Source: Kevin Dietsch / Getty
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is demanding that CNN grant Black media access to cover Thursday’s presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump amid reports that the media company is refusing such credentials to those news outlets.
Speaking on behalf of the CBC, CBCPAC Chairman and New York Rep. Gregory Meeks said it was “totally unacceptable” that Black media were seemingly being singled out while granting hundreds of other outlets access.
The demands from CBC came hours after journalist Roland Martin on Wednesday posted on social media that CNN “has not issued ANY credentials for tomorrow night’s debate to ANY Black-owned media outlets.” He specifically asked Emily Kuhn, CNN’s senior vice president of public relations, why “every Black newspaper in ATLANTA” was “denied” credentials, calling it both “despicable” and “pathetic.”
Later in the day, the editor-in-chief at the Atlanta Voice, one of the city’s oldest Black newspapers, told the Atlanta Black Star that CNN’s treatment of Black media was “disrespectful” and “tacky” yet “typical of CNN.”
It was in that context that Meeks blasted CNN for the “egregious oversight” of seemingly intentionally excluding Black media. Meeks demanded at least 10 Black media outlets be credentialed for the debate.
“This afternoon we learned that CNN has credentialed 800 members of the media for the first presidential debate of the election cycle. Not one represents a Black-owned media outlet. CNN’s exclusion of Black-owned media represents an egregious oversight and is totally unacceptable,” Meeks said. “CNN must immediately credential Black-owned media outlets ahead of tomorrow night’s debate. Failure to do so is a choice, an offense to Black Americans, and cannot stand. We are calling on CNN to credential a minimum of 10 Black-owned media outlets for tomorrow’s debate.”
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