States. And I'll be honest, that sticks in my craw. I feel sometimes like, 'gosh I'm so close.' And then I put the Jon Stewart with that, always making fun of me, and I thought, 'see I'm not getting the opportunity and damnit Jon Stewart that institutional media elite guy' is keeping me down.' And I lashed out, and I was wrong.
So will Sanchez be able to continue his career? Even his former bosses seem to think so. From the NY Times:
Earlier this week the chief executive of Time Warner, Jeff Bewkes, was asked on Fox News if the company would consider rehiring Mr. Sanchez. He said: "I wish Rick well. He did a lot of good work on CNN. Anything is possible. He'll have a lot of interest in different channels. And who knows? Maybe someday the right place for him would be one of ours."
Meanwhile, locals down here in Sanchez's hometown market continue to speculate, some in jest others in earnest, about the possibility of the anchor returning to local airwaves.