Politics

Reporter who said Romney’s happy with ‘black people drowning’ named producer of ‘Crossfire’

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
Font Size:

In an announcement on his Twitter account, CNN political director Mark Preston announced former Yahoo News Washington bureau chief David Chalian would be named the supervising producer for the reincarnation of CNN’s “Crossfire.”

 


 

But Chalian is perhaps best known for the controversial remarks he made back in August 2012 while still working at Yahoo News. While covering the Republican National Convention in Tampa, he disparaged GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and the Republican Party, which had decided to go ahead with the convention despite a hurricane making landfall in the southeastern U.S.

“They’re not concerned at all,” Chalian said over a break during the ABC News/Yahoo News webcast. “They’re happy to have a party with black people drowning.”

Watch:


 
Chalian was ultimately fired by Yahoo News for those remarks, but did apologize almost immediately.

A month later, Chalian landed the vice president of video programming at Politico, but left the Virginia-based outlet back in July to “pursue other opportunities.”

Prior to serving as the Washington bureau chief for Yahoo News, Chalian was a political director for ABC News and a political editor for PBS’s “NewsHour.”

Follow Jeff on Twitter