CNN star Chris Cuomo was flagged up for sexual harassment by a former colleague

The famous television producer Shelley ross denounced the driver of CNN Chris Cuomo for sexual harassment in an explosive column published this Friday in the newspaper The New York Times. However, far from asking for his resignation, your discharge intended for the journalist to make a sincere self-criticism on air and will use its platform to investigate and communicate on the impact of sexism and harassment in the workplace, including that perpetrated by it.

The former producer of ABC, Disney and SCS, published the column in which he recounted the event that had occurred in June 2005 at a party organized by a colleague of the two. At this moment Ross was executive producer of ABC News, but until recently she was the direct patron of Cuomo during the production of his program “Prime Time Live”. During the evening in which the entire production team participated, the woman was present with her husband.

“When Mr. Cuomo walked into the bar at Upper West Side, walked up to me and greeted me with a strong bear hug as he leaned down to firmly grasp and squeeze the cheek to my buttRoss wrote. “‘I can do it now that you’re no longer my bosshe said to me with a sort of arrogance. ‘No you can’t’ I said, pushing it away from my chest as I pulled back, revealing my husband, who had seen the whole episode up close. We left quickly ”.

Within the hour he got an email from Cuomo in which he was apparently sorry and “ashamed”. Corn the content of the letter allows other interpretations. The text read this:

“Although my cordial greeting was due to my joy to see you … Christian Slater was arrested for a (more or less) similar act (although born from a supposedly negative intention, unlike mine). AND as a husband i can understand the fact that i don’t like to see my wife fondled as such. So pass on my apologies to your very good and noble husband… and I apologize to you too, for putting you in such a situation. Next time I will remember the lesson no matter how happy I am to see you.”.

First, and as Ross points out, it is emphasized that the purpose of the email is to apologize to her husband more than with her “He first apologized in his email to my “very good and noble husband” and then to me for “putting you in such a situation””. So, the question that emerges and that the author of the discharge is asking is: “Was he ashamed of what he did, or was he ashamed that my husband saw it?“

On the other hand, the mention of the case Roofer it is also for analysis according to Ross. To know: Christian slater, a renowned Hollywood actor, He was arrested the same year after a woman reported him for grabbing his buttocks while walking down the street.. He was charged with third degree sexual harassment by the police. Ross’s reading of the mention of this fact in the email is that it was purely strategic: “Mr Cuomo, who is a lawyer, appeared to use his brief apology to legally differentiate the two incidents. He suggested that Mr. Slater had a “negative intention” while he, Mr. Cuomo, did not”.

In addition, he adds that “I never thought Mr. Cuomo’s behavior was sexual in nature. Whether or not she understood it at the time, her form of sexual harassment was a hostile act meant to belittle and demean her former boss in front of the staff.”.

Although the event happened over 15 years ago, Sexual harassment in the workplace continues to be a daily problem for many women to this day.; and it remains invisible to many men. “Decades later, the many faces of sexual harassment in the workplace still have to be explained. It’s not just improper touching, pressuring consent, or drunken innuendos after hours. Most sexual harassment is invisible to others, as are the scars it leaves”.

Ross ends his release with an order for Cuomo, an alternative to the usual answer that is usually given when these matters go public: resign or be fired. “I am not asking that Mr. Cuomo become the next victim in this terrible continuing story. Hope he stays on CNN forever if he wants to. However, I would like you to regret from a journalistic point of view – agree to study live the impact of sexism, harassment and gender bias in the workplace, including yours, and then report it back . You could organize a series of live city meetings, with documentary footage, produced by women with expert advisers. Call it “Chris Cuomo’s continuing education” and make it a watershed moment rather than another stain in the career of another powerful male presenter.”.

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