Following a round of social media backlash, a chair member of the Political Task Force for the National Association of Black Journalists is defending the organization’s decision to invite Republican nominee Donald Trump to its 2024 convention.
“I helped make this call. And it’s in line with invitations NABJ has sent to every presidential candidate for decades,” Tia Mitchell, the Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, posted on X in a response to another user complaining about the decision. “But continue to go off on your feed. I’ll continue to work to create opportunities for journalists to interview the potential next President.”
Though Trump did not attend the NABJ Conventions in 2020 or 2016, several other presidential hopefuls have over the years. Former Presidents George W. Bush Jr., Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have all attended this convention as either presidents or candidates.
On Monday, the media organization confirmed that Trump would be joining the 2024 National Association of Black Journalists Convention and Career Fair in Chicago, its biggest event. Trump will participate in a conversation on Wednesday, the first day of the convention. That conversation will be moderated by senior congressional correspondent for ABC News Rachel Scott; anchor of “The Faulkner Focus” and co-host of “Outnumbered” on Fox News Harris Faulkner; and politics reporter at Semafor Kadia Goba. The event will not be open to the public but will be live-streamed via NABJ’s YouTube and Facebook pages.
Soon after its announcement, the upcoming event sparked outrage. The decision to have Trump at the event has been called “some naaaaasty work,” “the single dumbest and worst decision in NABJ history” and “extremely disappointing.”
Many journalists have been further infuriated by how the Trump campaign have advertised the event. In a press release, the Trump Vance campaign claimed that “President Trump accomplished more for Black Americans than any other president in recent history.”
“College students from Texas were literally crowd-sourcing to raise money to attend THIS NABJ conference because organizational budgets for Black and POC students were eliminated due to racist, anti-DEI legislation brought forth by this former President and his cronies,” Amber Sims, co-founder and executive director of the student-centered organization Young Leaders, Strong City, posted.
“I’m truly disgusted to see Black journalists, especially young, unemployed and queer, who spent what little they had to go to a convention be reminded that @NAJB values clout over community,” Ernest Owens, a writer at large specializing in politics for Philadelphia Magazine’s G Philly and CEO of Ernest Media Empire, wrote on X. “It’s disappointing.”
When NABJ first announced the Trump session on Monday, the organization’s president, Ken Lemon, noted that they’re looking forward to attendees hearing from Trump on “critical issues our members and their audiences care about most.”
“While NABJ does not endorse political candidates as a journalism organization, we understand the serious work of our members, and welcome the opportunity for them to ask the tough questions that will provide the truthful answers Black Americans want and need to know,” Lemon wrote at the time.
The NABJ did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
