Sarah Isgur Flores, a press aide to former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has been hired to help direct and plan political coverage for CNN, a move that generated some pushback on social media Tuesday.
Politico previously reported the CNN hire. Flores in the past has criticized CNN coverage.
She will be just the latest political operative to join a TV-news operation. Tim Russert arrived at NBC News after working as an aide to Senator Patrick Moynihan and Governor Mario Cuomo of New York, for example. In current times, both MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace and Fox News Channel’s Dana Perino gained their roles after working for Republican Presidents in the White House.
Isgur’s duties have little to do with overseeing or running CNN’s political coverage, according to a person familiar with the matter. Her task will be to help coordinate coverage across the outlet’s TV and digital operations. She is one of several editors at that level who report to David Chalian, a vice president and political director at CNN.
Some commentators on Twitter assumed Flores would have direct oversight of how CNN covers political news.