Soledad O’Brien will no longer be a host on CNN, but she’s staying with the network — sort of.

O’Brien told the New York Times that she is returning to the role she had before she became the host of “Starting Point” in 2011: a roving documentary reporter. The twist this time is that she is forming her own production company, Starfish Media, and will not be tied exclusively to CNN; she will be able to shop programs to other networks and air them on the Web as well.

O’Brien’s future as a regular face on the network was immediately put into doubt when CNN announced that Chris Cuomo would be its new morning host.

“We had conversations in general about my role at CNN,” O’Brien told the Times. “What we ended up with was, they wanted to partner with me, and I wanted to partner with them…”

Soledad is still in the polite phase hoping CNN has sufficient allegiance to their let’s-pretend reputation to pickup one of her documentaries. Poisonally, I doubt if they have that much integrity, conscience, or courage.

CNN later issued a press release saying it was excited to be “entering into a production and distribution agreement” with O’Brien, who was described as a “critically acclaimed journalist.” The release mentioned many of the programs O’Brien had made for CNN, but did not reference her current morning show at all.

The gossip mills say Chris Cuomo will be partnered with the Lady Anchor equivalent of Glen Campbell, Erin Burnett. Every ounce of honesty she ever searched for when working with the late Mark Haines has vanished since she jumped to CNN from CNBC.

All of which serves as just another good reason to watch Bloomberg TV in the early morning. They’re dedicated to serving the barons of American capitalism and have learned one of the best ways to do that is to provide news as accurate as they can muster. A great position to be in especially since the Wall Street Journal has abdicated that responsibility since the purchase by Rupert Murdoch.