Articles Feature

NABJ to Interview V.P. Harris Tuesday

by richard0982

Philadelphia Event to Be Streamed, Fact-Checked
. . . Roland Martin Pledges to Add New Shows
Trump Whoppers Demeaned Haitians, Central Park Five
Blacks’ Priorities: Protecting Rights, Freedoms

Homepage photo: Vice President Kamala Harris is interviewed Friday by Brian Taff of WPVI-TV in Philadelphia. (Credit: WPVI)

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(Credit: National Association of Black Journalists)

Philadelphia Event to Be Streamed, Fact-Checked

The National Association of Black Journalists will host an in-person conversation with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, NABJ announced Friday. “This event will feature an interview between Vice President Harris and NABJ member journalists. It will take place in Philadelphia — a city deeply tied to NABJ’s legacy,” it said.

The journalists conducting the interview were not identified. The event is to take place at public radio station WHYY, and streamed on WHYY’s platforms and NABJ’s YouTube and Facebook pages at 2:30 p.m. EDT, the organization said.

[Saturday night update:

[At 9:17 p.m. EDT, NABJ announced the panelists: Gerren Keith Gaynor, White House correspondent and managing editor of politics at theGrio; Eugene Daniels, “Playbook” co-author and White House correspondent for Politico; and Tonya Mosley, co-host of WHYY’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley.” Daniels is also president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

[The choices address criticisms of the Aug. 1 panel composition — ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott, Fox News host Harris Faulkner and Semafor reporter Kadia Goba. Members cited the lack of Black men or a representative from the Black press, and questioned whether Faulkner of Fox News was an NABJ member. She was not. Faulkner later criticized Scott for causing an “emotional” start to the interview with Trump.

[NABJ leaders said then that they did not have much time to assemble the questioners. Paula Madison, a liaison between NABJ and the Harris campaign, told the Aug. 3 NABJ business meeting that, “In the debriefing we had, we said if we had it to do all over again, we would have had the Black press and [male] journalists on the panel.”]

Friday’s NABJ announcement continued, “PolitiFact will provide real-time fact-checking of the conversation via the #NABJFactCheck social media hashtag and through a live feed on the NABJ website. The event will be attended by NABJ professional and student members and 100 journalism and communications students from local HBCUs will be invited,” a reference to historically Black colleges and universities.

“It is not a campaign event, and it is not open to the public. . . . Seating is limited. Members and students interested in attending must RSVP by September 16 to attend.”

After a firestorm over its invitation to Donald Trump to participate in its Chicago convention, his subsequent interview by an NABJ panel, and failure to secure an appearance by the vice president along with Trump, NABJ President Ken Lemon said, “We are in talks about virtual options in the future” with Harris “and are still working to reach an agreement.” He later narrowed the timeline to September.

The upcoming appearance coincides with a White House national HBCU conference at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown from Sept. 15 to Sept. 19, Fallon Roth reported for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

It will be Harris’ 13th visit this year to Pennsylvania, the battleground state with the most electoral votes, Carmen Russell-Sluchansky noted for WHYY. Sarah J. Glover, a past NABJ president, is WHYY’s vice president of news.

Several members of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists were among the 44 journalists who met in Washington, D.C., to form NABJ in 1975. Today, NABJ’s affiliate chapter in Philadelphia is NABJ-Philly, although the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists still exists.

The Harris appearance also follows what has been overwhelmingly considered a triumph for the vice president in her debate Tuesday with Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.

“Harris’ campaign advisers made clear she will be doing more media interviews, including with unconventional outlets,” Politico reported afterward.

The debate with Trump — which might be the only encounter between the two before the election — was also significant in that four national Black media organizations simulcast it.

Eleven Black-press publishers or editors, some hosting local debate watch parties, delivered their analyses one by one for Word In Black’s YouTube audience. (Credit: YouTube)

That gave Black journalists and commentators at two of them — Word in Black, a consortium of publishers of the Black press, and the independent “Roland Martin Unfiltered” — an opportunity to provide Black-focused analysis immediately following the 90-minute event. BET and TheGrio TV simulcast the debate, but provided no commentary or analysis before or after.

For the “Word In Black” event, 11 publishers or editors, some hosting local debate watch parties, delivered their analyses one by one for a YouTube audience. Some, such as Tacuma Roeback of the Chicago Defender and A.R. Shaw of the Atlanta Daily World, wrote their own columns as well

“It’s critically important to hear Black voices and Black perspectives on this election (or literally anything) in a society that treats us like less than an afterthought,” Houston’s Aswad Walker, associate editor of the Defender Network, messaged Journal-isms afterward.

“The fact that Black media caught immediately a Harris/Trump debate moment that went viral (Harris’s long pause, saying ‘This………… former president'”), a moment white media didn’t notice, says all you need to know about the value and importance of our perspective. During that Harris pause, Black World did two things… 1) fill in the blanks with all the things we’d call Trump and 2) imagine all the colorful descriptors Harris wanted to call Trump. Whether planned or not by Harris, Blackworld and Black media noticed it.”

Joseph Williams, Word In Black deputy managing director, explained the origin of the event: “Our marketing team, led by Larry Lee and Patrick Washington, developed the idea during a PR committee call on August 20. They brought it to the leadership, which saw an opportunity to engage with our readership and bought in.

“Given the response – 1,300 emails collected and a lot of participation on the livestream – it’s safe to say we’re probably going to do it again. There’s a meeting and debrief on Monday where ideas will be discussed about more streaming. . . .”

Roland Martin kept his iPad open during the conversation so he could monitor social-media comments, such as LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the voting rights group Black Voters Matter, writing, “This wasn’t a debate; this was a declaration of leadership.” (Credit: YouTube)

Word In Black’s audience was relatively small compared with ‘Roland Martin Unfiltered,” a daily, streamed Black news show that Martin said started with an idea six years ago. It began with 157,000 subscribers on YouTube, Martin wrote on LinkedIn. “Today, it’s nearly 1.4 million. We’ve exceeded 1 billion views across multiple platforms.” At 1:06 a.m. Eastern, 16,447 were still watching on YouTube, though the debate itself ended at 9:30 p.m.

Martin’s conversation included eight academics and commentators in a would-be living room for analysis with a “just among us” feel.  “Am I trippin’, am I trippin’?” asked one, remarking on Harris’ strong performance. But she quickly followed with, “We always have Black people who are the best or first, but they don’t always get the job.” Martin cautioned against overconfidence. “She has not won. She won a debate. She has not won the election,” Martin said of Harris. He outlined next steps, such as advocating early voting.

Publishers or editors participating in the Word In Black event were:

Elinor Tatum of the New York Amsterdam News, Alexis Taylor of the Afro-American in Baltimore; Juan Benn Jr. of the Washington Informer and the Hilltop at Howard University; Patrick Washington of the Dallas Weekly; Shaw of the Atlanta Daily World; Williamena Kwapo of the Sacramento (Calif.) Observer; Walker of the Houston Defender Network; Donnell Suggs of the Atlanta Voice; Roeback of the Chicago Defender; Jeremy Allen of the Michigan Chronicle and Alvin A. Reid of the St. Louis American.

. . . Roland Martin Pledges to Add New Shows

“SIX YEARS AGO they told me it would not work,” Roland Martin wrote last week on LinkedIn. “Multiple people said a daily Black news show would fail. But when you have faith, and are willing to work, then good things will happen. I turned down a $330,000 a year, 3-year contract with @tvonetv. The final year of the @flyjocktomjoyner was in 2019. A salary that began at $250,000 and ended at $48,000 a year. It’s called BELIEVE IN THE VISION and believe in yourself.

“We began this journey with one sponsor @afscme. I am eternally grateful to my @apa1906network brother Lee Saunders for believing in the vision. I invested $350,000 of my own money. We had a small studio space that we sublet from @fiftycan, where I was — and still am — a board member. Our team was small, but we persevered. We also began with 157,000 subscribers on Youtube. Today, it’s nearly 1.4 million.

“We’ve exceeded 1 billion views across multiple platforms. We’ve been profitable since March 2020. And all of my haters and doubters have been silenced. God gave me the vision, He made it plain, and we’ve been winning ever since. And three years ago today, the vision led to the @blackstarnetwork. We’ll be adding new shows in 2025 and expand our offerings. We are not through yet! hashtag#BlackOwnedMediaMatters hashtag#BringTheFunk hashtag#TeamJesus.”

Trump Whoppers Demeaned Haitians, Central Park Five

Fact-checkers found a lot to work with after Tuesday’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, but nothing generated the attention given Trump’s claims that Haitians are eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.

Not receiving nearly as much notice is Trump’s portrayal of the Central Park Five, the Black and Latino teens accused of the 1989 assault on a white female jogger in New York’s Central Park. Trump falsely said they pleaded guilty to the crime, therefore justifying the full-page ad Trump placed at the time calling for their execution. The Five were exonerated, but only after each served five to 13 years in prison.

In addition, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission pushed back on Trump’s call for the FCC to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC, which hosted the debate. Trump and his supporters claimed David Muir and Linsey Davis were biased after they fact-checked a few of Trump’s comments in real time.

“The First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy,” said FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, George Winslow reported Thursday for TV Technology. “The FCC does not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage.”

PolitiFact found that Harris misled viewers in saying that “In (Trump’s) Project 2025 there would be a national abortion, a monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages.” And she exaggerated when she said, “The Trump administration resulted in a trade deficit — one of the highest we’ve ever seen in the history of America.”

But it found the vast majority of the whoppers were told by Trump.

Trump doubled down Friday on his claim about dog-eating Haitians, declaring that if he becomes president, he will execute large-scale deportations of migrants, beginning in Ohio and Colorado.

“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” Trump told reporters during a news conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. “And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora,” a Colorado city where Trump claimed immigrants were taking over buildings, Kathryn Watson reported for CBS News.

“They’re eating the dogs — the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said during the debate. “Although ABC moderator David Muir said the city manager disputed this claim, which was also made by Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, Trump insisted he had seen people saying so on television. After the debate, Trump also shared AI-generated posts that showed pets supporting his presidential candidacy,” Watson continued.

On Thursday, bomb threats led to the evacuation of Springfield City Hall, two schools and the state motor vehicle agency’s local facility, according to the New York Times. In Haiti, “Haitians are calling on U.S. authorities to protect Haitian immigrants and urging their compatriots to work toward rebuilding and improving Haiti for all its people, both within and abroad,” Juhakenson Blaise, Onz Chéry, Kervenson Martial and Edxon Francisque reported Thursday for the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Haitian Times.

The Daily Beast reported Friday, “The social media user who posted what appears to be one of the first claims of Haitian migrants kidnapping and eating family pets in Springfield, Ohio was simply repeating a story she had heard from a neighbor — who’d heard it themselves from a friend, who’d heard it from someone else, according to a new report,” wrote AJ McDougall and Vivian Ho, citing NewsGuard, a company that works to counter online misinformation.

The hometown newspaper, the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun, which has consistently reported officials’ debunking of the pet-eating story, added Friday, “There have been two reports this year of people believed to be Haitian grabbing geese and ducks from Snyder Park in Springfield, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

“ ‘Upon follow-up, no supporting evidence was found of wildlife being illegally removed from the park in either case,’ according to a statement from ODNR,”  Josh Sweigart and Jessica Orozco reported.

The Rev. Al Sharpton introduces four members of the now-exonerated “Central Park Five,” who spoke on stage last month during the final night of the Democratic National Convention. (Credit: CNN/YouTube)

In the debate’s latter half, Harris invoked the infamous full-page advertisement Trump took out in New York newspapers calling for the state to reinstate the death penalty, Jon Campbell wrote Wednesday for Gothamist, a nonprofit New York newsroom.

“ ‘They admitted,’ Trump said. “They said they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty, they badly hurt the person, killed the person ultimately. … Then they pled, ‘We’re not guilty.’

“Trump’s statement contained several falsehoods,” Campbell wrote.

” ‘The Central Park Five did not, in fact, plead guilty; they were convicted at trial after providing confessions that ultimately proved to be false. All five men — including current New York City Councilmember Yusef Salaam — had their convictions vacated in 2002, thanks in part to DNA evidence.”

“The victim of the attack was brutalized and left in a coma, but she was not killed. . . .”

As for the confessions, “After hours of interrogation at the Central Park Precinct, the boys, under duress, confessed to assaulting her; however, they recanted their admissions, stating they only confessed under the premise that they could go home afterward,” People magazine recalled.

“Make no mistake, our lives depend on our votes. This November, casting our ballots will be more than just us exercising our right to vote — it is the key to the future of our culture, and our community,” said Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO. (Credit: NAACP)

Blacks’ Priorities: Protecting Rights, Freedoms

Racism and discrimination are still top issues for Black voters, according to a new survey sponsored by the NAACP, concluding that candidates who make it a priority to address both economic and social inequalities will earn Black votes.

The NAACP Friday unveiled “its first round of polling results outlining the attitudes and issue priorities of millions of infrequent Black voters. The research, in partnership with Hart Research and HIT Strategies, is part of the Association’s multi-million dollar civic engagement program targeting 14.5 million voters across 12 priority states where the Black community holds significant electoral power,” the organization said.

“Key takeaways include:

  • “Over half of Black voters say the highest priority for our elected leaders should be protecting our rights and freedoms (53%), compared to addressing economic concerns (40%), and addressing other issues (7%).
  • “Economic concerns related to inflation are the most frequently cited unaided priorities for our elected leaders to address, with essentials of daily life, including the cost of food and groceries, housing, and utilities being the biggest economic stressors.
  • “Most (78%) Black voters are feeling the same, or more excited than when President Obama first ran, with more than half (56%) being more excited now than in 2008. . . .”

Phaedra Jackson, NAACP vice president of unit advocacy and effectiveness, said in a media call unveiling the survey results that Black voters “are looking to be empowered, not helped,” that “representation matters,” and that these voters see unity as a priority.

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Richard Prince’s Journal-isms originates from Washington. It began in print before most of us knew what the internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a “column.” Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity. Send tips, comments and concerns to Richard Prince at journal-isms+owner@groups.io

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