NABJ and Trump

FTVLive’s inbox was flooded with emails from NABJ members that were a bit surprised that the organization had invited Donald Trump for a sit-down.

“The members were given no input on this choice,” said one NABJ member.

Trump has consistently attacked the media for nearly a decade, yet a media organization welcomes him with open arms.

Other NABJ members pointed out that having Fox News host Harris Faulkner as one of those who is questioning Trump is like (excuse the pun) having the fox guard the hen house.

Commenting on the NABJ’s IG, Jauque Reid writes, “I could not be more disappointed by this. I know NABJ has a history of inviting all presidential candidates, but this is not the year for that. Not with this man. We need to be bombarding the world with how dangerous he is, not playing into news media efforts trying to normalize him and participating in efforts to put him back in office. NABJ is better than this. This event should be cancelled or you need to add Joy Reid and Roland Martin to that moderating panel.”

NABJ member Cerise Castle writes, “Welp, i’ll be revoking my membership. Enjoy!”

Brittany Geneva writes, “I don’t agree with those saying this is about being unbiased and practicing good journalism. Journalism isn’t about blind neutrality for the sake of appearing unbiased, it’s about telling the truth. That notion that being unbiased means not acknowledging truth is why the profession is seen as less and less trustworthy. The truth is all this man does is lies, he has directly insulted many members of the organization, and he has nothing new to share with this audience. It’s a farce and he doesn’t deserve this platform.”

Giselle Phelps says, “Epic fail! Disappointing! Poor leadership!”

I do wonder, will the NABJ be fact-checking what Trump is saying, or will they let his lies (and yes, he will lie) go unchecked?

My thoughts on this are this: why would any media organization invite a man who has attacked the media with chants of “Fake News!” to join their event?

Donald Trump is running for President and certainly deserves to be covered. But why would you invite him to your event? He has shown no respect for the media, so why give him the invitation?