Sunny Hostin Claims ABC News Tried to Censor Memoir Passages That Reflected Poorly on the Network – Decider

The Viewco-host Sunny Hostin alleges that ABC News attempted to remove passages from her forthcoming memoir that reflected poorly on the network, journalist Yashar Ali reports. In his newsletter, Ali published excerpts from Hostins book,I Am These Truths: A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds, in which she claims that the news organization tried to censor her memoir months ahead of its release. I didnt want to believe that racism played a part in their revision requests, she writes, per Ali. We were just dotting some is and crossing some ts, right?

According to Ali, who obtained a copy of Hostins memoir from a source,I Am These Truthscontains a forward alleging that ABC News asked her to delete passages that portrayed the network in a negative light. Deleting those passages didnt feel right to me, writes The View co-host and ABC News legal analyst and correspondent. They were all true, and they were some of the battle scars of my experience.

Hostin reportedly does not reveal what passages she was asked to remove, but writes that the request came in early summer, as Americans took to the streets in the wake of George Floyds death. My television agent and my book agent emailed me to express confusion that a news organization would try to censor a Puerto Rican, African American womans story while they were covering global demonstrations demanding racial equity, she claims.

The authors lawyers pushed back, and ultimately, ABC relented. Then, on Friday, June 12th, I got a text from a reporter, she writes. That reporter was Ali, who published a bombshell HuffPost report about senior ABC News executive Barbara Fedida. The exec allegedly made racist comments about various Black employees, including Hostin (sources told Ali that Fedida called her low-rent) and Robin Roberts.

Hostin addressed Fedidas alleged remarks on The View shortly after Alis story was published, but in her memoir, she goes into great detail about the experience. I was floored. I felt incredibly sad, but I also felt relief, writesThe Viewhost. Many of the experiences Ive had at ABC, including several described in these pages that standards and practices at first asked me to delete well, if the allegations were true, all of the dots were connected.

My suspicions that I was treated worse than my white colleagues the fears that I tried to talk myself out of many times maybe they were true, she continues. Had my employer, my home away from home, devalued, dismissed, and underpaid me because of my race? I had just read emails from them directing me to erase evidence of such treatment from my story. And if Im being honest, I wasnt even angry. I was deeply, profoundly shaken and saddened.

In July, The Walt Disney Company, ABC News parent organization, fired Fedida following an investigation into the allegations. The investigation substantiated that Ms. Fedida did make some of the unacceptable racially insensitive comments attributed to her, said Peter Rice, Chairman of Walt Disney Television, in an email sent to ABC News employees. It also substantiated that Ms. Fedida managed in a rough manner and, on occasion, used crass and inappropriate language.

Sunny Hostins memoir,I Am These Truths: A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds, hits bookstands on Tuesday, September 22.

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Sunny Hostin Claims ABC News Tried to Censor Memoir Passages That Reflected Poorly on the Network - Decider