CNN host scolds critic: Kelly Ripa conflict is 'not talent management, it's treating someone as a human'

CNN anchor Carol Costello on Tuesday argued that the solution to ABC's disagreement with host Kelly Ripa was "just treating someone as a human being."

After refusing to come to work because she had not been told in advance that co-host Michael Strahan was leaving, Ripa returned to her talk show on Tuesday morning and chastised the network.

"What's transpired over the course of a few days has been extraordinary in the sense that it started a much greater conversation about communication and consideration," she explained. "And most importantly, respect in the workplace."

"She does deserve respect," Costello insisted to media reporter Brian Stelter later on Tuesday. "Because she is a leader of that show and she should be accorded that respect."

"Talent is often treated like part of the furniture," the CNN host observed knowingly. "You can replace them like furniture. So this time, she made sure they didn't think of her quite that way."

"TV is all about talent management," Stelter opined. "Maybe in some ways, life is all about talent management, deciding what you do and how you do it."

"Talent management makes it sound like petulant children," Costello shot back at Stelter. "As talent, I kind of resent that that."

"So, it's not talent management, it's just treating someone as a human being," she pointed out.

Watch the video below from CNN, broadcast April 25, 2016.