Fmr Producer Slams NewsNation Hiring of ‘Arrogant’ Chris Cuomo

Saturday on Facebook, former ABC News producer Shelley Ross called former CNN blowhard Chris Cuomo the personified “status quo” of the media’s “old boy’s club,” saying the “misogynistic” man who once harassed her needed to find a greater cause than himself.

Cuomo, fired by CNN last year after a series of scandals involving his personal and professional conduct, has re-emerged with an active social media presence, his own podcast, splashy interviews and a gig on the fledgling outlet NewsNation; Cuomo announced his new job during an interview with NewsNation’s Dan Abrams last week.

Ross responded skeptically to an online post by Abrams, who attacked other outlets that reported on Cuomo’s new job at his outlet and boasted NewsNation represented a “danger to the status quo.” Cuomo will host a primetime show on the network this fall.

“Dan, I’m a decades-long fan of yours,” Ross wrote of Abrams, who is also ABC News’ chief legal analyst. “But you’ve got this one wrong. The (modest) mixed reaction to Cuomo’s new job does not prove the status quo of the media is under threat. Cuomo IS the status quo, same old same old arrogant, misogynistic proud member of the old boy’s club. No one cares what News Nation [sic] ratings are. I am rooting for something new, fresh and honest. Just maybe some of us don’t see Cuomo as that answer… those who have been disappointed in his lack of genuine contrition. As he continues to parse his words, hide behind the love of a brother, deny wrongdoing, he remains tone-deaf and phony to many of us. I’m all for second chances. But I won’t believe he is a disrupter until he disrupts something and finds a greater cause than himself.”

Ross told Fox News Digital she had ignored Cuomo’s re-emergence until Abrams posted his “big defense of Cuomo after their interview.” Ross, a veteran TV producer who was once Cuomo’s executive producer at ABC News, wrote in the New York Times last September about the 2005 incident when Cuomo squeezed her buttock at a bar with “cocky arrogance.” She shared the email he had sent to her at the time apologizing for his behavior – he said it was a “hearty greeting” – and Cuomo reiterated his apology last year after her Times essay, while claiming the act was “not sexual in nature.”

Ross wrote at the time that she was not interested in getting Cuomo fired, but that she came forward with her story following the anchor’s claims that year to care deeply about issues of sexual harassment. She called on him to “journalistically repent” and use his show to study sexism and harassment in the workplace.