CNN Executive and 'Magic Wall' Creator David Bohrman Has Died: 'He Made Us Better'

CNN’s David Bohrman.Photo:Michael Caulfield/WireImage

Michael Caulfield/WireImage

Longtime CNN producer David Bohrman has died following complications from hip surgery, his family told the network Sunday. He was 69.

CNN reports that Bohrman joined the network in 1998 and eventually became its Washington bureau chief and senior vice president.

“David was a CNN institution, a leader and innovator who mentored many through decades in television news,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. “His impact at CNN lives on in our programming and his passion for news will be felt in our halls every day.”

Bohrman was known as an innovator in the field of news production, having come up with the idea of anchoring CNN’s election coverage from the floor of the political party conventions in 2004. But he is perhaps best known for another innovation — the network’s touchscreen “Magic Wall” which has become a staple of modern election coverage and features up-to-the-minute data on voting.

CNN anchor John King works with the “Magic Wall” in CNN’s workspace.Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis via Getty

Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis via Getty

In a 2022 story aboutthe creation of the Magic Wall, CNN senior producer David Reisner spoke about the technology’s impact on the media landscape. “This is before people had iPhones in their pockets, right? So this was unheard of technology at the time, coupled with trying to program this visual storytelling of very, very dense, heavy data that we’ve been familiar with for years — but created in such a way that it was interactive and an extension of [the network’s chief national correspondent] John King’s vast political knowledge at the time.”

Reisner continued: “So the question was, how do we break down the brain dump of all the knowledge that he has? He was able to call out a primary in Cuyahoga County in the ’80s like that (snaps), now we can just quickly click that and show the world how that visually is compelling.”

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King continued: “And it wasn’t just cutting edge technology. David turned an old bus into a rolling television studio, bringing our political coverage into every corner of America. He made us better.”

source: people.com