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What Black Networks Missed by Not Showing the Inauguration

by richard2 2295

BET Says Viewers Were More Interested in Obama

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Short Takes

NBC's Tom Brokaw said after Donald J. Trump's inauguration speech appeared to target Trump's base,
Donald J. Trump’s inauguration speech appeared designed primarily to please Trump’s base. NBC News’ Tom Brokaw said disapprovingly, “He’s not the president of the Electoral College; he’s the president of the whole country.” (Credit: Kevin Dietrich/pool)

BET Says Viewers Were More Interested in Obama

Black Entertainment Television and TV One, the major African American-oriented networks, provided a much-needed service on Election Day by providing a sympathetic outlet for their stunned viewers to process Donald Trump’s presidential victory. But on Inauguration Day, both took a pass.

They blew it.

“Our viewers are far more emotionally moved by the exit of the Obamas and so we spent time celebrating them with special programming (video) on their last full day in Washington,” Jamie Owens, a spokesman for BET, told Journal-isms by email Friday. During the inauguration ceremony, BET showed a teen movie, “Love Don’t Cost a Thing.”

A TV One spokeswoman placed a question about coverage in the context of its morning news show, “NewsOne Now.”

“We chose to dedicate this morning’s show to the legacy of President Barack Obama,” spokeswoman Brandii Toby-Leon messaged. “On Monday, Jan. 23, NewsOne Now will offer our viewers an in-depth overview of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, including this weekend’s Inaugural activities.” In the run-up to Trump’s taking the oath, TV One showed a rerun of the ’70s sitcom “The Jeffersons.”

A third black-oriented network, Bounce TV, showed “Brothers in Arms,” an action-adventure western.

In fairness, these networks primarily consider themselves purveyors of entertainment.

Still, other networks, including the Spanish-language Univision and Telemundo, found that the inauguration of a president supported by few blacks provided plenty to talk about. Viewers had to work, however, to find a concentrated African American perspective.

©2017 Rob Rogers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Reprinted with permission.
©2017 Rob Rogers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Reprinted with permission.

In his 16-minute speech, Trump painted a bleak picture of current-day America and blamed politicians who shared the stage with him. “Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth,” he said.

Trump also said, “Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

“This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. . . .”

The new president, often characterized as appealing to white racist impulses, said at one point, “When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.” That line received almost no traction, however. The speech was generally viewed as an excessive appeal to nationalism and red meat for Trump’s base.

“I felt myself squirming at times because he was insulting some of the people he is sharing the platform with,” “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt said in NBC’s post-speech discussion.

On CNN, commentator Van Jones said Trump’s use of “patriotism” was ambiguous. “To the right, patriotism is the key to prosperity. To the left, patriotism is a code for prejudice.” On the same panel, Nia-Malika Henderson said Trump could at least have shaken hands with Hillary Clinton, his Democratic presidential opponent who was in the audience. Trump also could have mentioned women, many of whom plan to attend a Women’s March on Washington on Saturday, Henderson said.

On MSNBC, Eugene Robinson said he found Trump’s talk scary. Later, on a special edition of “Hardball,” the talk turned to D.C. street protests in which police arrested more than 200 people. Robinson, a Washington Post columnist, predicted that “we’re going to see more of this” during Trump’s presidency. “It reminds me of the Nixon days,” Robinson said.

Gayle King, who anchored CBS’ morning coverage, co-hosted an evening special with John Dickerson in which filmmaker Ava Duvernay and comedian Larry Wilmore participated. “For me, the only answer is to resist,” Duvernay said of Trump. Wilmore noted that the country was divided — the same nation that elected Obama put Trump in office.

ABC hired former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who left office in December, as a political analyst. She responded to Trump “by suggesting, with a heavy dose of sarcasm, that Trump’s message that violence would be halted immediately under his watch was naive,” Kevin Rector reported for the Baltimore Sun.

“‘Brilliant, why didn’t I think of that?’ Rawlings-Blake wrote on Twitter. ‘Killings solved, poof.’ ”

Those were not the only journalists and commentators of color to be found on the mainstream networks. “We had Robin Roberts, Byron Pitts, Deborah Roberts, Cecilia Vega, Tom Llamas, Pierre Thomas, TJ Holmes, Ken Moton, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and more,” ABC spokesman Van Scott said by email.

Journalists of color at other networks were also on the scene. Commentator Juan Williams opined for Fox News Channel. Jeff Pegues and Errol Barnett reported for CBS, and Elaine Quijano anchored for CBSN, the CBS internet news channel. Kristen Welker was among those reporting for NBC.

Their viewers learned that Trump’s use of an “America First” theme was surprising because the term had been linked in the 1930s to anti-Semitism and an isolationist movement. And that the Coast Guard Academy became integrated after John F. Kennedy noticed at his 1961 inauguration that Coast Guard contingent had no blacks.

José Diaz-Balart and María Celeste Arrarás (Credit: Telemundo)
José Diaz-Balart and María Celeste Arrarás (Credit: Telemundo)

Like their mainstream counterparts, the Spanish-language networks took inauguration coverage seriously.

NBC-owned Telemundo announced that “Noticias Telemundo” anchor José Díaz-Balart and ‘Al Rojo Vivo’ host María Celeste Arrarás led a team of more than 10 reporters and presenters stationed around the country.

Asked what the analysts and commentators  from NorthShore Advisory said, spokesman Camilo Pino responded by email, “Well, I don’t want to generalize but the conservative perspective was that he softened the speech and that . . . it was more inclusive and the liberal perspective was that it was a nationalist and populist speech.”

Univision, too, had announced it was going all out. “Special coverage of the 45th Presidential Inauguration, titled ‘Cambio de Mando’ (Change of Leadership), kicks off at 7:00 a.m. ET/4:00 a.m. PT on the Univision Network’s morning show ‘Despierta América’ (Wake Up America), with news anchor Satcha Pretto hosting from Washington, D.C.,” Univision said in a news release Thursday. “Then, at 11:00 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT, the Network’s live coast-to-coast broadcast of the inauguration ceremony begins, led by award-winning anchors Jorge Ramos and María Elena Salinas, also stationed in the nation’s capital.

“They will be joined by distinguished guests that include former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, Mexican politician and professor Jorge Castañeda, Harvard lecturer and advisor to the Trump transition team, Carlos Díaz Rosillo, and Jazmina Saavedra, director of Latinas for Trump, as well as members of the Women’s March and the DREAMer movement, to discuss the details of the inauguration as well as analyze important issues that could impact Latinos during the Trump administration. . . .”

It fell to the print and pixel media to provide concentrated attention on the African American perspective.

Allison Keyes reported online for The Root, “Yvette Cormier’s brows furrowed when she was asked what she thought about being on the National Mall to see President Donald Trump’s swearing-in ceremony. She was here for both of President Barack Obama’s inaugurations and thinks that today wasn’t the same at all.

“ ‘The energy of the crowd is completely different, and there’s no diversity,’ said Cormier, an African-American woman who traveled from Plainfield, N.J. ‘I didn’t realize this movement is so white.’ . . .”

Zeba Blay wrote in Huffington Post Black Voices under the headline, “Black Activists React To Trump’s Inauguration: ‘I Feel Betrayed’. ”

The coverage wasn’t all serious. A headline over a story by Veronica Wells on madamenoire.com read, “All Of The Gross Things That Have Happened Since Donald Trump Took Office.” The site also published “10 Shirts You’re Going To Need To Get Through The Next Four Years” by Brande Victorian.

Blavity.com showed a photo of Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton under the headline, “Michelle Obama’s Side-Eyes Were Absolutely The Single Best Part of The Presidential Inauguration.”

It added suggested captions for that photo and others, collected from people who posted the photos on Twitter. These included:

 

Essence Permits Staffers to Carry Signs at March

Essence magazine will be among those allowing staff members to attend Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington, holding signs if they choose unless they are covering the event, a spokeswoman told Journal-isms on Friday.

“Per Jess Cagle (Editor-in-Chief, PEOPLE and Editorial Director, Time Inc. Celebrity Entertainment & Style Group), we’ve told our editorial staff that ‘there’s no restriction on attending the women’s march, which is arguably not a protest.’ However, some have asked if it’s OK to hold signs. which is of course ok unless they are there in an official capacity covering the event, ” Essence spokeswoman Sheila Harris said by email.

Harris noted that the parent Time Inc.’s standards of business policy says, “Editorial staff members involved in covering a political campaign or major controversial issue, including editors, researchers, and other editorial employees involved in shaping our coverage, may not be publicly identified with a particular candidate or side of the issue being covered.”

Other publications have varying standards. “For many in the media, this election year — and the results of the election — [have] resulted in a shift from the traditional reportorial remove taught at journalism schools as more and more publications have asserted a point of view,” Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke reported Thursday for WWD. “That’s especially apparent in the ways that media organizations are planning to cover the Women’s March in Washington on Saturday, the day after Donald Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States.

“What began on Facebook as a grassroots plan to unite women who were disappointed by the results of a campaign where a female presidential candidate won the popular vote but lost the election, has become a movement to show support for women’s rights. . . .”

Bloomgarden-Smoke also wrote that “as more and more outlets attempt to cover the new political and cultural reality, magazine web sites and digital publications are now struggling with the journalistic questions that newspapers have been grappling with for generations. . . .

“The march itself raises the question of whether journalists who are not covering it should attend as private citizens. Among the outlets WWD reached out to, The New York Times, The Washington Post and BuzzFeed (or, as Trump called it during his press conference, a ‘failing piece of garbage’) are not allowing their reporters to attend unless they are on assignment. . . .”

Trump Favors Net Neutrality Foe to Head FCC

“President Donald Trump will tap Ajit Pai as his pick to lead the FCC in the new administration, elevating the sitting GOP commissioner to the top spot overseeing the nation’s communications industry, according to four industry sources familiar with the decision,” Alex Byers and Tony Romm reported Friday for Politico.

“The announcement could come as soon as this afternoon, the sources said. Pai, a Barack Obama nominee who has served as the senior FCC Republican for more than three years, could take the new role immediately and wouldn’t require approval by the Senate because he was already confirmed to serve at the agency. . . .”

Byers and Romm also wrote, “Pai is already a familiar name in tech and telecom policy debates. He’s a fierce and vocal critic of many regulations passed by the commission’s Democratic majority, including the 2015 net neutrality rules that require internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally and are opposed by the major broadband companies.

“As chairman, Pai will be able to start the process of undoing the net neutrality order and pursuing other deregulatory efforts. . . .”

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2 comments

richard January 21, 2017 at 1:09 pm

From Curtis Stephen:

Just wanted to say “Kudos!” on holding black-oriented and black-owned TV networks to task for failing to provide coverage of the inauguration and related developments yesterday.

No doubt there wouldn’t have been any logistical hurdles in doing coverage given that it was all in D.C. But indeed, for young audiences — it fosters the view of “tuning out” at a critical time when folks need to be deeply engaged (even beyond Facebook/Twitter feeds.)

“NewsOne Now” is usually pretty sharp with the analysis, though the broadcast yesterday was likely (a guess on my part) pre-taped.

Reply
Jamar Thrasher January 24, 2017 at 8:10 pm

Black media outlets should cover the inauguration. The biggest news item on Friday, Jan. 20, 2017 was the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Black networks have consistent black viewership and are platforms to inform and educate segments of the black populous.

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