Roland Martin let the leadership at the National Association of Black Journalists have it for their decision to invite racist Donald Trump to come sit for an interview at their convention this Wednesday in Chicago. Roland isn’t the only one angry about the invitation, and guess who they’re letting moderate the debacle… Harris Faulkner.
Someone really screwed the pooch here:
The National Association of Black Journalists is trying its best to weather a storm of backlash.
The organization on Tuesday drew a torrent of criticism over its decision to invite Donald Trump to sit for an interview at its annual convention in Chicago. The Wednesday afternoon Trump event — moderated by ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott, Fox News host Harris Faulkner, and Semafor politics reporter Kadia Goba — has roiled the NABJ, with some of its most prominent members publicly expressing dismay.
Karen Attiah, The Washington Post columnist who worked as co-chair of this year’s conference, even announced Tuesday that she would resign from her role. While Attiah said a “variety of factors” influenced her decision, she specifically homed in on the Trump interview when making her abrupt announcement.
“To the journalists interviewing Trump, I wish them the best of luck,” Attiah wrote on X, adding that she had not been “involved or consulted with in any way with the decision to platform Trump in such a format.”
Given Trump’s adoration of authoritarianism, coupled with the vile campaign he has waged for years on the fourth estate, his appearance at any media-focused conference would be certain to generate heightened levels of controversy. But the fact that the former president, who has flirted with racist elements of his MAGA movement, had been invited to speak at the NABJ conference struck a particular nerve among many of its members.
MSNBC guest host Jason Johnson asked NAJB member Martin what he thought of the debacle with allowing Trump to speak there, especially given Trump’s history of being particularly nasty to women of color who dare to hold him accountable, and Martin did not hold back.
Martin discussed the fact that Trump had previously been invited in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 and never came, and talked about his disgust given Trump’s “vicious” attacks on journalists and his willingness to push “fake news.”
Martin also hit the NAJB for allowing the likes of Harris Faulkner to participate, given the fact that her network was sued and lost for pushing lies about the previous election, and may be sued again.
Martin was also upset the panel included three Black women, and no Black men, no one from Black owned media, and no local journalists.
Martin also shot back at the notion that anyone, especially Harris Faulkner, is going to be fact-checking Trump live, when everyone knows full well Faulkner won’t fact-check him at all.
Jason Johnson asked Martin, “Do you think that anyone recognize that inviting the Fox into the hen-house is a mistake or do you think this will go through even though will leave the organization with a black eye?”
Martin replied that he’s angry, but he’s still going to go, and if you hear any heckling from that crowd calling Trump a liar, it might be him.
He also took a whack at them for refusing to allow Kamala Harris to appear virtually.
This whole thing stinks. I’m hoping we get more answers about who allowed the debacle and why. In the meantime, I really hope it doesn’t go well for Trump.
I can’t imagine him getting any kind of warm reception there, and we’ll see how much damage control Faulkner is capable of if there’s a live audience instead of some per-recorded propaganda on Fox.
UPDATE: Felon45 is over an hour late and may not appear at all, if this Xit is right:
I’m told that Trump is demanding that NABJ not do the live fact checking and that’s why the event hasn’t started yet
“We’re in a standoff”
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) July 31, 2024
