The National Association of Black Journalists declined a request by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign to appear at this year’s convention, a source familiar with the plans told The Daily Beast.
Harris could not speak in person at the convention due to logistical reasons, including the funeral of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) and finalizing a vice presidential nominee, the source said. She offered to appear for a virtual fireside chat during the convention or an in-person conversation at a later date, but the convention’s organizers declined.
NABJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The news, first reported by theGrio, came hours after a co-chair of this year’s NABJ convention stepped down after the convention announced Donald Trump would appear for a moderated conversation.
Karen Attiah, a Washington Post columnist, said her choice was influenced by “a variety of factors,” though she did not directly attribute it to the group’s decision to host the former president. She said she was not consulted about the move to platform Trump.
“To the journalists interviewing Trump, I wish them the best of luck,” she wrote in an X post.
Attiah did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Her abrupt exit a day before the convention is set to begin follows a torrent of backlash over its plan to host Trump, who is set to participate in a moderated Q&A with ABC News reporter Rachel Scott, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, and Semafor reporter Kadia Goba.
NABJ President Ken Lemon and convention co-chair Tia Mitchell have defended the decision in social media posts, saying it conformed to a tradition of inviting presidential candidates during an election year and it was an opportunity for Trump to face questions from top Black journalists. Lemon said Vice President Kamala Harris was also invited. (The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
“Some of yall need to take a step back and ask why you’re questioning why a group of JOURNALISTS wants to ask former and possibly future President Trump questions,” Mitchell, a Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, wrote on X. “Do you hear yourselves?”
Still, a number of Black journalists aired their grievances about the programming move on X, noting Trump’s penchant for racist comments and attacking Black journalists.
April Ryan, a White House reporter for theGrio and a 2017 NABJ “Journalist of the Year,” condemned NABJ’s platforming by citing the attacks she faced from Trump directly.
“The reports of attacks on Black women White House correspondents by the then president of the United States are not myth or conjecture, but fact,” she wrote on X. “To have a presumed orchestrated session with the former president is an affront to what this organization stands for and a slap in the face to the Black women journalists (NABJ journalists of the year) who had to protect themselves from the wrath of this Republican presidential nominee who is promoting an authoritarian agenda that plans to destroy this nation and her democracy with his Project 2025.”
“A sham of an interview will destroy the organization’s credibility”
— Jemele Hill
“I’m disappointed that in a space where so many queer and trans members still feel vulnerable will now feel even more unsafe due to Trump being invited and the possibility of his most vicious followers coming to the hotel to support him,” Femi Redwood, the chair of NABJ’s LGBTQ+ task force, wrote on X.
Jemele Hill, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, said she didn’t have a problem with the decision to host Trump under “the right circumstances,” but she said she wasn’t aware how “right” this year’s conditions were.
“A sham of an interview will destroy the organization’s credibility,” she wrote on X. “If the majority of NABJ’s membership is against Trump being there, the organization should listen. You have to answer to your membership and you run the risk of permanently disengaging folks. Trump isn’t worth that.”
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