{"id":1668,"date":"2024-08-14T19:57:03","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T19:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5353.temp.domains\/~dabizblo\/?p=1668"},"modified":"2024-08-15T20:03:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T20:03:52","slug":"attending-the-national-association-of-black-journalists-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/box5353.temp.domains\/~dabizblo\/attending-the-national-association-of-black-journalists-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Attending the National Association of Black Journalists Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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\u2026 which we did. We then waited with about 600 others for the event to start over an hour late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who haven\u2019t seen the videos or read about it, the first exchange between ABC\u2019s 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, \u201cWell, first of all, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner. You don\u2019t even say hello, how are you\u2026Are you with ABC? Because I think they\u2019re a fake news network, a terrible network. And I think it\u2019s disgraceful that I came here in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country.\u201d A short while later he said, \u201cI will tell you that coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs.\u201d When Scott asked \u201cWhat exactly is a Black job sir?\u201d, Trump replied, \u201cA Black job is anybody that has a job.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to a question about Vice President Kamala Harris being a \u201cDEI hire\u201d Trump falsely claimed Harris, \u201chappened to turn Black\u201d a few years ago, saying that \u201call of a sudden, she made a turn\u201d in her identity. \u201cShe was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn\u2019t 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\u2019t know, is she Indian or is she Black?\u201d Trump said. I don\u2019t recall Trump answering one question directly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019d 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<\/a>, Black voters remained overwhelmingly loyal to the Democratic Party in the 2020 election, voting 92%-8% for Biden over Trump. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NABJ\u2019s 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 \u201cDonald Trump Insulted a Room Full of Black Journalists. I Was There.<\/a>\u201d Mattar wrote, \u201cThe NABJ convention was meant to be a time to lift each other up. Instead, we were shushed into silence while Trump attacked us.\u201d She quoted NABJ conference panelist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning journalist, creator of the 1619 Project and founder of the Center for Journalism and Democracy at Howard University, \u201cI did not believe that NABJ\u2026that came out of the traditions of the Black press, should give a platform to someone who does not believe in democracy\u2026. I\u2019m not saying we don\u2019t cover him\u2026but I don\u2019t know that we lend our platform to that.\u201d Mattar said Hannah-Jones also questioned the highly curated format, which prevented other journalists in the room from getting a chance to ask questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do fault the NABJ for including Fox News journalist Harris Faulkner as one of the three moderators seemingly in a flawed attempt at \u201cbalance\u201d. 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<\/a>). I also agree with former NABJ conference co-chair Karen Attiah who pointed out<\/a> 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.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also question the conflict of interest of the NABJ conference theme being \u201cWinds of Change: Journalism Over Disinformation\u201d and one of the event\u2019s platinum funders (the highest level) being Fox Corporation that owns one of the main fake news purveyors, Fox News (Fox News The Five\u2019s coverage of Trump\u2019s NABJ appearance<\/a> is a fake news master class.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More notable things from the conference included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n