Black journalists – including one who’s moderated past vice presidential debates, Gwen Ifill – are tired of being pushed to the back seat, and the National Association of Black Journalists is making sure the big wigs of the presidential debates know it.
The group announced Friday that the Commission on Presidential Debates needs to stop discriminating against minority journalists and overlooking them when it comes to choosing moderators for the presidential debates.
“I was indeed disappointed,” Gwen Ifill of PBS told the New York Times, which reports that she is “livid” about not being offered a role as a moderator this year despite the fact that Lehrer had previously said he didn’t want the job and she had ably filled the role during the 2004 and 2008 debates.
The Associated Press says Candy Crowley of CNN, Jim Lehrer of PBS, and Bob Schieffer of CBS News were selected to moderate the three debates between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney this fall. Martha Raddatz of ABC News will moderate the debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican candidate Paul Ryan.
The president of Spanish-speaking television network, Univision, also acknowledged the lack of diversity and criticized the commission for the exclusion of Latinos among moderators.
article courtesy of Eurweb.com
