The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) said Tuesday that it would place CNN on a “special media monitoring list,” citing a lack of black representation among the network’s leadership ranks.
NABJ said in a statement that its preliminary research showed that CNN has no black employees reporting to CNN President Jeff Zucker. It also showed that the news organization has no black executive producers as well as no black vice presidents or senior vice presidents on the news side.
CNN disputed the group’s finding that there are no black vice presidents on the news side, according to NABJ. But the news network did not provide the name or position of the vice president or vice presidents, NABJ said.
The NABJ said a four-person delegation sought to meet with Zucker but that the CNN president refused to do so because of “a personal issue between CNN and NABJ’s Vice President-Digital Roland Martin” stemming from Martin’s participation in a 2016 town hall with then-Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
“Previously, former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile admitted, according to a Time essay, she inadvertently disclosed a town hall topic to the Clinton campaign that was part of Martin’s research inquiry for the town hall,” the NABJ statement reads.
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