As we reported on Friday, CNN abruptly fired afternoon anchor Rick Sanchez.

During a 20-minute satellite radio interview on Thursday, Sanchez made derogatory comments about Jews, his former employers and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart.

One CNN insider tells FishbowlNY, “I don’t think anybody who heard that audio clip could have a positive reaction to it.” 

The insider believes anyone who listened to the interview knew that Sanchez was going to have to deal with the consequences.

Long before Friday, though, there was a report on politico.com that indicated many staffers were apparently not Sanchez supporters.

Prior to the start of John King’s new evening show in January 2010, the report states that 200 employees at the Washington bureau were asked if they respect Sanchez or Wolf Blitzer, host of The Situation Room, as a journalist. 

Nearly all in attendance raised their hands for Blitzer, while politico.com reported at the time that only a select few gave similar support for the Rick’s List host.

Stewart has his first comment to the Sanchez firing after the jump.
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Anchor Rick Sanchez was fired by CNN Friday evening, a day after making inflammatory comments about Jews and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart. Sanchez spoke with Sirius XM satellite radio host Pete Dominick (a former warm-up comic for Stewart’s show).

The terse statement from the cable network where Sanchez worked since 2004 read:

“Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well.”

At one point in the interview, Sanchez told Dominick that Stewart is a “bigot” and added that he [Stewart] was bigoted against “everybody else who’s not like him. Look at his show, I mean, what does he surround himself with?”

Dominick, who works for CNN on John King U.S.A, pointed out that Stewart is Jewish and is therefore a minority.

“I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah,” Sanchez responded.

Sanchez’s 3-5 p.m. weekday show is being replaced by CNN Newsroom for the “foreseeable future,”  CNN said.

TVNewser has more on the story, including audio from the controversial interview.

“The Daily Show” correspondent Jason Jones visited The New York Times‘ offices for a segment on last night’s show, skewering the paper’s stuffy reputation and insistence on printing news a day late despite competition from the digital world.

Jones stumped assistant managing editor Rick Berke with his take on “aged news,” challenging Berke to find anything in the paper “that happened today.” Executive editor Bill Keller seemed a little more amenable to the gentle ribbing. He even laughed at Jones’ timely joke about the creaky old rag’s balance sheets. Hint: what’s black and white and red all over?

However, Keller did manage to get in some digs on The Huffington Post, Google and Drudge, pointing out that they’ll never have Baghdad bureaus “because it’s expensive, because it’s dangerous.” Meanwhile, Keller envisions the Times as one of the last ships afloat in a sea of lifeboats “with people dying to clamber on board.” But, as Jones points out, their lifeboat is made of paper, so good luck if that ship ever goes down.

Hot on the heels of Jon Stewart‘s CNBC takedown, The Daily Show‘s John Oliver visits the “luxurious press corps offices.”

“It’s like what Donald Trump would have designed if he’d decided to keep journalists as pets…all the greats did time here before getting real careers.”

After which he runs into Helen Thomas, who suggests he go home. He also appears to stump Robert Gibbs a bit when he asks “Which of the questions which your staff insisted be pre-approved, would you like to answer first? One, two, or three?” Snap!

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Amazon’s Kindle may very well be the future of books, newspapers, magazines and just about every other source of printed word currently struggling to survive. The Kindle 2 is currently shipping out and last night Amazon founder Jeff Bezos visited The Daily Show to chat a bit about its advantages (something to do with one handed maneuvers).

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One wonders if we all spent as much time actually saving our newspapers (or more importantly, good reporting) as we do talking about it the problem might already be solved! Anyway, Time‘s Walter Isaacson was on The Daily Show last night talking about his iTunes-like plan to rescue newspapers.

Meanwhile Stewart’s plan is to make newsprint a “highly addictive narcotic.” Never say never.

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Arianna Huffington was on The Daily Show last night shilling for her latest book The Huffington Post’s Complete Guide to Blogging. During the segment she tries to convince a skeptical Stewart that blogging is a worthy endeavor and reveals that her secret passion is cheese. Also, she thinks blogging is a lot more fun than an STD!