Panelists Add: Especially With a Black-Owned Outlet
N.Y. Times Puerto Ricans Tolerated ‘the Nonsense’
Paramount Clears Last Big Hurdle to Acquire WB-Discovery
Former Hip-Hop Magazine Editor Admits to Lying
Hannah-Jones Piece on Daughter’s Education Goes Viral
Campaign Ends, but Press-Freedom Fight to Continue
From left, moderator Sara Lomax; Don Lemon, host, “The Don Lemon Show”; Lauren Williams, co-founder and CEO, Capital B; Joy Reid, host, “The Joy Reid Show”; Errin Haines, president of the National Association of Black Journalists and editor-at-large and co-founder of The 19th; Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood; and Justin Pearson, Tennessee state representative. The session was televised on C-SPAN3 (video). (Credit: Richard Prince)
Panelists Add: Especially With a Black-Owned Outlet
“So,” said Lauren Williams, co-founder and CEO of the Black-owned news site Capital B, “probably 70 percent of what we cover is not something that . . . journalists would be able to get covered in mainstream media.”
By the time Williams made that statement during a panel discussion Thursday during the week of the annual Washington gathering of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Legislative Conference, it was not surprising.
Now-independent journalists Don Lemon and Joy Reid, Errin Haines, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, Williams and Sara Lomax, president of URL Media, the discussion convener, were already enumerating ways in which the mainstream media had fallen short in covering issues of concern to Black news consumers, from voting rights to Roe v. Wade, to the spate of Black people found hanged, to the concerns of overlooked rural and Southern Black voters.
They updated the decades-long arguments for diversity at the tables of news-decision makers, and did so as the nation prepares to celebrate the 200th anniversary next year of the Black press.
Participants were sure to note that the survival of Black-owned media, including the emerging outlets run by former mainstream journalists such as Reid, formerly of MSNBC, and Lemon, a CNN veteran, depends on support from Black consumers.
Reid was blunt in outlining what she saw as a lack of accurate analysis of racial issues by mainstream media, a phrase Lemon amended to “white media.”
“Race is so undercover that people miss things that should be fairly obvious,” Reid said. “There was an immediate reaction in 2022 where, for the first time, white women with college degrees voted narrowly majority D. That was the first midterm where that actually happened, where you saw white women, at least a portion of them with college degrees, flip. And that is why that 2022 midterm was a blue wave. What the right did, which is what they do, which the D side doesn’t do, is that they began to immediately target that very same voter cohort to pull them back on side, to get them back on side by 2024.
“And they did the work to do that. Because in this country, if you actually cover the country from a point of view of its racial history coming out of enslavement . . . for white Americans, your interest is racial hierarchy.
“Your interest is making sure that your white sons get into the colleges they want, get the jobs they want with no competition from non-white people, particularly Black people. And so when we say white people are voting against their interests, it’s because the mainstream and corporate media misunderstand what white Americans’ interests actually are. White supremacy is the primary interest and motivation. And it makes sense, right? If a country’s been built to advantage you and advantage your children, it is in your interest to maintain that advantage, even if you call yourself a moderate or a liberal.
“And your real interest was getting rid of DEI, which they didn’t even realize mainly benefited white women. They thought Black. They thought DEI meant Black people are taking your jobs and taking your son’s opportunities and taking away your son’s opportunity to get to Harvard. It was Charlie Kirk saying, well, there’s those Black pilots in there who don’t even know how to fly. They’re just in the cockpit because they’re Black. It should be your son in that cockpit. It should be your son at Harvard and your daughter at Harvard.”
Said Haines, NABJ president, That’s what this is about. Who gets to tell the story? Who gets to control the narrative? . . . The National Association of Black Journalists was founded in 1975 by 44 bold founders who knew that representation in media mattered, but they also knew that ownership and independence mattered. It’s not enough to just have a seat at the table. It’s about who gets to decide what happens at that table. And so, literally in our founding documents, we have that NABJ is supposed to fight for Black media entrepreneurship to help expand Black media, independent Black media.”
She mentioned a newly announced partnership with the National Business League.
Haines also said, “We’re 40-ish days out from the midterm elections. They’re talking about voting rights, covering it like it’s some kind of horse race.
” ‘Oh, what happened in the courts today?’ Yes, that’s absolutely important. You need to know what’s happening in the courts. But who is out here talking to Black voters about what this means for them and how they are planning to respond in this moment? What I hear from Black voters is that they are absolutely energized and motivated to make their voices heard in this moment. They want to know how they can do that. But who is talking to Black voters? If it is not us, who is going to do that right now?”
When Lomax asked Lemon what stories he can now do that he couldn’t at CNN, one mention went to the case of Nolan Wells, the Black teenager who disappeared off the Mississippi coast while out with white friends.
“I wouldn’t have been able to tell the Nolan Wells story in a fulsome way, focusing on a family, a mother who has lost her kid, instead of on the kids who are out there saying, ‘well, people are being mean to us on the internet,’ Lemon said, as just one example. ” ‘And so we want to sue’. And it’s like, come on. You have a grieving mom who –. So that story. They would not have covered.”
“I think that’s the perspective that Black media really was able to provide that no one else could,” Haines replied.
There was more: Reid remembered being in Texas covering five women filing a lawsuit over Roe v. Wade “because their lives were physically threatened by the overturning of Roe and the maladministration of that state when it came to women’s reproductive health.
“All five women were white.
“Meanwhile, the woman who ran the pink house, the clinic that actually was sued to cause the Dobbs ruling to go into effect, the last abortion clinic operating in the state of Mississippi was run by a Black woman. And that Black woman was the last person standing between white women, rural women, all Mississippi women, and death. . . . So we had to intentionally make sure that that conversation included Black women.”
Williams , a veteran of Vox, the Root and Mother Jones, said, “Something that we invest heavily in at Capital B is coverage of rural Black communities. These are places that mainstream media has never really fully cared about or covered. When you think about the coverage that Black people get, it is in big population centers. It is coded as urban. When you think about the way that mainstream media talks about rural people, that is so clearly coded as white and conservative. There are so many rural Black folk. . . .
“The investment that we’ve made in covering that region has been incredibly important. And some of our biggest stories are about rural Black towns where there’s like a thousand people, but where things are happening in total darkness and nobody would know that these kind of wild, racist things are still happening if we weren’t telling that story. Those places don’t have local news at all. And national reporters aren’t going there until we do the story and then they go there.”
Lemon made perhaps the most cogent point. “Instead of seeing our people as stories, we see them as human beings.”
- Asian American Journalists Association: AAJA strongly opposes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s proposal to eliminate the annual EEO-1 reporting requirement for employers (Aug. 24)
- Matt Brown, Associated Press: Voting groups sound alarm on funding shortfalls that they say could affect midterm turnout
- Matt Brown, Associated Press: Black Caucus launches effort to boost voting among Black, rural and young voters in midterms
- Gerren Keith Gaynor, theGrio: Justin J. Pearson says Democrats must put Black and working-class voters at the center — not treat them as ‘ornaments’
- Jacksonville Free Press: NO NETWORK, NO PROBLEM: Black Journalists Build Their Own After Network Firings
- Josh Jamerson, Wall Street Journal: I Went Home to Detroit to See What Voters Want From the Midterms
- Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Don’t let the war on woke lull us all to sleep
- Terry Tang, Associated Press: Under Trump, census eyes sweeping plan to omit immigrants, race data (Sept. 10)
- Corey Williams and Kristin M. Hall:, Associated Press: Cases of Black people found hanged in the US South are a reminder of nation’s lynching history
- Joseph Williams, Word In Black: The Fight for the Black Vote Is Already Underway
- Natalie Williams, HuffPost: Black Mothers Are Running Out Of Places To Tell Our Sons They’re Safe (Sept. 3)
N.Y. Times Puerto Ricans Tolerated ‘the Nonsense’
The passing last week of Mireya Navarro (pictured), social justice journalist whose career included 28 years at The New York Times, prompted this Facebook post from fellow Times alum David Gonzalez (pictured, below, by Edwin Pagán), who worked at the paper from 1990 to 2024:
“Somebody asked me if Mireya Navarro was the first Puerto Rican woman at The New York Times, since maybe it would increase her chances of having made a significant contribution or accomplishment, as per revised criteria for staff obits.
“Well, since you asked:
“Al Narvaez was likely the first Puerto Rican at the paper. David Vidal, Bori-Dominican was second.
“Luisita Torregrosa was the first Puerto Rican woman and a back fielder on Forn (or National?)
“Evelyn Nieves was both the first Nuyorican woman on Metro AND the first marquee columnist with ‘Our Towns.’
“Mia arrived a few month before I did.
“Johnny Sotomayor was the first Puerto Rican staff fotog. Angel Franco was second.
“The fact that I can freaking name them should show you how far behind the paper was on hiring. Mia came onboard soon after Metro realized they had no native Spanish speakers when they scrambled to cover the Happyland fire in the BX which claimed the lives of 80+ Honduran immigrants. (They had sidelined Al Narvaez so much he studied Theology part time in Newark Buro, was ordained an Episcopal priest and left the paper).
“What gets me about these discussions about who was the first is it adds yet another bar to clear. ‘Even in death they make you jump through hoops,’ my Dominican sister Carolina Gonzalez said, in what could easily pass for a Rev Pedro line.
“If they want to rank people on being first, then they need to address the total nonsense we had to tolerate.
“1) We want minority journalists, but qualified ones.
“2) We couldn’t find any who were comfortable writing in English. (Actually uttered by a NYT AME in the 80’s).
“3) Are you a Hispanic first or a journalist?
“4) You took a job away from a white man.
“There are more, but you get my point.
“Fact is looking for firsts is hardly a flex: like how many qualified people did you skip?
“TBH, looking for firsts devalues the many accomplishments of people like Mia. It’s like an asterisk in the record books. They really don’t know us. Ya tu sabes. [You know how it is.]
“But of course I have no idea if they’re running an obit on Mia, but fingers crossed.”
Postscript, from Journal-isms in 2016: “Angel Franco says his most memorable day in 30 years as a New York Times staff photographer was his first: ‘A colleague that worked in the darkroom said to me because of you a white man can’t afford to feed his family,’ Franco told Journal-isms Monday by email. ‘But there have been many positive moments in my career at the Times. . . .’ ”
And a Latina, responding to the post, said that indeed, she had been asked, “Are you Hispanic first or a journalist first?” a question that had also been asked of Black journalists about their ethnicity.
The New York Times did not respond to an inquiry about whether it plans an obituray of Navarro.
Paramount Clears Last Big Hurdle to Acquire WB-Discovery
“Paramount reached an agreement on Monday to resolve an antitrust lawsuit delaying its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, eliminating the last significant barrier to the creation of an entertainment and media colossus,” Benjamin Mullin, David McCabe, Shawn Hubler and Laurel Rosenhall reported Monday for the New York Times.
“A group of states, led by California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, a Democrat, sued Paramount in July, arguing that an acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery would concentrate too much power over cable TV and blockbuster films under one company.”
As one concession, the entertainment giant has agreed to establish a board to ensure the editorial independence of CNN and CBS News. [PDF]. According to the agreement, “The Editorial Independence Board shall be made up of five (5) established journalists (active or retired), each of whom shall have practiced journalism for a minimum of ten (10) years (including with credentials for at least three (3) years) (“Journalist”). (“Editorial Independence Board Members”). No more than two (2) Editorial Independence Board Members may be affiliated with the same political party. ”
However, Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statment, “A Paramount-appointed editorial independence board for CNN and CBS is worthless. The fish rots from the head, and this particular fish is headed by a compromised oligarch with a history of throwing journalists under the bus to advance his business interests.”
As recently as Aug. 24, the League of United Latin American Citizens was urging Bonta to continue his legal fight to block Paramount’s proposed $111-billion takeover, saying the blockbuster deal would crush Latino workers and small businesses that support Hollywood.
Also of concern has been the infusion of foreign capital.
“On September 18, the FCC approved an enormous infusion of foreign cash to finance the deal. The merged company will be 49.5% owned by foreign interests, including the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi,” David Folkenflik reported for NPR. “And the agency ruled that it could go up to 100%. Paramount has promised their stakes would be made up of silent, non-voting shares.
“The idea that a major U.S. broadcast company or TV news outlet could have such a degree of foreign ownership was unthinkable in an earlier age, according to industry executives, outside analysts and former federal officials.”
Paramount also owns BET, which partners with the NAACP to present the annual NAACP Image Awards.
Former Hip-Hop Magazine Editor Admits to Lying
Kimberly Osorio, 52, the former editor of The Source, admitted to making false statements about hiding the phone of Rashad Ruhani, 57, who helped the founder of the Queens Defenders organization of social workers, Lori Zeno, embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from the organization, Santul Nerkar reported Thursday for The New York Times.
“Their fraud was so outrageous and destructive that the Queens Defenders urged a federal judge to sentence them to prison, a highly unusual request from an organization in which attorneys tend to be philosophically opposed to incarceration. . . .
“According to court filings, Ms. Osorio started at The Source as a freelance writer in 1998, rising through the ranks before becoming the magazine’s first female editor in chief in 2002.
“Ms. Osorio was fired from the magazine in 2005, in what she said was retaliation for complaining about sexual harassment by the magazine’s owner. She sued the magazine for wrongful termination, sexual harassment and gender discrimination in Federal District Court in Manhattan, winning a nearly $8 million verdict in 2006. . . .”
Hannah-Jones Piece on Daughter’s Education Goes Viral
“The acclaimed author and Pulitzer Prize winner’s candid account of educating her daughter in New York City public schools has sparked an intense conversation about race, privilege and parental responsibility,” Brandon Caldwell wrote Monday for theGrio.
“Nikole Hannah-Jones‘ personal essay about her daughter’s education, a decade-long follow-up to her original 2016 piece, quickly went viral over the weekend. Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist behind ‘The 1619 Project,’ revealed she enrolled her daughter in one of New York City’s public schools that had been segregated by several existential factors, namely wealth, class and race under the guise of ‘school choice.’
“However, her daughter challenged her, asking why Jones and her husband couldn’t send her to better, well-funded schools if they had the means?
“The decision by Jones and her husband, Jones argued, was one of obligation to the community they belonged to. It’s a common topic of conversation in Black households across the country: If possible, do we send our child to the best schools where they will be academically challenged, or to the ones where their cultural and educational needs will be met? In some cities, that question determines where people live, what zoning loopholes they would break and more, all to pursue what they deem is ‘best’ for their child.
“Jones opted to send her daughter to certain schools up until high school, when she tested and was accepted to one of the hardest schools to get into. Still, toward the end of the piece, Jones admits that she felt her daughter ‘got cheated’ out of the education she deserved.
“Her daughter responded, ‘Sometimes I wish instead of always thinking about other kids, you would have thought about me. I never really got the education I wanted.’ . . . . ”
- Adam B. Kushner, New York Times: Reality Bites
“In one of the interviews, a daughter of one of the detained journalists shares how she has only been near her father once: when she was a baby and her mother took her to prison to introduce her to her detained father.” (Credit: YouTube)
Campaign Ends, but Press-Freedom Fight to Continue
“Today we concluded our #Eritrea16 social media,” wrote Muthoki Mumo, Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, on Friday. The campaign marks the 25th anniversary of the shuttering of the privately owned press in Eritrea and the ongoing detention of at least 16 Eritrean journalists.
“I am writing to say thank you very much for you cooperation, and for ensuring that this story reached a wide community of individuals concerned with human rights and press freedom.
“We concluded the campaign today by publishing a video interview with several family members of those detained journalists. In one of the interviews, a daughter of one of the detained journalists shares how she has only been near her father once: when she was a baby and her mother took her to prison to introduce her to her detained father. The interviews are very powerful and they underscore why we must continue with this important struggle. I . . . .encourage you to watch and share.
“Further, you may have seen that the United States has lifted sanctions on Eritrea. This is very difficult news, coming as it does on the 25th anniversary of the shutdown of the Eritrean press. While this development is discouraging, I believe it is also a sign that we must not relent in this fight. Our Regional Director Angela Quintal issued a statement in response to this development.”
Earlier:
3 Banned Outlets Announce Suit Against Trump
ICYMI https://t.co/buVLGIVvvj
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 20, 2026
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10:45 a.m. update: “The White House press pool on Monday announced it is suspending its televised coverage of President Donald Trump after the White House pulled CNN from its assigned pool coverage duties this week,” Sydney Carruth reported for MS NOW.
“CNN’s Kaitlan Collins explained Monday morning, the pool action means ‘that when the president does anything today, there will be no TV camera with the president that is broadcasting and sharing this footage’ with the wider press corps and networks around the world,” CNN added.
“The move could make it more difficult for images and video of President Donald Trump’s activities at the United Nations General Assembly this week to get to the American public. The television pool provides video from events where space constraints prevent every outlet from sending its own camera crew, with footage then made available broadly to news organizations. . . . .”
Fox News’ Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton, acting chair of the TV pool consortium, said in a note to TV pool members on Monday, ‘Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,’ Carruth continued for MS NOW.
“ ‘This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties,’ Boughton wrote. ‘There will be no replacement pool put in place.’
“CNN was scheduled to provide TV coverage of Trump this week for the White House pool, but the Trump administration removed the network as its primary pooler following the president’s ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.
“Boughton said the other pool coverage, which includes print and radio, would continue as normal. ‘We will provide updates as this situation develops,’ he added. . . . “
‘Chilling Effect’ Has Begun; Constitution Said to Be Flouted
“Three news organizations — MS NOW, CNN and Politico — are suing President Donald Trump and several top administration officials for blocking reporters’ access to the White House, alleging that the ban constitutes viewpoint discrimination that violates the First Amendment,” Fallon Gallagher reported Monday for MS NOW.
“The news outlets on Monday are asking a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to immediately block the ban and restore both press credentials and access to the affected journalists. On Saturday, reporters for each of the news organizations, including MS NOW, attempted to enter the White House and their badges were confiscated.
“CNN was removed Monday from pooled coverage responsibilities that are shared by major news outlets. CNN was scheduled to have TV pool duty and travel with the president to New York on Monday.”
Gallagher continued for MS NOW, “The President banned CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO, and the individual reporters covering the news for those media organizations, in disregard of the most basic guarantees of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause,” the lawsuit says. “He did so expressly for the improper purpose of retaliating against Plaintiffs for past news coverage because he deemed it ‘negative’ and chilling future reporting about him and his administration’s policies and actions.”
“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the complaint continues.”
Read statement below. https://t.co/nAcas7DoGm
— #NABJ Headquarters ✊🏾🖊️🎙️💻 📷 🎥 📝 🔈 (@NABJ) September 19, 2026
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The National Association of Black Journalists has joined other media groups in protesting the White House action. So have former president Barack Obama, Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the nation’s only Black governor. “The president continues to use the Constitution like it is a suggestion box, simply because he does not like the coverage,” Moore said Sunday on CNN.
Neither the National Newspaper Publishers Association, representing Black press publishers, nor the National Association of Hispanic Publishers, its Latino counterpart, have weighed in, nor has the News Media Alliance, the organization of publishers. The Asian American Journalists Association issued a statement Monday morning..
Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney wrote for Politico, “The news organizations, represented by Theodore Boutros Jr. of law firm Gibson Dunn, are filing suit against Trump, chief of staff Susie Wiles, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung and Secret Service Director Sean Curran. The news outlets argue that the president’s ban violates the Constitution in multiple ways: The abrupt cancellation of White House access without notice violated the organizations’ Fifth Amendment due process and property rights, and the retaliation for the content of their reporting violated their First Amendment rights.
“The suit contends that the ban is already ‘severely impeding’ the news organizations’ ability to report on the Trump White House while also causing a chilling effect among other news outlets, who could find themselves similarly locked out if the president deems their coverage ‘insufficiently favorable.’
“Though long-standing legal precedents permit the White House to restrict journalists’ access to the building, courts have ruled that officials can’t apply those restrictions in ways that discriminate based on viewpoint or content.”
The emergency request is set to go before a federal judge in the DC District Court and could result in hearings and legal arguments from the administration as soon as this week, CNN’s
“At least one Trump administration official said in a TV interview Sunday that he believed a Supreme Court opinion from 1965 about the government refusing to validate passports for travel to Cuba would support Trump’s stance,” they added.
However, “The DC District Court, where the three news outlets’ case will land on Monday, has several judges who’ve ruled in favor of press freedom and against the Trump administration for discriminatory policies, especially since Trump took office last year.
“The law previously set by the federal appellate court in DC has said the White House also can’t revoke press credentials without giving the journalists due process, especially when areas of the White House are accessible to the general press and there isn’t a national security concern.
“That case law dates to 1977, when the Secret Service revoked the press pass of Robert Sherrill, a reporter for The Nation. The federal courts in Washington restored it, with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruling at the time, ‘denial of a White House press pass is violative of the first amendment only if it is based upon the content of the journalist’s speech or otherwise discriminates against a class of protected speech.’
“ ‘Not only newsmen and the publications for which they write, but also the public at large have an interest protected by the first amendment in assuring that restrictions on newsgathering be no more arduous than necessary, and that individual newsmen not be arbitrarily excluded from sources of information,’ the court also wrote.”
As previously reported:
Former president Barack Obama said Sunday on Instagram, “I’m trying to think what would have happened if I had said, you know what, Fox News, you’re out of here! It’s unimaginable.”
Obama actually did try to ban Fox News from an interview in 2009, but the rest of the press corps stood with Fox and Obama backed down.
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, wrote on X Friday, “The First Amendment is sacred. The truth is sacred. Donald Trump’s move to ban professional journalists who deliver the facts every day from the White House can only be described as authoritarian. We stand with journalists and all who defend press freedom.”
PEN America said on Friday, “Someone needs to explain to President Trump how the First Amendment works,” said Tim Richardson, journalism and disinformation director at PEN America. ‘As we’ve seen time and time again, this administration’s hostility toward the press is never about the accuracy of news stories, but about its inability to withstand scrutiny of its actions. The White House can’t be allowed to decide which journalists are able to cover the president based on the content of their news coverage.'” [Updated Sept. 20]
Read the lawsuit (PDF)
- Associated Press statement (via X)
- Committee to Protect Journalists: President Trump’s arbitrary CNN, MS NOW, Politico ban violates First Amendment rights
- Freedom of the Press Foundation: FPF comments on Trump’s media ban announcement
- David Gilmour, Mediaite: ‘Free Speech Absolutist!’ Media World Erupts as Trump Bans CNN, MS NOW, Politico from White House
- Intrernational Women’s Media Foundation: Documenting the Trump Administration’s Misogyny Toward Women Journalists
- Zolan Kanno-Youngs, New York Times: Trump Faced Loss After Loss. He Then Turned to a Familiar Target: The Press.
- National Association of Black Journalists: Statement from the President of the National Association of Black Journalists on White House Press Ban (via X)
- National Press Club: Statement on President Trump’s declaration to ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House
- Radio Television Digital News Association: RTDNA responds to President Trump’s announcement banning news organizations from the White House
- Society of Professional Journalists: SPJ condemns White House ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico
