The time is now, cable news

I wrote this in preparation for joining Pete Dominick on his podcast today to talk about the need to schedule a daily show in prime time. Then the Wall Street Journal reported that Joy Reid would finally take over Chris Matthews’ 7 p.m. time slot on MSNBC. As of the moment, nothing is official. So Pete and I went […] The post The time is now, cable news appeared first on BuzzMachine .

I wrote this in preparation for joining Pete Dominick on his podcast today to talk about the need to schedule a daily show in prime time. Then the Wall Street Journal reported that Joy Reid would finally take over Chris Matthews’ 7 p.m. time slot on MSNBC. As of the moment, nothing is official. So Pete and I went ahead with the discussion and I’m posting this:

What television should look like every day

My friend Pete Dominick and I have been banging the same drum over and over on social media and on his podcast: It is time — it is long overdue — for MSNBC and CNN to immediately devote at least one daily show each to the voices of African-Americans and other communities too long ignored. The reasons are many:

The most important story in this nation is racism and its unending impact. That is reason for a show.

The election this fall — the most critical election in more than a century — will be determined particularly by these voters, lead by African-American women. They must not be taken for granted by the Democrats, by fellow liberal voters, by candidates, or by cable news. They and their issues must be heard. That is reason for a show.

The lack of representation in American newsrooms — print, broadcast, online — is chronic and criminal and reparations need to be made. That is reason for a show.

The public has for too long not heard the voices of black Americans and that is why the mortal danger of living while black and the story of police violence and murder is a surprise to no African-American and to too many white Americans. That is reason for a show.

Brilliant voices in politics, civil society, education, science, the arts, and every sector of society are Black and Latino, LGBTQ, differently abled, immigrant and Muslim. That is the best reason for many a show.

Pete has been calling on both MSNBC and CNN to do better because he watches and appears on both.

Here I’ll focus on MSNBC because I watch it now pretty much every waking hour. I will also focus on Black voices because their issues are urgent. The network has a group of brilliant African-American people on its air, led by Joy Reid, whose show is better than any other at finding and booking people not seen elsewhere.

But they are all relegated too often to weekends, odd hours, and guest shots when they should have the prominence and due respect of a home in prime time. The moment Chris Matthews left his 7 p.m. timeslot, I expected MSNBC to give that time to a Black host: Joy Reid. I cannot understand why the network did not do that immediately.

I am not suggesting that one host will solve the problem. The weight of representing this huge part of America, of telling uncomfortable truths, of holding uncomfortable conversations should not fall on one person’s shoulders. This effort should bring many of the voices MSNBC already has — and many new voices — into a one show and many shows.

Let me name just some of names seen on MSNBC in addition to Joy Reid: Tiffany Cross. Eddie Glaude Jr. Maya Wiley. Yamiche Alcindor. Karine Jean-Pierre. Jonathan Capehart. Trymaine Lee. Al Sharpton. Malcolm Nance. Rashad Robinson. Eugene Robinson. Eugene Scott. Shermichael Singleton. Joshua Johnson. And where the hell have Jason Johnson and Elie Mystal been? Now is the time for their trenchant voices to be heard.

Some combination of those people in at least one show a day seven days a week — and then heard across every show on the network (starting at 8 every morning, please) — would be a start.

Now that television has learned that anyone can be on TV via a webcam from their homes, there is no longer an excuse to depend on a booker’s short list of people the network already knows well who can don a suit and get into a studio at any hour. Now TV can reach out and hear from new people everywhere, representing no end of diverse communities. The goal should be to radically diversify the voices heard.

And goals should be set. At the instigation of on-air host Ros Atkins, the BBC established its 5050 Equality Project, prodding shows to measure their performance in bringing women on the air with a goal of reaching parity with the population: 50 percent. At the Newmark J-School, we’ve signed on to the project and will bring further measures of diversity to the sourcing we teach our students. I would hope MSNBC and CNN would set their own goals.

I also hope they would be willing to be held accountable to these goals. I’d like to see the networks publish lists of their paid contributors and guests. I’d like to see them get so damned good at this that newspapers across the country do likewise.

Now is the time. It is long past time.

The post The time is now, cable news appeared first on BuzzMachine.

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