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.
A confession: Until recently, I didn’t really understand what happens during a woman’s menstrual cycle. (And I still kind of have a few questions.) I confess because I’m a male veteran journalist who is only now realizing the depths of … Read more
It’s clear what journalists must do in the wake of Attorney General William Barr’s summary of the Mueller report: continue to aggressively pursue the Trump-Russia story, and not give one damn inch to partisan critics or even … Read more
A bombshell from BuzzFeed in January initially seemed to ensure that President Donald Trump would join Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon as presidents who were either impeached or forced from office during my lifetime. But it, like the reaction the … Read more
The Washington Post’s decision to publish unverified sexual assault allegations is the most disturbing example of the flattening of the media landscape since the political press decided to spend more time on Hillary Clinton’s emails during the … Read more
Journalists, even those whose job it is to set standards, continue to have a hard time determining if the word “racism” applies in a story. Here’s a simple rule of thumb: Treat the word like you treat every other word. Read more
I’m beginning to wonder if journalists have been bending over backward so far to disprove the “liberal media” narrative that they have unwittingly become advocates for conservatives and, more importantly, have been misinforming their audiences at critical junctions of our … Read more
I was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the city where the Civil War began and attended a school system still segregated and underfunded nearly half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, a system that didn’t know quite how … Read more
I recently wrote a short blog post on TheRoot.com. It highlighted reporting by USA Today about the Trump administration’s decision to increase deportations to Mauritania, a country known for black slavery in the 21st century. I alluded … Read more
We are amid another shallow media debate, this time triggered by the New Yorker’s decision to first invite, then disinvite Steve Bannon from The New Yorker Festival. Very Serious and Very Concerned People are up in arms … Read more
I know what it feels like to be in the crosshairs of “the mob,” online and otherwise, black and white. It’s not pleasant. But there’s no reason for a journalist to respond in kind. That tension was at the heart … Read more
