CNN Parts Ways With Contributor Marc Lamont Hill After U.N. Speech

By Variety Staff

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – said it had parted ways with Marc Lamont Hill, a contributor and a professor of media studies at Temple University, after remarks he made during a talk at the United Nations generated protest.

“Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN,” the network said in a statement Thursday.

Hill ended his remarks at a Wednesday United Nations appearance calling for a free Palestine “from the river to the sea.” The line is often recognized as a mantra used by Palestinian nationalists inveighing against Israel.

On Twitter, Hill said his remarks has been misinterpreted. “My reference to ‘river to the sea’ was not a call to destroy anything or anyone. It was a call for justice, both in Israel and in the West Bank/Gaza. The speech very clearly and specifically said those things. No amount of debate will change what I actually said or what I meant,” he said.

CNN has occasionally had to cut ties with individual contributors whose remarks or behavior draw scrutiny and controversy. In September, it parted ways with Jason Miller, a one-time Trump campaign official after he became embroiled in a court case. And it stopped working with one contributor, Jeffrey Lord, who made frequent on-air appearances, after he used the phrase “Seig heil” on Twitter.