Many criticize ex-president’s appearance at Black journalists’ conference as irresponsible
On Monday night, the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) announced that Donald Trump will participate in a panel discussion at the organization’s annual convention in Chicago, which starts on Wednesday.
The announcement, which said that the Q&A would “concentrate on the most pressing issues facing the Black community”, was met with swift online backlash from some Black journalists. They decried the decision to invite a presidential candidate who has lambasted Black journalists, led a movement to squash diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and who is responsible for increased anti-journalistic sentiment, including the popularization of the term “fake news” to describe factual, but potentially unflattering, reporting.
Tiffany Walden, a co-founder and editor-in-chief of The TRiiBE, a digital platform that focuses on Black Chicago, told the Guardian that NABJ’s decision was “irresponsible”.
This doesn’t work. I hope they’re not naive enough to think that’ll work. It doesn’t even matter what happens there. All Trump and his team want is the victory of him appearing there. They want the photo opportunity, they want the headline, they want to be able to say look the blacks love us. And they know nobody in their base is going to question it. They also know the vast majority of Americans won’t check into the actual events