Black journalists are still torn about Trump’s visit to the NABJ convention. I’m not one of them
I had no problem with Trump being invited, even though I would have handled it differently. Still, after his appearance onstage last week, there’s no ducking the truth about Trump.
My phone started ringing even before Donald Trump took the stage at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago last week.
A week later, I’m still hearing from folks.
I’m at peace with the organization’s decision to interview Trump. So is NABJ president Ken Lemon who told me earlier this week that he has zero regrets about it.
“We had a battery of questions from the Black perspective for him to consider,” Lemon told me Monday. “He stumbled all over the place.”
Journalists play a crucial role in shining light on subjects in a way that, hopefully, brings about positive change. Lemon said the organization’s decision to host Trump was in line with that mission.
“As journalists, we are called to make sure that we speak truth to power,” he said. “In a case like this, this is an individual who wants to be the leader of the free world.”
Lemon added: “This was the first time we got to see him walk into a place where people were going to bring serious questions about Black issues for an extended period of time.”
And the moderators of Trump’s panel at the convention brought plenty of serious questions. But, as the late Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Les Payne used to tell students, sometimes you have to “Tell the truth, and duck.”
After his appearance onstage last week, there’s no ducking the truth about Trump.
He was rude to ABC news correspondent Rachel Scott, who was one of the co-moderators.
He mocked the racial background of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is both Black and Asian American.
Trump even told a room full of Black journalists that he was “the best president for the Black population” since Abraham Lincoln — which is ridiculous. If I’d been there in person, I would have laughed out loud as others in that ballroom did.
I respect journalists such as White House correspondent April D. Ryan and others who went on social media to complain about his presence.
NABJ conventions are sacred. These annual homecomings offer much-needed respite from a competitive industry in which only 6% of reporting journalists are Black, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center. NABJ gatherings allow for Black journalists like me to gather and lick our collective wounds, attend professional workshops, network, and get reenergized.
NABJ has previously extended invitations to presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle. That the 49-year-old organization didn’t make an exception this time around was OK with me, even though I would have organized things much differently.
The best thing that came out of the spectacle is that undecided voters got another chance to watch an unedited version of The Trump Show, and ask themselves if they really wanted to endure another four long years of it.
As Lemon pointed out, “Opportunities like this really help to inform voters.” People aren’t going to forget what happened on that stage any time soon.
I am proud of NABJ.
I am proud to be a co-founder of NABJ’s new Philly chapter.
I am also proud of Scott. She demonstrated how journalists need to fact-check in real time instead of letting interview subjects spread misinformation.
Trump, who has a history of responding negatively to strong women who challenge him, told her: “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner, a first question.”
Then he added, “You don’t even say ‘Hello, how are you?’ Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network.”
I wish she had responded by saying, “I think you’re a fake presidential candidate.”
Instead, Scott maintained her professionalism. She understood the assignment, as the saying goes, and did the best she could in face of his deliberate evasiveness and obfuscation of the truth.
Trump lives in a different reality than the rest of us.
After the interview, he posted on his Truth Social account that “the questions were Rude and Nasty, often in the form of a statement, but we CRUSHED IT!”
If he didn’t still have almost a 50-50 chance of winning the presidential election in November, his shenanigans might be funny. Instead they are downright scary.