The CBC should just say no to Fox
There are likely going to be at least a dozen, probably more, debates between the Democratic Presidential contenders. One organization considering hosting such a debate is the Congressional Black Caucus, considered by many, including myself, to be the moral conscience of the United States Congress.
The CBC, however, is considering a partnership with Fox "News" to televise that debate, which is in turn raising hackles among activists.
Now with the Nevada Democratic Party ditching propaganda outlet Fox News as a co-sponsor of its debate, attention is turning to the Congressional Black Caucus, which is choosing between CNN and Fox for its own debate. African American activists are putting pressure on the CBC to choose CNN.
In September of 2003 the Congressional Black Caucus co-sponsored a Democratic presidential candidate debate with Fox News at Baltimore HBCU, Morgan State University. Progressive-minded Blackfolk should have acted then, and we simply have no excuse not to act today towards keeping it (and any of its affiliated organizations) accountable.
How bad is the conservative cable channel, Fox, in describing Black Americans? Consider this video:
The Nevada Democratic Party recently pulled out of an agreement with Fox "News" to have that channel broadcast a Democratic debate, citing the vicious attacks made by its chairman, and lifelong hard-right republican activist, Roger Ailes, on Barack Obama and other Democrats, including John Edwards. The CBC, generally speaking an association of some of the finest men and women in American politics (note the William Jefferson exception), should follow on the trail blazed by Nevada. There is no reason for Democrats in general, and black Democrats in particular, to legitimize with their presence a network whose only purpose is to defame all of us.
Black activists, organized in a coalition called Color of Change, are calling for the CBC to partner with CNN in broadcasting the debate.
Black bloggers and media experts also joined the call for the CBC Institute to freeze out Fox from presidential debates. One of those experts is Benjamin Todd Jealous, former executive director of the National Newspaper Publishers Associations (NNPA), a 98-year old federation of more than 200 Black community newspapers.
“Fox has a long history of treating Black people unfairly,†said Jealous, “They are not a trusted news source for most Black Americans.†Chris Rabb, Founder/Chief Evangelist of Afro-Netizen.com – a top African American political blog– added, “We urge the CBC Institute to lead with integrity and to not make a deal with the devil.â€
This is as close to a no-brainer as it's possible to get. As Ben Smith notes over at The Politico, "Fox intermittently gets into racially-charged spats, but I don't recall the CBC, an old-fashioned D.C. institution, ever being the focus of this kind of public campaign, and it'll be interesting to see how they respond.".
Interesting indeed.
[Update]: ThinkProgress reports that the CBC will partner with CNN. Good work.
[Update 2]: In the comments, ColorOfChange.org notes that the CBC is still talking to Fox. Not good.
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Ummm...
Fox is a network where terrorism against American targets (NY Times Building, Coit Tower, etc.) is advocated. That warrents a boycott. It is a network that tells Jews to move to Israel if they don't think America is a Christian Country (displaying both ignorance of the Constitution AND anti-Semitism). THAT warrents a boycott. They lie, advocate violence and terrorism and routinely use hate speech.
I for one would refuse to have anything to do with such a network out of principle. You are welcome to associate with such people. But I wouldn't.
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Is media segregation acceptable?
The problem is that this sort of thing can lead to eventual complete segregation of the media along partisan lines. If Democrats no longer want to debate on Fox News, then Republicans soon will not want to debate on CNN. Then not on PBS. The rest of the media will get divided up the same way.
Is this good for the country? It seems to me that we have entirely too much of a partisan slant in our news coverage as it is, without encouraging either party to boycott this network or that network. In terms of debates, what is important is not the editorial slant of the reporting, it is the viewership the network has. Fox News Channel, biased as it is, reaches many many millions of viewers. Including a hell of a lot of viewers in red states and swing states that democrats badly need to reach. If the CBC sponsored debate were on it, for an hour or ninety minutes, all those viewers would be getting uncensored liberal progressive democratic dialogue. Yes, the Fox people can editorialize in their biased way before and after the debate, but they would do that anyway.
When CBC or another liberal progressive group sponsoring a democratic debate boycotts Fox, they are more boycotting Fox's viewers than Fox's reporters. A boycott isn't going to drive Fox out of business or make them more progressive. It is just going to say, "we don't want to make our case to their viewers" This is not the right message to send. FNC gets huge viewership, much more now than CNN, so if a democrat debate can be put on there, fine and good. Better that than perpetuate media segregation on partisan lines, where those in red states watch some channels and blue states other channels, and neither side appears on the others' channels. That is not a world we should want.