Too 'Woke' To Work: Jussie Smollett's Many Defenders & Enablers In The Media

Despite Getting His Story Wrong, There's Been No Shame Or Contrition Among the Press.

From the American Conservative:

In March, the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) announced that it had put CNN on a “special media monitoring list” over concerns about a lack of diversity and the network’s president’s refusal to even discuss the lack of black executives at the liberal news organization.

CNN doesn’t have a single black executive producer, or vice president on its news side, the NABJ charged. The black journalist organization also alleged that CNN’s president Jeff Zucker refused a scheduled meeting to discuss the problem with a four-member NABJ delegation. 

As a result, the NABJ threatened that it would assign a special team of its members to “perform further research and an analysis of CNN’s diversity, inclusion and equity practices,” particularly as they pertain to CNN’s news decision-making capacities. The group also called for a “civil rights audit” which would examine the company’s hiring, promotion and compensation practices involving black employees. Such audits are usually performed by Justice Department officials on local and state government entities in anticipation of federal consent decrees. The NABJ was claiming CNN might have more in common than it would like to admit with racially troubled police departments and underperforming school districts being monitored by the federal government.

CNN declared that it would be more than happy to sit with NABJ, but the meeting could not include the organization’s vice president, Roland Martin. During the 2016 Democratic primaries, Martin was accused of slipping questions verbatim to Hillary Clinton’s campaign before a town hall debate with Bernie Sanders. He did it in coordination with then DNC chairwoman and CNN contributor Donna Brazile, who was fired from the network for the violation. According to CNN, “Mr. Martin displayed an unprecedented and egregious lack of journalistic ethics and integrity by leaking questions prior to the town hall,” which had inflicted “significant and reckless damage” to the network.” 

The NABJ-CNN contretemps highlighted lingering raw feelings and bad memories from 2016. But it is no sign that the media will be any less “woke” in its coverage of the next presidential campaign, as President Donald Trump seeks reelection. Their coverage of Empire actor Jussie Smollett’s hate crime hoax, for example, says otherwise.

Even though he had a direct pipeline to Smollett beginning the very night of the alleged attack, CNN’s Don Lemon was hardly in a rush to ask tough questions. Lemon spoke to Smollett on the phone belonging to a mutual friend at Northwestern Memorial Hospital where the Empire star was being treated. Lemon said that a shaken and angry but resilient Smollett described the attack, telling the anchor that “during times of trauma, grief and pain there is still a responsibility to lead with love.” It was all he knew, Lemon said Smollett declared, “And that can’t get kicked out of me.” 

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