Mary Katharine Ham just published an explanation on her Substack site for why we haven’t seen her on television for a while. It turns out she was quietly removed from the air, apparently by the previous head honcho at CNN, Jeff Zucker. But the weird thing is that no one every told her she was being punished, her media hits just suddenly stopped happening. It was only recently, after Zucker’s departure that she learned she was back in good graces with the new management. But rather than say nothing about what happened, she decided to speak up.

The on-air shadow ban apparently began with a spat on Twitter. There’s a rundown of the whole argument here but it took a turn when Andrew Kaczyinski (also at CNN) tried to call into question something she’d said about coverage of the Alexandria baseball shooting.

Hi, Andrew. Yes, this is within 24-48 hrs that this was a story. This segment was based on the galactically stupid Sanford contention that it was *Trump’s rhetoric* that caused it, bc of course. Pointed out Nats Park hit bc it was overlooking the game & yet not focused on this. https://t.co/ilUflRJ60d

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 8, 2022

And at that point her response got a little snarky and mentioned a couple of embarrassing CNN stories.

Got jack to say about Cuomo and Toobin, but gotta fact-check me when he’s got nothing.

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 8, 2022

She would later learn that the mention of Toobin was the last straw.

I suppose some might reasonably conclude that critiquing CNN’s coverage in a factual and calm tweet, or arguing with Kaczynski, could have spurred some disciplinary action, as it violates the rule against “shooting inside the tent” among colleagues. But it turns out that didn’t do me in. Rather, I’m told, “when it got to the comments about Jeffrey Toobin…everyone wanted a bit of a breather.”

Well, everyone but me, who had no idea there was a breather in effect. I was never informed of my punishment until it was rescinded recently by new management. No one called me or my representation about it. There was no announcement of a suspension, or notification of in-house disciplinary action, which I would have preferred, even welcomed by comparison to serving a secret sentence.

In case you’re wondering, as I did, how my punishment for tweeting about Toobin compares to Toobin’s suspension for his offense, I can tell you. He was off air for eight months; I was off for seven. One month was the difference between punishment for jacking off at work versus commenting on the inadvisability of jacking off at work…

I was told it was Jeff Zucker, now gone, who put this order in place and a deputy, also gone, who kept it there. I was also told I wasn’t informed of the network’s displeasure because I had just had a baby and someone in the old leadership thought I might be a “loose cannon.” Not as loose as Toobin’s, but I digress.

Ham points out that during the #MeToo era, she’d been on television many times discussing “basically every errant penis in the media.” So she finds it pretty ironic that the one errant penis she wasn’t supposed to discuss was the one involving CNN.

The era of keeping our mouths shut about obvious sexual misconduct from colleagues did not serve us well. Wasn’t that part of the lesson of #MeToo?

Women who speak up about this sort of thing aren’t supposed to just disappear from the air. But it sounds like that’s how things operated under Jeff Zucker. He brought Toobin back and tried to rehab him but kept Ham off the air for mentioning him. But then what can you expect from a guy who spent years (allegedly) promoting his girlfriend at work?

Anyway, it sounds like the shadow ban has ended and Ham will be returning to CNN. That’s a good thing because they definitely need the balance provided by her conservative voice as well as her winning sense of humor, something else which is often lacking at CNN.