CNN Reportedly Getting Rid of Both Soledad O’Brien and Roland Martin

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    CNN Reportedly Getting Rid of Both Soledad O’Brien and Roland Martin

    roladad

    by Dr. Boyce Watkins

    According to various sources, including Michael Cottman at Black America Web, CNN is making some major moves this  month.  The network is allegedly planning to part ways with Roland Martin, Soledad O’Brien and perhaps even the great Donna Brazile.  Most ironic is that the network has given us the honor of cutting it’s black faces from the airwaves during Black History Month.

    The decision has confused observers who’d been somehow misled into believing that CNN was a network seeking to become friendly toward people of color.  After all, the company has earned millions from black people with it’s “Black in America Series,” most of which I never watched largely because I instantly got the sense that their goal was to study black people like lab rats rather than respect us as human beings.  There is a difference between being interested in a group of people and actually caring about them.

    Making matters even more peculiar is that the network also hired three new high profile journalists, all of whom are white: Jake Tapper, Chris Cuomo and Rachel Nichols.  So, it’s out with the black and in with the white, according to what we’re seeing.  At least Jeff Zucker, head of CNN Worldwide, isn’t being subtle with his racial exclusion.  Usually people stab us in the back behind closed doors.

    Roland Martin’s contract with CNN ends on April 8.  Believing that one high profile black face can be easily traded in for another, there is speculation that CNN may bring in other black commentators, such as Van Jones and Cornell Belcher.

    CNN and Jeff Zucker’s latest moves seem bold, odd and somewhat revealing.   For years, I’ve always felt that both Roland and Soledad were qualified to hold their own in prime time slots, but the network never gave them an opportunity.   Given that their decisions are designed to reflect the preferences of their target audience, they are effectively telling us that their audience just doesn’t want to see black people on the air during prime time.  Additionally, the network seems to believe that there is no black journalist on the planet as qualified as less-than-capable anchors like Nancy Grace.

    Over at MSNBC, a preacher and civil rights leader by the name of Al Sharpton has a show that appears to be very successful.  They’ve taken a black professor (Melissa Harris-Perry) and given her a chance to hold her own during the weekends.  Even people like Steve Harvey, Michael Strahan and Wendy Williams are doing an amazing job competing in the landscape of daytime television. So, I’m admittedly stunned that CNN seems so determined to make hiring and firing decisions that look like they were decided upon in 1959.

    Perhaps Zucker has something else up his sleeve.  The truth is that I don’t know and I really don’t care.  As I expressed during an interview today with the Final Call (run by the Nation of Islam), the day must come when we become more focused on the creation and support of black-owned media outlets.  These are places where black voices are appreciated as something other than a novelty, and people can’t toss us to the side when we’re no longer the hot new negro on TV.

    We can get angry at Zucker for making his decisions, but the truth is that CNN was never our network to begin with.  You can’t move into someone else’s house and shift around the furniture, which is what makes me skeptical that true racial equality can EVER be achieved at CNN.  Black people need to own their own stuff.

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