The axe is starting to fall on the staff of more than 20 producers and reporters that Lou Dobbs left behind when he abruptly left CNN two weeks ago.
Late Friday, the CNNers were told that they could start applying for new jobs at the all-news network — with the clear implication that their old jobs were going to end shortly.
In his years at CNN, Dobbs amassed the largest single staff at the network, according to insiders, operating independently from the rest of the network in a closed-off area of the network’s new headquarters in the Time Warner building on Columbus Circle.
Many of the long-time “Lou Dobbs Tonight” staffers, including on-air reporters Kitty Pilgrim and Bill Tucker, are facing unemployment unless they can find spots elsewhere on CNN.
John King, CNN’s longtime political reporter, will be taking over Dobbs’ hour — 7 p.m. weeknights — sometime in January. CNN is moving the show’s base from New York to Washington to accommodate him.
“The interim 7 p.m. newscast [now called “CNN Tonight“] is being produced by the former Dobbs team,” a spokesman for the network said yesterday in a prepared statement.