Last August, in the middle of the Republican National Convention, NewsBusters broke the story about the Yahoo! News Washington bureau chief who said of the Romneys, "They are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”
On Monday, Politico reported that David Chalian has been hired by CNN to produce the new Crossfire:
"I'm excited to announce David Chalian is joining CNN as the Supervising Producer for Crossfire," wrote Rebecca Kutler. "David's experience bringing politics to the digital space will help shape the next generation of Crossfire. We're lucky to have him -- he starts today."
Chalian most recently served as vice president for video programming at POLITICO, a position he left just this month. Before that, he served as Washington bureau chief for Yahoo! News, as the political editor for PBS NewsHour, and as political director for ABC News.
To refresh everyone's memory, here's what NewsBusters first reported on August 29, 2012:
In video broadcast Monday night by ABC and Yahoo over the Internet, Chalian can be heard claiming that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife Ann are unconcerned about the fate of residents of the New Orleans area who are currently being hit by Hurricane Isaac.
“They aren’t concerned at all,” Chalian can be heard on the live broadcast. “They are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”
That line elicits laughter from several employees listening in on the joke.
Within hours of NewsBusters breaking the story, Yahoo! News fired Chalian:
"David Chalian's statement was inappropriate and does not represent the views of Yahoo!. He has been terminated effective immediately. We have already reached out to the Romney campaign, and we apologize to Mitt Romney, his staff, their supporters and anyone who was offended."
Less than two months later, Chalian was hired by Politico to manage its video content. He vacated that position a few weeks ago to pursue other opportunities. Now we know what they were.
As a sidebar, it is interesting that in its article on Chalian's hiring by CNN, although author Dylan Byers did mention Chalian having worked for Yahoo! News, he chose not to report Chalian being fired for his Romney comments.
I wonder why.
Regardless, it certainly gives one pause that CNN would actually hire someone to such an important role that was fired in disgrace just a year ago.
I guess THIS is CNN!
