Race and Media: Missed Connections
MSNBC ending Tiffany Cross’s program speaks to the troubles the media is facing on race, the power of disinformation and its own future.
Tiffany Cross is the latest journalist to get axed by a cable news network, a trend over the last three months. On Friday, MSNBC announced that it would not renew Cross’ contract, canceling her Saturday morning “The Cross Connection” program that uplifted marginalized voices, created critical space for racialized context and perspectives, and called out racism and racists.
She spoke truth to power. She comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable.
It appears the ‘comfortable power’ had enough of both.
It almost makes no sense, given her high ratings and diverse commentary. According to Forbes, “in the first quarter of the year, the show reported a 32% increase in viewership among viewers 25–54, the key demographic group valued by advertisers.”
As Variety reported, Cross’ relationship with the cable network was “becoming frayed” as executives grew “concerned about the anchor’s willingness to address statements made by cable-news hosts on other networks and indulging in commentary executives felt did not meet the standards of MSNBC or NBC News.”
Cross’ termination makes more sense when you zoom out.
The summer of 2020 was coined as America’s “Racial Reckoning.” The murder of George Floyd and subsequent anti-police brutality protests and calls for change brought on a flood of pledges, promises, and policies.
“Diversity, equity, and inclusion” became a powerful force in the work of racial accountability. Journalism as an industry, including media-adjacent entities in academia and philanthropy, initiated projects in racial progress.
Yet, DEI initiatives, framed as solutions to individual problems instead of the generational challenges systemic racism has created, resulted in the fallout we’re seeing now.
America’s inability to effectively reconcile with its political and racial polarization history is having present-day impacts. And the media’s inability to cover this story effectively is unsurprising.
With the conservative majority of the Supreme Court potentially eliminating Affirmative Action, politicians on the campaign trail pushing white nationalist and anti-trans talking points amplified by former Trump aide Stephen Miller’s America First Legal, and one of the largest social media platforms coming under the ownership of Elon Musk, whose company Tesla has a history of racism in the workplace, we’re seeing the nation’s racial progress bowing to the tide of hate-based politics, disinformation, and conspiracy theories.
The national news landscape has witnessed a tumultuous few months, with CNN firing Brian Stelter (and canceling his media analysis and criticism show Reliable Sources) and shifting its top talent around. And CNBC ended The News with Shepard Smith on Wednesday, also after two years.
But the loss of The Cross Connection is a deeper blow. Her program provided insight, context, and historical relevance with informed perspectives that pushed back against racialized mis and disinformation.
News media in particular favors stepping back rather than stepping up when the contentious waters get hot. Climate news coverage recently pivoted from its false equivalence and “bothsides-ism” approach to the crisis thanks to protests and collaborative efforts to change it.
We need to see this pivot and collaborative work with racism, especially anti-Black racism, as well.
Journalism’s role as a pillar of democracy is compromised when only voices that agree with the ruling powers are platformed. Media can’t pull back from afflicting the comfortable with the racial truth and not sow its own demise.
Its structural integrity has been weakened, and malicious actors know it. They’re reveling in it.
To effectively push back against racialized disinformation, our media ecosystem must amplify the advocates, the researchers, and the voices who are most informed and impacted, not silence them, whether we agree with them or not. (We already know which voices are amplified on social media, and why.)
There are nonprofit organizations, social justice leaders, and others who are pushing back against the uptick in online hate, especially now, ahead of the 2022 Midterms. Marginalized perspectives counter politicized narratives that negatively affect the queer community, Native rights, and more.
We are fortunate to have efforts in the news media landscape such as the Black Media Initiative at the Center for Community Media, URL Media, and Capital B, whose leadership all include, notably, Black women.
Lauren Williams, a co-founder of Capital B, said it well: “We think it’s crucial for the health of our democracy, for public health, for a variety of reasons, that we invest heavily in going beyond just the people who are naturally interested and finding the people who aren’t necessarily [already interested],” she added. “That’s why we felt like it was so important to do this.”
Without this understanding and respect for the people journalism is meant to serve, our media ecosystem will continue to face degradation and audience distrust. The threat to journalism’s position as a credible entity in our polluted information ecosystem and, arguably more critically, as the fourth pillar of democracy, is coming from inside the house.
