ED GORDON SPEAKS: ON THE DIRECTION OF MEDIA, AND THE PEOPLE WHO BRING IT TO YOU DAILY

Emmy Award-winning news journalist Ed Gordon gives his opinion on the direction of news media in today’s post-Obama climate. He will be confronting the question if there is a need for an African American perspective in today’s newsroom.

How do you think Black journalists are portrayed in the media? Do we see them enough? Well let’s start with do we see them enough. Clearly not. When you look around on the different networks, and look at the radio, newspaper and magazines, and see representation of African Americans, even women, we’ve made huge strides, but clearly the numbers have shrunk over the last twenty years in terms of high level representation in media. I know many, many, friends of mine, contemporaries of mine, who started out in the business when I started out, who are no longer in the business.

And why is that? Well any number of reasons. But I think that part of it is just the number of seats on television. There were so few seats that you could occupy and when the ladder climb started, Blacks got to mid-level and then kind of hit a glass ceiling. So I often laugh when I watch the media cover other industries and they talk about diversity. I think the biggest illustration was during the [Obama] campaign, all of us were on television, all the time, as pundits. But prior to that, and after that, you didn’t see the sheer number of African Americans. But the networks knew how hypocritical it was to talk about a Black man running for president, yet having no Blacks talk about it. Certainly, we’ve seen some strides, we do have some prominent African Americans in media, but if you just talk sheer numbers, no.

So what have been some challenging aspects of the industry for you? I think the most challenging aspect right now is just where the industry is going. Because I don’t think any of us know. The idea of the internet and this generation’s mode of information is a challenge. I’m not sure that we’ve captured what it is going to be. I was with Beyoncé’s father not too long ago, and he knows I have a teenage daughter, and he asked me whenshe listens to the radio. And I had to stop and think about that-and I realized that she really doesn’t other than when she’s getting ready in the morning or in the car. Yet, I grew up always listening to the radio. So the dynamic of what the media is becoming is the challenge for all of us to try and stay in front of, and I don’t know what it’s going to become. I don’t know, frankly, whether it is going to become something better, because there certainly is better access to information, even if all of that information isn’t always correct. But the challenge is for our industry is to make sure some of the tried and true lessons of facts and fact checking-who, what, when, where and why-stays involved. If you are calling yourself a journalist, then there is a sense of responsibility that comes along with it and that is being fair and getting things correct.

So going along with this is a sense of responsibility. What is the social responsibility for Black journalists? You know I still grapple with that. I think that’s an individual’s choice. I would hope that you see a sense of social responsibility-the responsibility you have to the people who came before you and gave you the opportunity to uphold their legacy. But I’m also reasonable enough to know that everybody doesn’t have that social code, and I don’t know that I as an individual can demand from you as another individual that you hold that same social code. I’ve always said this, I don’t like when people make statements to say “I’m a journalist, who happens to be Black.” No, I’m a Black person who happens to be a journalist. Because I tell everybody, you were Black before you were a journalist. So just from Ed Gordon’s side, I believe there is a social responsibility to try your best to get out stories of importance to Black America. Because in getting those out, you really are servicing America. Often we talk about Black America as if we’re a sidebar. But our story is America’s story. I always say, to have a satisfying meal you need all the courses, so if you only go to mainstream America, they are missing a lot, they don’t tell every story. So the key is, in fact, to tell all of the story and that’s why females and minorities are important in getting the story out.

I know you were saying that Black news is American news, but is there really such a thing as Black news? We use the term because we like to categorize. But at the end of the day, news is news. We lost Teddy Pendergast today, but is that news, or is that Black news? Is it news because White folks knew who he was? So to me news is news. Black news is a nice little way America likes to categorize things. But I think at some point, we have to as African Americans, start looking at it as not just Black news or Black radio stations, because then they can pigeonhole us. It’s a radio station that may cater to Black listeners, but it is a radio station. Because at the end of the day you get nothing for it, not better ratings-not necessarily a tax break just because you call it Black. News is news, and the way I look at it, there is news that is of interest and greater interest to Black people.

So where would you like to see the future of Blacks in the media? I think the future has to be ownership, which we have yet to climb that mountain. I think about Tyler Perry’s model, whether you like his movies or his plays or not, the idea is that Tyler Perry owns it and nobody can tell him what “it” has to be. And so his ownership and his ability to provide what you want and not what someone is telling you is the model that African Americans are going to have to use. So for me, the future really is ownership.