We Need a New Approach to Who Gets Access

The absence of local Black-owned press from CNN’s Atlanta debate shows that journalism systems are stuck in the past?

By Eric Ortiz

Over 800 journalists got credentials from CNN for the first debate between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump in Atlanta. They represented 173 national and international news organizations, 35 countries, conservatives and liberals.?

But in the city known as the "Black Mecca" of America, not one represented local, Black-owned media.

According to Donnell Suggs, the editor-in-chief of The Atlanta Voice, the only Black-owned media outlet invited was the national outlet, The Grio, owned by media mogul Byron Allen.

The National Association of Black Journalists similarly overlooked the Black press when it organized a panel of three journalists to interview President Donald Trump at the NABJ conference in Chicago this week. All three are Black, but they represent ABC News, Fox News and Semaphor. Chicago is meanwhile home to trusted, Black-led and Black-serving outlets such as The Tribe, that could be counted on to ask hard questions rooted in community experience.

"So what does that say?" Suggs asked during a phone conversation with The Pivot Fund. "What does that mean that of all the Black-owned publications … you only invited the one that was out of D.C.? That means that it didn't matter to you if that media was there."

Equity and diversity, Suggs explained, means more than just having Black reporters.

"We got to make sure we don't confuse this," he clarified. "Black person working for CNN is not Black-owned media. That's a Black person. I'm talking about Black-owned and operated media. … They didn't invite Black-owned media there. I don't think they thought it was important to do that. That's the insult to me as a member of the Black press."

Suggs is more than a member of the Black press. He is the editorial leader of The Atlanta Voice, a Black-owned and operated newspaper run by the same family for 59 years.

Founded in 1966 by Ed Clayton and J. Lowell Ware, the paper was born out of the refusal of the White-owned majority Atlanta media to give fair and credible coverage to the civil rights movement.?

Clayton died after the paper's first issue was produced, and Ware turned The Atlanta Voice into a venerable institution, regularly featuring Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists.

"My father was so committed to covering news and information that strengthened communities that he purchased a printing press after the White-owned printing company he used required that the cover story be changed, or the paper would not be printed," Janis Ware, J. Lowell Ware's daughter, told the National Newspaper Association Foundation. "Integration was a hard-fought battle and resulted in important civil discourse as Atlanta became recognized as the hub of the civil rights movement."

Janis Ware took over The Atlanta Voice as publisher after her father died in 1991. She has continued his legacy, remaining true to the publication's motto: "A people without a voice cannot be heard."?

That is why The Atlanta Voice spoke up when they did not receive an invitation to the debate.?

"In this day and time, we should have the opportunity to cover it," Ware told The Pivot Fund. "… We raised our voices and said this wasn't the way to do it."

While CNN sent many media members emails and follow-up emails detailing the press credential application process and the June 7 deadline, Suggs said he only learned about the deadline when an industry peer told him about it. He contacted CNN and asked if he could get a credential but was unsuccessful.?

Instead, Suggs was part of the Biden presidential pool. He watched the debate from the president's press pool, in the same building as credentialed media for the debate, but not in the media spin room, located at Georgia Tech's McCamish Pavilion, across the street from CNN's Atlanta studios where the debate took place.

"I would have rather been in the general area because, on the floor, there are opportunities to talk to a bunch of other politicians that were literally around in the spin room," Suggs said. "You want to be in front of the spin room, you can pick up these Georgia politicians, and you get quotes from them."

Many people urged CNN to allow local Black-owned press in-person access: the National Association of Black Journalists, Congressional Black Caucus Political Action (CBCPAC) Chairman Rep. Gregory Meeks, and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens. Black Star Network founder and owner Roland Martin, Washington Informer senior writer and Black Press of America senior correspondent Stacy M. Brown, Atlanta Black Star, and others also advocated for Black media to be included.

CNN didn't listen. The Pivot Fund reached out to CNN to learn why.?

"We were happy to welcome more than 800 journalists from around the world to Atlanta to cover the CNN Presidential Debate, including credentialed members from local Black press who applied for credentials during the credentialing window," said a CNN spokesperson. "Information about how to apply for media credentials was made available to the public on May 15 in the announcement and confirmation of a debate. Unfortunately, due to size and security constraints, we were unable to accommodate additional credential requests following our June 7 application deadline, which came in only in the last few days."

CNN made a mistake. They should have made an exception for local, Black-owned press in the "cradle of civil rights" a week before the 60th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They compounded the mistake by not admitting they made a mistake.?

However, what CNN did was part of a larger issue.

Access matters everywhere, now more than ever. Access shapes public opinion, outcomes, and history. In a presidential election where race is a theme, along with the economy, inflation, and other issues of interest to all Americans, communities need access to trusted news and information. The public needs community sources they can trust. When trusted community outlets lose access, audiences lose. Communities lose.

"We have to recognize the biases built into the systems," former top newspaper editor Melanie Sill told The Pivot Fund. "We have to think about the systems that make up the way news and journalism works in our country. And so a lot of those systems, and I would say credentialing is one of them, were built for a different time, were built by different people. And it's time for an overhaul of them."

Journalism has an opportunity. We can build a coalition to create systems that work in today's media landscape. We can develop a new approach to who gets access and ensure that all legitimate media outlets, even non-traditional ones, get fair access.?

"We have this landscape of a lot of different kinds of players and some new emerging independent and some long existing but small outlets that serve specific audiences," added Sill. "Like much of the rest of journalism, we need to give that a fresh look and say, 'How should it work today?' Being fair and equitable, and not just to serve the news outlets, but to make sure that people, different kinds of audiences, are getting access."

It starts with an invitation.