The widower of legendary corporate gadfly Evelyn Y. Davis is calling on Warner Bros. Discovery’s chief David Zaslav to fire CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour over her “antisemitic” claim that Israeli hostages were “treated better” than Gazans — saying her apology last week is “not enough.”
Taking a page from his late wife’s playbook, Patterson, a WBD investor, sent a sharply worded letter to Zaslav on Monday demanding Amanpour’s dismissal.
“As a stockholder in WBD, I urge you to fire Christiane Amanpour for her antisemitic statement that Israeli hostages were treated better than average Gazans,” the investor wrote in the letter obtained by The Post.
“This is an outrage to American and Israeli heroes who are fighting a war against Hamas and other terrorists. It is an outrage to Holocaust survivors and their families. Fire Amanpour to prove you disagree with her vile statements.”
Patterson, an 85-year-old former diplomat, said he was motivated to act after watching Amanpour’s comments, which aired live on Oct. 13 as Hamas released the last 20 surviving hostages under a US-brokered cease-fire.
Amanpour told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that the hostages “were probably being treated better than the average Gazan, because they are the pawns and the chips that Hamas had.”
Hours later, Amanpour walked back the statement on air, admitting her phrasing was “insensitive and wrong.”
“From speaking to many former hostages and their families, like everyone I’ve been horrified at what Hamas has subjected them to over two long years,” she said, recounting their accounts of starvation, beatings and years spent in underground tunnels.
But Patterson told The Post he was unmoved by Amanpour’s statement.
He accused the veteran correspondent of “promoting hatred for Jews” and “damaging CNN’s brand beyond repair.”
“I don’t accept Amanpour’s apology,” Patterson, who’s based in Washington, DC, said in an email.
“She’s done it before. How much hate will Zaslav allow her to broadcast?”
He added: “She is promoting the view that the terrorists who committed and supported the Oct. 7 attacks are innocent victims. This is a lie.”
“Amanpour is biased against Israel. She deserves to be fired,” Patterson asserted.
Patterson said he owns about 300 shares of Warner Bros. Discovery stock and has written to Zaslav in the past urging him to sell CNN.
In his letter, Patterson referenced his late wife, a Holocaust survivor who was known for frequently attending corporate meetings to confront executives.
He said Amanpour’s “antisemitic statements are hurtful to me and my family.”
“My late wife was a Holocaust survivor,” the investor wrote. “Amanpour’s repeated antisemitic statements are cause for her immediate dismissal.”
Patterson urged Zaslav to “have the courage to fire Amanpour.”
“If he wants a lesson in courage, I suggest he read about my late wife Evelyn Y. Davis,” Patterson told The Post.
“She was the most courageous person I ever knew.”
Davis spent more than five decades confronting CEOs at shareholder meetings to demand transparency and accountability.
Known for her flamboyant outfits and relentless questioning, she helped push reforms in corporate governance before her death in 2018 at age 89.
In a June 2023 letter, Patterson called Amanpour a “disgrace” for equating Israeli victims with Palestinian attackers during a broadcast and accused the network of bias against Jews.
Amanpour, one of the network’s longest-serving correspondents, has been a fixture at CNN for decades.
Her reporting on the Middle East has drawn scrutiny.
The pro-Israel group CAMERA (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis) has accused Amanpour of harboring “animus toward the Jewish state” while demonstrating a frequent “impulse to smear Israel.”
In 2023, Amanpour apologized after referring to a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of three Israeli settlers in the West Bank as a “shootout.”
In April of that year, two British-Israeli sisters and their mother were shot dead by Palestinian gunmen near a highway junction in the Jordan Valley. Lucy Dee and her daughters Rina, 15, and Maia Dee, 20, had immigrated from the UK to a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
The perpetrators were later tracked down and killed by Israeli security forces. Hamas, the terrorist group, claimed responsibility and described the attack as retaliation for Israeli actions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Amanpour has never directly addressed allegations of anti-Israel bias. In June, she told the Status newsletter that she “never hear[d] myself being called ‘partisan’” and that she “tell[s] the truth and the stories from around the world.
“I’m sure there are a chorus of complainers on social media,” Amanpour said.
“But I don’t pay attention at all. My bars are ‘truthful not neutral’ and ‘get it right.’”
The Post has sought comment from CNN and WBD.
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