Rick Sanchez: “There was a lot of concern at CNN about ‘what was I doing?’”

In the second part of our Media Beat interview with Rick Sanchez, recorded three weeks before he was dismissed from his job, Sanchez opens up about his anchoring style and about the unease from some corners of CNN when he got his first show there.

“At the very beginning,” says Sanchez, “There was a lot of concern at CNN about ‘what was I doing?’ and ‘why was I doing this?’”

He also says something that puts what happened last week into perspective: “I’m at a point in my career now where I’ve got a pretty good feel as to how to engage an audience,” says Sanchez who was fired Friday for controversial comments made during a radio interview Thursday.

• Part I: Yesterday: Sanchez talks about his upbringing as a Cuban immigrant in Miami and his early years in TV News.

• Part III: Wednesday: Sanchez talks about how he turned his cable news show into a two-way conversation.

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