Change is in the air. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States, is not the only person highlighting the urgency for change. Dr. Francis Ward, a professor of journalism at Syracuse University, challenges the media to re-evaluate their responsibilities as journalists and their coverage of important news issues.”It’s time for accurate reporting of the Jeremiah Wright story and for news media to take the lead in promoting an honest and open dialogue about race,” he says.  In an opinion piece Ward provides insight as to why he is capable of criticizing the media and then pens his poignant thoughts on the media’s responsibility moving forward.

Francis Ward
Professor of Journalism
Syracuse University

A Challenge to the News Media

by Francis Ward

In 1985, I was an assistant press secretary in the Mayor’s Press Office in Chicago when the late Harold Washington was mayor. He had been elected in April 1983 as the first-ever black mayor of Chicago. During Washington’s first administration (1983 – 87), Chicago was drastically split along racial lines: blacks solidly (almost unanimously) supporting Washington and most, but not all, whites favoring the white majority in City Council that bitterly opposed everything Washington said and did. At the time, Chicago was truly “us and them,” blacks versus whites, with no moderate center. You were either on one side of the other.

          As part of the Washington administration, I strongly supported his goals of openness and reform in city government, but I also strongly believed Harold was open to some criticism.  He spent too much time out of the office, making public appearances, reveling in the celebrity of being the first black mayor, while he should have spent much more time shoring up his political base and running city government. Washington delegated too much authority to his chief of staff, the late Bill Ware, a political moderate who despised the small contingent of ideological pan – Africanists (aka: black nationalists) who were vital in getting Washington elected.

          I wanted to find some way of making my criticisms public by either leaking them to a friendly journalist, or persuading some public figure to speak out. But I also knew that criticism of Washington by a black person at the time would be tantamount to political suicide. Any such action in 1985 would have been roundly condemned as collaboration with the white enemy at best, or high treason punishable by death at worst. 

          My experience in 1985 with Washington is being repeated today with Barack Obama as the first-ever black with a serious chance of winning the presidency. I strongly support Obama and have contributed to his campaign (with more contributions to come). But I also have some criticisms of Obama that I think ought to be part of the ongoing political dialogue between now and election day.  My dilemma: Do I go public now or remain silent and wait until after he’s elected in November (assuming Americans will have the good sense to elect Obama over John McCain)?

          Do I risk incurring the wrath of people like Bob Herbert, the New York Times columnist who in April roundly condemned the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for allegedly undermining Obama’s campaign? Herbert wrote, “When the story line of the campaign shifts almost entirely to the race – in – your – face antics of someone like Wright, Obama’s chances can only suffer.”

          However well intentioned, would my criticisms of Obama become ammunition in the well – established rightwing attack machine that would inevitably distort my meaning and use my words to suit the conservatives’ ongoing assault on Obama? How does a supporter offer thoughtful, constructive and genuine criticism of Obama without being exposed to the charge that you’re only helping the enemy, so it’s better to keep quiet?

          Dan Abrams, host of “The Verdict with Dan Abrams” (9 – 10 pm EST, Monday – Friday) on MSNBC, voiced a similar criticism on his show the night of June 24 when he criticized Congressman Keith Ellison from Minneapolis, the only Muslim member of Congress. Ellison apparently had criticized Obama for not embracing American Muslims as many of them thought he would have. The New York Times reported on June 24 “While the senator (Obama) has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations – unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts – have been ignored.”

          Dan Abrams felt Keith Ellison should have kept quiet and not given Obama’s already vocal anti-Muslim critics more ammunition. But all three guests on Abrams’ show disagreed. And they were right. Barack Obama should meet openly and proudly with American Muslims, just as he has met with black and white Christians, and Jewish organizations.

          Obama should forcefully denounce the virulent and hateful anti-Muslim bigotry of the hypocrites who demonstrate their Christianity by claiming the Koran teaches all Muslims to kill Christians, or that all Muslims are terrorists.

          The news media could help considerably by changing the tone and nature of their campaign coverage – from sensationalism, charge and countercharge, he said/she said, to more in-depth, serious and thoughtful interpretation and analysis.  The media should take the lead (not just follow) in helping Americans to understand the complexities of race, ethnicity and religious intolerance.

          A good start in this direction would be exploring the answers to some critical questions:

1.    Why won’t many Americans vote for a Muslim candidate for elective office?

2.    Why haven’t news media explored anti-Muslim prejudice the same way they explored anti-Mormon prejudice during Mitt Romney’s Republican primary campaign?

3.    Why does the discussion of race make so many whites uncomfortable?

4.    Why does the mere mention of Louis Farrakhan’s name promote fear and loathing among so many whites?

Let’s begin part of this exploration by reexamining what happened to Jeremiah Wright after his speech to the Detroit NAACP and at the National Press Club in Washington the next day. Most of what Wright said was about how the black church was under attack. But what invoked the wrath of Bob Herbert and other critics was Obama’s harsh criticism of Wright’s comments, not about the black church, but during Q & A at the Press Club. The New York Times called the Obama – Wright split “a very public divorce.”

        Since the divorce, Jeremiah Wright has been inaccurately and unfairly demonized in and out of the media as someone who hates white people, and hates America.  But it should be clear to anyone listening to Wright – whether you agreed with him or not – that nothing he said to the NAACP or at the Press Club justified his being demonized and marginalized as he has been.

        Jeremiah Wright’s words didn’t get him in trouble. His “crime?” was not WHAT he said, but the militant, strident, take –no- prisoners way he said it. In short, black militancy scares the hell out of white people.

        Wright has become a pariah to most white Americans (and a good many blacks as well) because of a basic misconception of black militancy. For decades, and especially since the Black Consciousness Movement of the 1960’s, black militant rhetoric and action have been misinterpreted as black separatism or black hatred for whites. Whites have always assumed if one is “pro-black,” that makes him or her “anti-white.” In racial terms, this means blacks and whites are opposites that can only be reconciled if blacks dismiss and reject any semblance of racial identity or assertiveness.

        Ever since Stokely Carmichael used the phrase “Black Power: in 1966, every black militant, among them Carmichael, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and now Jeremiah Wright, has been demonized as anti-white and anti-American.

        Whites have always been more at ease and comfortable with blacks like (OJ Simpson, for example) who pretend that racism didn’t exist and that we were all brothers and sisters in one human family that knew no bounds of race. Of course, this imaginary non-racial world would keep in place all of imbalances of white power, white privilege and wealth that whites always take for granted as their birthright.

        Black militants are no more anti – white than white critics of affirmative action are anti – black.  An open and honest dialogue about race would explore and dismiss such stereotypes without anyone being labeled. The first step is to agree that we must take the first step.