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
I couldn’t get past the pearl bracelet. There is much to chew on about the story of Ali Watkins—whose email and phone records were seized by federal prosecutors investigating James Wolfe, a former senior aide to the … Read more
We helped change the course of history. We likely made the difference in a close presidential election. We helped Russia undermine our democracy. We compounded the self-righteous mistakes by the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We helped make … Read more
The story isn’t whether MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid was homophobic a decade ago, supports the LBGTQ community now and should be commended for that growth. She should. It’s not about whether she’s a likable person who provides a strong, necessary … Read more
We are in a time of hyper-propaganda, and not just from Russia, through social media that has reached, if not influenced, tens of millions of Americans. The president of the United States repeatedly lies and pushes conspiracy. The … Read more
An associate of Erica Garner created a firestorm by doing something editors and producers do every day: use race to help decide who gets to tell an important story. It’s just that the Garner request was blunt while race and … Read more
Two things keep happening and probably will continue in 2018: News outlets will continue producing in-depth Trumpland stories; critics will keep slamming them for it. Some of that criticism is warranted, given that the media have decided that a small … Read more
A much-discussed Nazi-next-door piece in The New York Times went wrong for one reason: It treated the reporter’s discovery of the normalcy of white supremacy as news. There is nothing new nor abnormal about white supremacy, just … Read more