Yolanda,In October I lost my mind here at The Kitchen Table when CNN premiered the foolishness that is "D.L. Hughley Delivers the News." I said then, and I continue to maintain, that CNN's decision to launch a news farce in blackface during the Obama election is a disgusting choice.
Today I am sick again. Yesterday I got the news that one of my favorite programs on National Public Radio, News and Notes, has been cancelled. NPR decided that the appropriate way to respond to the election of the first black President of the United States is to cancel its only news program that explicitly frames news from African American perspectives. NPR cites insufficient underwriting and poor listener following as the reasons for its decision.
I don't doubt that NPR is operating with real constraints in this economic moment, but anyone who knows the history of this show should be a little suspicious. News and Notes has a difficult history with NPR. I don't know all the inside baseball, but I know the show was first hosted by Tavis Smiley. People who follow my work know that I am certainly no fan of Smiley (this might count as my top 2008 understatement) but Smiley did build a strong reputation and listening audience for the show. He left NPR , in part, because they failed to sufficiently promote the show or to provide the show with decent slots in large black markets. News and Notes had a brief run under Ed Gordon, then Farai Chideya took over.
I believe the show really blossomed under Farai and her incredibly smart and dedicated production staff. The reporting and analysis on News and Notes during the primary and general election season were first class. Some of the best work on NPR.
Part of the reason I am personally hurt about the cancellation of the show is because I have been given dozens of opportunities to appear on it over the years. And I am not alone. This show nurtured new talent and gave many is a place to start developing our public voices. News and Notes was one of the few places in broadcast media where I heard voices of the brilliant intellecutals, artists, academics, and policy makers who influence my thinking. I have enormous respect for the quality of journalism that characterized News and Notes. I will have a hole in my listening soul when they stop broadcasting in March.
Although Barack Obama ascended to the U.S. Presidency on the strength of a massive, interracial coalition of organized, enthusiastic people-of-color, the media seem uninterested in continuing to hear what these communities have to say.
It is as though Barack's win has ushered in a new age of post-racial media. Are mainstream media signaling that there is no need for substantive racial diversity in the age of Obama? One cancellation of a single radio show would not be enough to alarm me, even though it is a show I love, but the whitewash seems more systematic.
Black folks are allowed to be commentators. My own career shows that. Our readers already know that I love (worship?) Rachel Maddow. I feel lucky to be often invited to offer my perspective on her show. Some of the early risers here at The Table, might see me on CNN American Morning, which I do pretty often. And goodness knows I get more print press requests than I can handle. But there is a huge difference between commentator and host; between topic experts and journalistic generalists. Getting a sister to do 4 minute hit once a week is not the same thing as having an African American hosting a major news show and framing the stories with a particular sensitivity to communities of color.
I love Farai because she is a sister journalist. With News and Notes she had the strengths and insights of a trained journalist and the forum and autonomy of a host. We need more of this. Not less.
So Kitchen Table please answer this: why is broadcast media responding to the Obama administration with fewer black folks bringing us the news (real news not tired comedic routines) rather than more?
Melissa
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13 comments:
professor, you make several very good points. farai's presence on "news and notes" will definitely be missed. our vigiliance post-obama's victory is totally appropriate. as a member of the media, i know all of the media is suffering especially since the net has chased advertising dollars away. the best thing we can do right now is encourage and continue to encourage our folks to support media that supports us. too often we take shows and the presence of a person with our perspective for granted and when the plug is pulled we're up a creek.
unfortunately, i am not a regular listener of "new and notes." but i appreciate your viligiance and i will join you in supporting the show until march.
Wow, they canceled News and Notes? That is a loss. I think women of color need to create our own independent media outlets. Microradio? Youtube? Blogging? I will miss Chideya...
I was at your talk at Stanford today (I was the one with the question about over-identification with Obama and kinship politics). Your presentation was absolutely FANTASTIC! I am still buzzing. Trying to write a paper, but I keep turning over your talk in my head again and again.
Is Pecola's Politics the name of the future book coming out next year that documents the work you presented today, or is it under another title? And when is it coming out? (Sorry...buzzing...)
I dunno professor but ... TIMES ARE TOUGH !
Your outrage is duly noted and maybe appropriate but ... maybe it's kinda PREMATURE to state that broadcast media's response to the Obama administration is ... USING FEWER BLACK FOLK .
My view is ... I am sorry that the show will end ... Farai Chideya had a terrific show and she was a terrific hostess and good luck to her !
Chideya is smart and talented and God willing ... the best is yet to come !
Let's watch and see what unfolds .
I greatly enjoyed the show (always learned something when I tuned in) and am disappointed to hear this.
I made a pledge when my local npr station stopped airing N-a-N, asking them to bring it back. They replaced it with the god-awful screamfest World Have Your Say.
Maybe Michel Martin's Tell Me More will pick up the slack--it's still around, isn't it?
Wow, Melissa. What a thoughtful commentary. I have been a fan of this show for years and, if not for hearing you on a segment, I don't think we would have connected again after all these years. A very personal reason for my sadness (among others), but very real indeed.
Letishia
Because what they give can be taken away. Black people need to be more organized and looking for ways to helm their own media. There needs to be repercussions in place for crossing a line. Right now we don't have that and are scrambling for crumbs. Just because NPR announced the cancellation doesn't mean we have to accept it. Let's contact NPR and tell them HECK NO WE WON'T GO!
Been too busy to comment on the last two posts…but I will. This one though…arghhh!
I think as usual we don’t see other sides of the coin. While I adore Farai’s talents and I have absolutely no criticisms about her techniques or her execution of her show or how it shapes, I see other factors that have nothing to do with her that are problematic derivatives that probably are the derivative of her show’s failure. The factors of the programming demise is, again: US. Let me explain.
Because I tried to build a social capitalist/social entrepreneur enterprise, I learned a lot that I never knew when I was just a: teacher or in the military. When working now in the non-profit corporate sector of non-profit universe, I understand NPR a lot better than most who may not have had to work in executive or operational sectors of their fields of interest or chosen profession. I learned from trying to build something from scratch that I had limited insight on how sectors work closed and transparently as well as I learned that most people—lay individuals and even longstanding blocks—they ay not know trends and changes in trends in private and public sectors that in fact access our private and public dollars.
We may not like the facts but the program was bound to be cut if the audience tally was down; and if audience tally is low—and I believe it is because she is high-brow talent herself as opposed to her peers who are sensational entertainment speculators draw more attention, then dedicated programming dollars would usually funnel in support rather low. Some people and some organizations underwrite to support specific public television and public radio’s programming choices. Our organization here that I work for dedicates money to public media but as well to specific programs that are accessed through public media outlets. They are not investing in all things that doesn’t show productivity and profitability just because the program is under the umbrella of NPR or PBS or whatnot other entities that are similar.
To be fair—if News and Notes has not been bringing in a fringe constituency of followers in bragging numbers that do more than just listen, the donors to public media notice. They notice via NPR’s prospectus. They probably notice from internal and external research NPR does on its own shows to find out which ones have opportunities that can return on investments evidence of potential growths in human capital (census reads) and social capital (capital value in monetary growth potential and intellectual capital of a block).
Whereas we think these entities are simply charities, they are businesses like for-profits that must still balance their budgets and produce profits at the end of each day to pay for continued, sustained, and new programming that would keep them competitive. For that, they are more attentive to those people whose culture is socialized to understand how this works (meaning fiscal support) and that it is a process that works.
Non-profits know there audiences and they know what audiences “get it” how to be porous to adapting to the guidelines needed for one’s own special interest to survive within the socialized system those entities operate within. Public radio does have to represent ALL citizens but they must...they better darn right balance their sheets. That’s difficult to do when you are depending on public support from citizens as well as organizations that may only give to winning programs or programs that cater to a niche they want to or does cater to as well. It’s intricate.
Imagine if NPR, PBS, and others are applying for grant money whereas there are conditions to where the money can go and if their guidelines, restrictions, and benchmarks that determine how long the grant money will cover—without a guarantee for renewal.
I also remember that The Bush administration was not kind to public media and wanted subsidization cut (probably because public media is liberal).
But what I have learned from the sector is that with as much government oversight that involved in these entities and those who fund them, there is just as much critical ruling over the longetivity of a program as well as even if the program makes it to production for the people to witness in the first place.
We…Blacks…most of us don’t get this stuff because we are not in executive positions or those of us who are, they keep us lay people ignorant of business. It’s strange. Whereas Whites are educated in their social systems about how the business cultures operate, our people—who are Farai’s listeners are never educated on what they should have been doing as a block absent of Farai’s involvement. This has to do with Black People being Black People and not knowing enough. Farai did nothing wrong and because of her position as an employee it would have been tricky for her to use her program for lobby to just stay on when other programmers did not do the same. Other programmers did not have to lobby on the air because their niches are educated to know what to do and are in their skins already empowered socially superior of not desperately feeling marginalized of information.
My organization that I work for now just does not give money to public media sources without contingencies to position their own interests. There are so many layers and our organization is afraid of losing money because they have rich donors that also trust that they will appropriate money they dedicated from their family trusts into our hands believing we are making wise decisions on whom to fund with their money. The relationship our organization has with external donors who want to be affiliated with our brand is that they get to have their family's name attached to good decision making. Good decision making is not being a bleeding heart investing in do-good practices that are not churning out advantageous results.
They are not backing NPR or PBS because they offer programming for us, Blacks, in do-gooder acts of execution. Now if the programming itself had proven benchmarks like in which we could see from metrics from the conception and conceptualization through visionary business plan, they would invest in whatever that "Black Issue" was. They are just not investing in Black Issues for the hell of it to make themselves feel better for the charity. Blacks--I'm speaking as a peer--we have proven by execution to not want to think of innovating. At times we get stuck thinking our model that emulates another is good enough or great when if really being self-critical and honest, we would admit we must challenge ourselves further when executing or presenting partner ideas we want others to venture into supporting us of.
Donors dedicate with specifics and the market research NPR or PBS displays are the variables that determine how much is granted and to whom. External organizations know as much about organizations that some employees know because some information about demographics is open. Prospective donors and long-term partners know the demographics stats and of that pertaining to us, they notice which niche groups are organized, identifiable constituencies even if they are not herded in centralized organizations. They notice through not only single donor trending but they notice in who is the listeners and their power base by comparing the non-profit affinities associated in cross-integration.
Also donors reward programming with the most elite or cross-affiliated listeners who are civic because the network of bonding increases all brands from the networks to the donors and back to all of their brands in future cross-polinization.
If listeners are just less affiliated with groups and sub-blocks that are civically charged, then not many networks can be forged in multiplication of the brands integrating—even if the integration looks invisible, organic, anonymous, or happenstance.
The goal for all parties are to build. Donors have to get something out of it in a return. To our organization, they are depending on public media to educate the public and that translates to making the public smarter. Our organization will never be caught wording their mission to smarten dumb people but that is what their mission is (in layman's terms). Most organizations now are running on the knowledge economny and into seeking ways to better America but only through new ideas.
So if a block is refusing to self-generate porosity to adapting to trends in modernization that other niches are adapting to as best practices, they are not going to offer funding just because in some liberal do-gooding way to not see results of adaptive growth. That is what I believe could have factored into Farai’s program ending. The problem was there before Ed Gordon and even before Tavis created the first niche show.
We can cry racism again but this is business and we have to learn that sometimes what we think is fair is not always good just because it looks good. We have to prove results while looking good.
If Farai’s show only showed breakthrough in having innovative niche topics that mainstream media neglected to highlight, that still is not productivity if the audience was not there to substantiate other people’s donations to subsidize it if they didn’t there was enough of incremental return for the process of engagement to the public through this medium. They may want to know that their money goes to a populated audience of human and social capital eager to engage through awareness and enterprise.
The sad fact is that it is like politics. The more erudite and socially educated and powerful the constituency is, usually that is the block that mostly fundraises for itself and or knows how to safeguard their interests through lobbying their concerns. As for us…Farai’s demographic—we are not powerful. We are cosmopolitan and we ascertain “good jobs” and material status, but we are not a power block. Farai’s base is not powerful. We might be white-collared but that does not equate to being powerful. We may be a bevy of lawyers, doctors, and Ph.D.s, but that does not mean we are a powerful block.
I don’t even think our generation who listens to Farai understands that a block is not a group of individualistic professionals that think they are cohesive because it’s a hopeful goal in marketing. I don’t think we know what a block is.
I have been waiting for someone to bring this to our attention about ourselves and I have not wanted to be the party-pooper about all things that are an illusion that Black People refuse to see and take time to TRUST to understand.
But we…like all those who THINK they engineered Obama being elected as primary special forces, tend to not see that they really don’t have as much power as they think they have. And yet we could have that power but it requires an education of understanding that just because we vent and defend and espouse in agreement of each other at times about life and circumstances in the meeting of the minds, it does not avow our constituency as a block with fertile power at the ready. We were as a group only serve others as the phalanx formation of soldiers that reinforce. We support others build enterprises that really don’t create partnerships in leveraging power.
We are not the smart bodies of intelligent design. We are simply soldiers.
I know it sounds insulting but no one will tell us these things. We have no audience for it yet. Others will just let us think we are more important than we are (because we look “right” and “righteous” when all we are are just choruses and acolytes…fans. We serve a purpose for them but never to truly empower ourselves.
Farai’s audience needs to learn just like our other niche sub-cultures need to learn what is really going on and where we fit in.
NPR could have known for the longest time that they needed to cut her show but instead of being targeted as racist, they could have been defensive it kept it around. Also, they could have kept it around just to be a place for Blacks to have during the election this year because it would have been socially deficient to not have Black Programming on the roster when it was a significant year involving issues of race. People use us just as we use them.
Also I do see the effects of that what I was concerned about before this election. I knew the trend of offering blind faith when buying into the Post-Racial Political and Social phenomenon was going to be one of the many mitigating factors of the era of Obama that would continue to adulterate Blackness. I knew as well there would eventually be a blowback to that sequential shell-shocking heartbreak to realize there was a need for a continued lobby for Blackness as a by-product result of what people assumed Obama’s actuality was to mean as an end-result of progress amalgamated.
I saw that we were high on marketed illusions that our nuanced issues were of mainstream interest. I saw how we wanted to associate Obama’s importance to measure and appropriate our residual importance when the hysteria around the campaign validated issues of Black concern. It would seem treacherous and negligent to disown the interest but we never understood it was all marketing at the time to keep people invested in the machines feeding off of the energy created. Media never wanted to redeem us. We seem to not understand that media is not romantic. It’s the humans who sometime want to use media streams as tools to teach, exonerate, and validate.
We…listeners could have saved Farai’s show beforehand just like we could have saved many other endeavors by our peers IF WE WERE SMARTER and WILLING TO BE SMARTER.
I sat at my desk the other day when I found out about this and played with some numbers. We could underwrite programming. I know it sounds like I am talking out of the side of my neck and but to be honest, I am serious about the IDEA. It is creative capital underutilized. Some of us know we have fool-proof plans but we don’t have fool-proof constituencies we can depend on to test and prove the ideas will produce effective results. Ten thousand of us donating $100 into a venture fund could fund specific programming streams. I donated more than that this year to people and I am living paycheck to paycheck. We can own ourselves by investing in our people instead of having them lease themselves out to find out they are “no longer needed” when the flavor changes or executive decisions must be made not in our favor. Whose to say we could not fund her program on a for-profit network by subsidizing salaries and production costs?
We have to think bigger and start to understand what non-profit philanthropy exerts in creative capital and results-orientation.
Why do we wait for gatekeepers to hand us scraps and continue to think that we should bully them into empowering us? More of our own with enterprising thoughts need to bully us instead into real, raw empowerment.
I remember when I was trying to build and I was facing the sad reality that I understand now is Farai’s fate again after someone could have educated us hence Tavis and Ed Gordon. With racism being a given (and yes, these media organizations have their racial issues but besides the lack of personal interest Farai's NPR working peers may not have in our issues), we need to know we can’t just wait for the shoe to drop to cry racism. We need to bolster fortifications of our everyday lives incorporated into integrated living of learning organizational lifestyles.
We need to fund ourselves like other public interest groups fund themselves. They fund their interest. They fund their empowerment. They just don’t fund entertainment and think the government or the Gods have to fund and grace our empowerment. That’s our responsibility.
People would tell me to write Oprah in requesting her financial support and I would tell the same people that they should write Oprah for me as surrogates and that they should be showing Oprah that they were funding me as a constituency in a venture fund to then prove to her why she should if that is what they were lobbying. No one wanted to do that much work. They wanted to put all of the fate of my endeavor on the hopes of rich people rescuing me when I created it as an endeavor we common people were supposed to build through funding.
I realized that what I was suggesting in collective building of an investment in a person or idea was unseen (and doubtful) for most of our people to believe in; I knew our people--the so-called educated--only wanted to think of minimal investments they could and would have to offer in risk. But that is where we falter.
We don’t understand that we have to invest in others for us to reap the benefits of collective ownership that would sprout residual breakthroughs in capitalization. I found out that our people tend to think so linear in how operations exact.
Only we think that people are supposed to take care of us and fight harder for our empowerment more than we should ourselves. We never understand the mathematics to it all in that certain building blocks are needed in order to build an empire. We have to take care of each other first and last. And if others follow the law and their conscious to extend benevolence, we would take it as a gift of graciousness…that was temporary…not indefinite…never to be taken for granted as a given and not to be taken for granted as compassionate nurturing. That is how we get it twisted, get our feelings hurt, and waste time not building. Someone gets a little something and we think that is it.
I want Farai to have more but she, at this rate, will only get there by luck because (depending on us...I sigh from experience knowing) we are refusing to understand the business of so many things. She leaving her destiny in our hands is beautiful in a trusting way of blind faith but it is wasteful in reality to continue creating ventures for Blacks to appreciate and know what to do with when they refuse to learn that we are different and the rules are different for us.
We don’t even know how to take care of Farai even as fans but that is what we do of a lot of our gems. We need to be more educated in understanding the business to PROTECT her (or anyone else enterprising) so she/they can then continue to fight for us. It’s a relationship that has to be nurtured into maturity to understand nuance required flexibility to grow together.
i think uppity negress in her tome said how i feel:
this show was doomed to fail. NPR did ZERO marketing and advertising in black markets. And in the midst of cutbacks, it would make sense that the show with the least amount of listeners would get cut. If I was station manager I would have made the same decision. Im not convinced that it was a mass conspiracy by white media to constrict the chokehold on black voices.
Particularly the bloggers roundtable.
Honestly, I still dont know a lot of black people who read black blogs that offer something intelligent and substantive to public discourse. Let alone listen to NPR News and Notes or not. as a result, we suffer. Fact of the matter, in my own humble opinion, far too many of us fail to challenge our own embedded philosophies and theologies resulting in us being stuck in the ruts of repetitiveness. this is a same old song that blacks have been decrying, but this is the typical reactive approach; we holler and complain about NPR et. al. being unfair towards blacks. Yet we still fail to be proactive and next time a Farai Chedeya gets a position we will demand that the show be promoted properly and not doomed to failure.
Professor Harris-Lacewell, you ask: why is broadcast media is responding to the Obama administration with fewer black folks bringing us the news ... rather than more?...
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Well I guess America doesn't need to do anything more for folks of color now that we have elected a black president. Isn't that enough? Hasn't America proven that it is no longer racist by electing Mr. Obama? Can't America just wash it's hands of the legacy of racism now that they've done right by black Americans? We have a black president! What more do people want?! sheesh!
That is what, I imagine White NPR type Liberals are thinking. Even if they would never dare say it or let the complete sentences form in their heads. It saddens me that people won't just own their racism. It will not be transformed until it is seen for exactly what it is.
thatgirlw/issues said "I think women of color need to create our own independent media outlets. Microradio? Youtube? Blogging?"
Blog Talk Radio is a great way to continue the conversation. It offers a medium for the marginalized to say HEAR MY VOICE!
When I found out that the show was being canceled it stung a little. Wonder what Chideya will do next?...
As far as the idea of a "post-racial media" Let's take a look at McCain's concession speech. He said, "A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.
America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.
Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth."
WHAT? "A WORLD AWAY" ?? WHAT? "Let there be no reason now to fail to cherish citizenship."?!?
Oh standpoint theory, why can't you be taught in kindergarten...
I am personally disheartened by the cancellation of News and Notes, which is continually my preferred NPR news program. As a white gay male wary of the media lens, I always appreciated the angle that Farai was willing to take, the inclusiveness she brought to a program geared towards African Americans, and the lesser-told stories not found in other media sources.
But I'm not surprised to find that the show is being cancelled which I believe is due to limited access and advertisement on NPR's part. In my broadcast area, NPR only options the show for a midnight or 7:00 AM airing. I'm not up at midnight, and 7:00 is a time coveted by your typical news-blurb show.
Everyone deserves to hear ideas and current affairs examined through a different point of view. It's a shame NPR didn't try to bring this show to the forefront, as it does with other equally dynamic programs.
With a new administration coming in Jan '09, and while we are still [basically] at the beginning of the century, it is time for people to look toward to a new way of telling our stories and connecting to people (the world over) the way we want & need to connect.
I will miss News & Notes, but perhaps this is (really) the opportunity Farai and the staff need to start making a new path via different means.
Fans of the show know I've advocated Farai getting a TriCaster and starting her own internet based TV/digital video Broadcasting network on the model of Leo Laporte's Twit.tv. (Check out his site. They stream quality, live tech related content daily.) The TriCaster is basically a TV studio in a (computer) box.
There's no reason the black diaspora can't start generating their own "networks" now. The technology is there, and the costs are relatively low. It can be done for basically, the cost of a low-end to mid priced car.
Think of it as the 21st Century equivalent of Public access TV (on the internet), but w/ MUCH better content and MUCH better (professional looking/sounding) production value. Plus, YOU control the content. Period. PERIOD.
All Farai would need (to start) is about $10K of computer equipment (including the TriCaster) and a T1 internet connection and they have an instant television network. Really. If black people subscribed to such a network for $10/year, it would be a money making business.
They could sell ads, get sponsors, subscribers, and even apply for grants for providing public service related content.
The internet and the technology is here (NOW) for us to provide our own meaningful content, history telling, news etc. Take advantage of it.
We can't keep waiting for old media like BET to finally find religion as it relates to quality content.
And "Old Media" methods aren't going to move us forward. It's time to look to new media avenues to record and tell our history. The majority population is primarily focused on their interests & their version of history. I don't see that changing soon.
It is time to move forward. Farai and her capable staff already have the chops to do just that.
Here's hoping they take that step.
"Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter." - African proverb
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