A petition drive is underway to oust newsman Don Lemon from his CNN anchor job following a statement he made about the case of the cop who roughly removed a disruptive black coed from a South Carolina classroom.
Some 30,924 people have signed the
Change.org petition in favor of the network booting Lemon for saying more facts should be gathered before Richland County Senior Deputy Ben Fields was condemned for his actions.
Fields, who is white, has since been fired after videos shot by students in a Spring Valley High School classroom showed him slamming the African-American teen to the ground and dragging her on the floor. Authorities do not believe that race was a factor in the incident.
The petition was launched after Lemon criticized CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin for passing judgment on Fields before knowing all the facts about what led to his actions.
In a transcript published by media watchdog Mediaite.com, the fireworks began on Wolf Blitzer's show "The Situation Room" when Lemon, agreeing with another panelist, said of the video:
"It does look disturbing … I think there's context to everything. I would like to see what happens before and I would like to see what happened afterwards … It does look horrible. It does look like there's no excuse for what he's doing to her, but again, we don't know… This only shows a small slice in time of what happened. I'd like to know more before passing judgment."
Hostin shot back, "Are you guys kidding me?"
"No, we're not kidding. We don't know what happened. You weren't sitting in the room, Sunny. You don't know if she wasn't standing up!" Lemon responded.
"I don't need to know more," Hostin retorted.
"You do need to know more! As a prosecutor, you should want to know more," Lemon answered.
Jamell Henderson, who is spearheading the effort to get Lemon fired, wrote in the petition:
"Since the tragic incident of Trayvon Martin in 2012, CNN anchor Don Lemon has consistently antagonized and defamed the characteristics of African-Americans on the national scale in his mass communications.
"From the holding of the 'N' word sign before the national audience to disrespecting the mayor of Baltimore to his most recent comments of the unfortunate incident where a student was removed from her chair like a rag-doll by a police officer, Mr. Lemon has avoided the chance to state the obvious: the challenges that face African-Americans are real and that solutions need to be found ...
"As a news anchor, Mr. Lemon's job is to present the facts to the public, but time and time again, he has presented his opinion as fact — even when that opinion is contradicted by reality and common sense.
"That's unacceptable for a journalist. I'm disappointed that someone I used to look up to now is someone that I have trouble respecting as a journalist. Please join me in calling on CNN to remove Mr. Lemon from his role at the network."
Henderson hopes to get a total of 35,000 signatures and get CNN to take action.
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