Issac Bailey, a 2014 Nieman Fellow, is a journalist, race relations seminar creator and facilitator, and the author of “Why Didn’t We Riot? A Black Man in Trumpland” (Other Press, October 2020). He is also the author of “My Brother Moochie: Regaining Dignity in the Face of Crime, Poverty, and Racism in the American South” (Other Press, 2018). He has contributed to Politico, CNN.com, Time, and The Washington Post. He is a former columnist and senior writer for The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and he was a 2011 recipient of a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism for stories about a child protection case. The state subsequently revamped the way it handles such cases.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, back around 2002, I would wrap my son in warm clothes and tuck him into a covered car seat. Only his little face would be showing as I’d snap the seat out of its base after … Read more
Something journalists need to better convey to our audiences: Because of demographic realities, prioritizing age in Covid-19 vaccination efforts is akin to prioritizing white Americans. White people live longer on average than other racial groups, which is partly why … Read more
I’ve been stuck on the discussion about the resignation of New York Times science reporter Donald McNeil Jr. for the past few days. I don’t have a firm opinion on whether he should still be with The … Read more
We began Donald Trump’s presidency debating whether it was fair to call lies lies, even though we knew he was the most prolific political liar of modern times. We end it saying forthrightly that the President of … Read more
There is a significant percentage of Americans who will always distrust us no matter how well our pieces are written, how compelling our broadcasts, how high the stack of documents buttressing the claims in our reports. Even if we found … Read more
The “Today” show used an out-of-context clip spread by the Trump campaign to raise questions about Joe Biden’s mental capabilities. While the show has since issued a correction, it reminded me of the schoolyard taunts I … Read more
There was a time I dreamed of debating Rush Limbaugh. I wanted to face and rhetorically take down the famed talk show host the way I loved catching touchdown passes against top cornerbacks when I was playing football. If given … Read more
In “Why Didn’t We Riot? A Black Man in Trumpland,” published October 6 by Other Press, Issac J. Bailey reflects on what it means to be a Black man in Trump’s America in a series of … Read more
I began a recent session of my “Trump, Race, and U.S. Media” course at Davidson College with video clips of news reports about protests in the aftermath of the Breonna Taylor grand jury decision. In one clip, Donald Trump says … Read more
Bob Woodward made the wrong choice. He should have alerted the public that Donald Trump, the president of the United States, was lying about the coronavirus. He was in a position to give the American public … Read more
