OAN’s Brooke Mallory
1:34 PM – Monday, July 10, 2023
A former CNN reporter is suing the network for wrongful termination and racial discrimination following an assignment in Israel that she claims caused her to develop an “invisible disability.”
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Saima Mohsin, 46, had been reporting from Jerusalem on Israeli-Palestinian issues in 2014 when a CNN cameraman accidentally ran over her left foot, inflicting detrimental tissue damage that the journalist says inhibited her ability to physically stand, walk, or work full-time, the Guardian reported.
Mohsin claims that she requested other assignments and rehab assistance, however, CNN refused to accommodate her requests.
When Mohsin inquired for a presenting job that would allow her to spend less time traveling, she alleges that she was told, “You don’t have the look we are looking for.”
According to the Guardian, her job contract was terminated around three years later and she was fired.
The network’s reaction to Mohsin’s life-changing injury prompted her to file an employment tribunal suit, which will be heard in a London court on Monday.
In her case, Mohsin claims that she was wrongfully fired from her position at CNN and that the news network discriminates against people of color (POC) and people with disabilities.
“I worked hard to become an international correspondent and loved my job with CNN. I risked my life many times on assignment for CNN, believing they would have my back. They did not,” she said while being interviewed.
Mohsin worked for CNN for more than five years, initially as the network’s Pakistan reporter and then as the foreign correspondent, according to her LinkedIn profile.
CNN refused a request for comment.
Mohsin, a British-Pakistani journalist, currently freelances for Sky News in London and has created a program for ITV on the agony of living with an “invisible” disability.
According to an Instagram photograph that Mohsin posted, she told the Daily Mirror earlier this year that after the injury in 2014, she would stand “on one leg like a flamingo” on camera but was eventually bedridden as the agony worsened.
Since 2019, Mohsin has worked with a doctor who specializes in pain management to help rehabilitate her injuries and obtain a blue badge, which is London’s equivalent of a disabled parking permit.
“We worked out that my ligaments and tendons had been stretched by the tire going slowly over my foot. I’d lost elasticity and structure, had a lisfranc (mid-foot) injury, and complex regional pain syndrome,” she said.
Mohsin’s case comes as CNN is still reeling from The Atlantic outlet’s blistering profile of former network CEO Chris Licht, which depicted him as a weak and unqualified executive who alienated himself from his employees and struggled to lead in comparison to his revered predecessor’s shadow.
Licht was eventually fired, along with the PR executives who handled the 15,000-word report. Licht has been temporarily replaced by three in-house executives.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said the hunt for a new CEO could be lengthy since he needs to find someone who has what it takes to resurrect the struggling network.
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