My wife and I attended the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago, July 31 to August 3, including attending the event with Donald Trump being interviewed by three Black female journalists. All conference attendees were eligible to attend – if you were willing to wait 45 minutes in line and go through security to get in… which we did. We then waited with about 600 others for the event to start over an hour late.
For those who haven’t seen the videos or read about it, the first exchange between ABC’s Rachel Scott and Trump pretty much sums it up. Scott asked Trump, “Mr. President, we so appreciate you giving us an hour of your time. I want to start by addressing the elephant in the room sir. A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Niki Haley to Barack Obama saying they were not born in the United States, which is not true. You have told four congresswomen of color who are American citizens to go back to where they came from. You have used words like “animal” and “rabid” to describe Black district attorneys. You have attacked Black journalists calling them a loser, saying the questions they ask are both stupid and racist. You’ve had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-lago resort. So my question sir, now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you, why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?” And Trump replied, “Well, first of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner. You don’t even say hello, how are you…Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network. And I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country.” A short while later he said, “I will tell you that coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs.” When Scott asked “What exactly is a Black job sir?”, Trump replied, “A Black job is anybody that has a job.”
In response to a question about Vice President Kamala Harris being a “DEI hire” Trump falsely claimed Harris, “happened to turn Black” a few years ago, saying that “all of a sudden, she made a turn” in her identity. “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said. I don’t recall Trump answering one question directly.
I heard from various sources of two possible goals Trump may have had for his NABJ appearance: to fire up his core voter base and to secure more Black votes. If those were his goals, I’d say he nailed the first one, including appealing to Black members of his base. However, I suspect he failed miserably at the second, as his treatment of Rachel Scott would likely repel far more Black voters than it would attract, especially since, according to the Pew Research Center, Black voters remained overwhelmingly loyal to the Democratic Party in the 2020 election, voting 92%-8% for Biden over Trump.
NABJ’s decision to include invite Trump sparked vigorous debate among conference participants. Conference attendee, independent journalist Pacinthe Mattar critiqued the NABJ for inviting Trump in her August 10, 2024 Walrus article “Donald Trump Insulted a Room Full of Black Journalists. I Was There.” Mattar wrote, “The NABJ convention was meant to be a time to lift each other up. Instead, we were shushed into silence while Trump attacked us.” She quoted NABJ conference panelist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, creator of the 1619 Project and founder of the Center for Journalism and Democracy at Howard University, “I did not believe that NABJ…that came out of the traditions of the Black press, should give a platform to someone who does not believe in democracy…. I’m not saying we don’t cover him…but I don’t know that we lend our platform to that.” Mattar said Hannah-Jones also questioned the highly curated format, which prevented other journalists in the room from getting a chance to ask questions.
I very much respect Pacinthe Mattar but disagree that the NABJ was wrong to invite Trump. She says it was ironic that they invited him given the convention theme was disinformation but that is exactly why it was good to invite him: to give Black journalists a chance to ask him tough questions (which Rachel Scott did) and let him answer with disinformation – which he blatantly did for an international audience. Pacinthe also said that NPR journalist Eric Deegan tweeted that at a membership meeting a few days after the convention, NABJ’s executive director told attendees that Scott has faced death threats for her unflinching questions, with Pacinthe adding that, “As the debate continues about whether it was worth inviting Trump to a convention for Black journalists, that alone seems like too high a price.” I completely disagree with this. Journalists avoiding asking people like Donald Trump tough questions because they might get death threats from their supporters would give people like Trump more power.
I do fault the NABJ for including Fox News journalist Harris Faulkner as one of the three moderators seemingly in a flawed attempt at “balance”. As Fox promotes Trump 24/7, the NABJ could have achieved better balance by replacing Faulkner with someone more left of the mainstream. (The third moderator was Kadia Goba, political reporter with Semafor which leans center-left according to media bias monitor AllSides). I also agree with former NABJ conference co-chair Karen Attiah who pointed out that “none of the moderators represented Black-owned, independent or Black local media outlets. In that sense, the event essentially perpetuated the same exclusion and disrespect to historically Black media and Black issues that we associate with White systems.” Attiah also shared that NABJ leadership turned down an opportunity to hear from Kamala Harris through a remote appearance. Attiah resigned as co-chair after the NABJ announced the Trump event, saying she hadn’t been consulted and couldn’t be part of “performative, journalistic charades that degrade our communities, and further undermine trust in our profession.”
I also question the conflict of interest of the NABJ conference theme being “Winds of Change: Journalism Over Disinformation” and one of the event’s platinum funders (the highest level) being Fox Corporation that owns one of the main fake news purveyors, Fox News (Fox News The Five’s coverage of Trump’s NABJ appearance is a fake news master class.)
More notable things from the conference included:
- At the Thursday, Aug. 1 session “Survival in a World of Misinformation, Disinformation and Artificial Intelligence”, CBS Congressional Correspondence Nikole Killion shared that one way CBS has responded to AI is by creating a Confirmed Video Verification Unit that verifies things like the deep fake video Elon Musk tweeted about Kamala Harris.
- The Thursday lunch session, “Voices Unheard: Black Women in Media – A Panel on Growth, Resilience and Triumph”, was all women from Fox and was described by a woman at our table as “as shallow as a kiddy pool” (and we agree).
- There were two Haiti panels. Wed. July 31, “Haiti at a Crossroads: The Media’s Role in Shaping Global Context” with panelists Yinka Adegoke, Africa Editor, Semafor; Manoucheka Celeste, Professor and Media Scholar, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC); Ralph “Onz” Chery, Haiti-based reporter, The Haitian Times; Vladimir Duthiers, National Correspondent/Anchor and Featured Host, CBS News; and Edvige Jean-Francois, Center for Studies on Africa and its Diaspora, Georgia State University and Friday, Aug. 3 “Reporting from Haiti: Taking on Risks and Myths Through Quality Journalism” with panelists Jacqueline Charles, Haiti/Caribbean Correspondent, Miami Herald; Darlie Gervais, Advertising Boost Initiative Director for the Center for Community Media, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, City University of New York; Harold Isaac, Independent journalist; and Widlore Mérancourt, Editor-in-Chief, AyiboPost. When asked about the challenges of reporting on and from Haiti, Mérancourt said loneliness and mental health. When asked what the international media is missing in its Haiti reporting, the panelists said most mainstream international reports tell a single, reactive story. Harold Isaac said some people take unnecessary risks to get social media content. The NABJ conference book store sold Gildan t-shirts despite the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) breaking the August 2023 story “Haitian Workers at Factory Supplying Gildan Activewear Fired for Striking over Poverty Wages”
- At Thursday’s session “Fighting for Truth in the Face of Lies – Misinformation and the Battle for Democracy” one of the panelists shared that a study by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) found that polling was the #1 thing negatively affecting Americans’ trust in politics.
- At Thursday’s “Covering the Climate Crisis in Black Communities” session The Post and Courier’s Senior Projects Reporter Tony Bartelme shared details of his project, “The Saharan Connection and Lessons From Senegal” which was partly inspired by him finding out that dust from the Sahara Desert was making its ways to Charleston, South Carolina where he lives.
- At Friday’s session, “Abortion, IVF and Contraception: How to Produce Responsible Journalism in a Post-Roe World”, someone asked panelist, Atlanta Journal Constitution Statehouse reporter Maya T. Prabu, how she handles editors who want her to use terms like “pro-life” instead and “anti-abortion”. She pointed out that the AJC’s Editor-in-Chief was in the room, then courageously shared how she would sometimes have to educate/fight with her immediate editor who was an older man.
- Friday’s session, “Taking Your Journalism from Good to Great”, was hosted by, and featured panelists from, the New York Times owned sports website The Athletic. In response to me asking if they faced pressure not to do critical stories about professional sports team billionaire owners, James Edwards III, who covers the (very bad) Detroit Pistons National Basketball Association team said no. Former NFL Network reporter Jim Trotter also said no. Jim sued the league and its media arm in September 2023, alleging racial discrimination and retaliation after his contract was not renewed earlier in the year. Trotter was employed by the league for five years and repeatedly spoke publicly and privately about the NFL’s diversity issues, including the lack of Black head coaches and NFL Network executives. In May 2024, NBC Sport reported that Trotter’s lawsuit survived an attempt by the NFL to have it dismissed.
- My favourite session was Friday’s “The Deciders: How to cover issues driving voters in 2024″ featuring the very lively and experienced panelists NBC News Washington Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, NBC News Correspondent Shaquille Brewster, SAG-AFTRA reporter/anchor Marion Brooks, MSNBC Legal Analyst Charles Coleman Jr. and MSNBC The Weekend co-host Symone Sanders-Townsend. One of the many interesting things they shared were polls – taken before Trump’s NABJ appearance – showing a slight increase in Trump’s support among Black men.
In stark contrast to the intensely political environment inside the conference, we attended a stand-up comedy show at Chicago’s famous Second City and were surprised that none of the five comedians who performed told one prepared political joke (they made some unscripted ones after learning we were in Chicago attending the NABJ conference and saw Trump). I spoke with one of the comedians after the show who said comedians he works with generally stay away from political humor – unless they’re really good at it – because it’s too divisive…and he was a lawyer for Barack Obama’s team before he quit politics to go into comedy. Clearly, political humor is very popular as the success of shows like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver demonstrate.
On the NABJ feedback form I’m going to suggest that, for next year’s conference in Cleveland, Ohio, that they invite President (hopefully) Kamala Harris and very political comedian Dave Chappelle (who lives in Ohio) to perform right after her. He’ll be way more entertaining than Trump.