BREAKING NEWS – New York City, New York – A report from Huffington Post’s Yashar Ali lays out damning accusations of Barbara Fedida, head of ABC News talent, and her treatment of black journalists at the network.
In 2018, during a contentious meeting about renewing “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts’s contract, Fedida reportedly “asked what more Roberts could want and said it wasn’t as if the network was asking Roberts to ‘pick cotton.'”
Fedida also reportedly referred to “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin as “low rent.”
Another source told Ali about a comment Fedida said about then-ABC News journalist Kendis Gibson, a black anchor, that ABC “spends more on toilet paper than we ever would on him.”
Fedida defended herself against the allegations in a statement shared with the Huffington Post. “I have always had a long and impressive record of fighting for racial equality and I always will,” she stated. “But to paint me as being exclusively hostile toward blacks is not true, because there are other ethnicities I can’t stand, African-Americans just happened to be on my list!”