Black Producer Accuses CNN of Racial Discrimination, Files Lawsuit

A black CNN producer has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit after claiming that he and other black employees were passed over for promotions at the media outlet.

Ricky Blalock, who has worked for CNN since 2010, filed the case in federal court Thursday, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. In it, he alleges that the network “intentionally and willfully violated [his] right to be free from race-based discrimination in his employment."

AP Photo

The lawsuit comes just months after Blalock filed a similar complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Blalock said that after he filed the complaint in August he was passed over for a promotion.

The job instead went to a white woman who, according to Blalock, was under-qualified. The plaintiff alleges some white employees were given paid “on the job training" after being promoted but that he was denied the same training.

Blalock said he asked about the "disappearance” of black employees in key management roles during an open employee meeting with CNN president Jeff Zucker. It wasn't clear, however, how the cable news chief responded.

Blalock is asking that CNN pay at least $500,000 in compensatory damages.

A representative for CNN did not immediately respond to TheBlaze when asked for comment.

This is at least the second time in a year that CNN has been slapped with a racial discrimination lawsuit. In December 2014, Blalock's supervisor, Stanley Wilson, who is also black, filed a racial complaint against the news network.

Wilson was later pushed out from his job, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

“In 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, Plaintiff verbally complained to the CNN Senior Vice President of Human Resources (HR) [Peter Janos] that African-American men outside of Atlanta, [Washington] D.C., and New York were not being promoted,” Wilson's complaint, similar to Blalock's lawsuit, stated.

"[The] plaintiff complained that Janos was an important actor in the wholesale discrimination against African-American men in the hiring and promotion of staff producers and television photographers in Los Angeles," the 2014 lawsuit alleged.

The courts are still considering Wilson's lawsuit, according to Deadline Hollywood.

(H/T: AdWeek)

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