At the Politics & Inclusion Dinner at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner weekend, Abby Phillip, Ana Navarro, and others discuss the changing face of media diversity.
The Politics & Inclusion Dinner at Masseria Restaurant by Chef Nicholas Stefanelli in Washington, D.C. was co-hosted by Abby Phillip, anchor of CNN’s Inside Politics Sunday, and Lauren Wesley Wilson, founder and CEO of ColorComm Inc.
Don Lemon, Jim Acosta, and Van Jones Ana Navarro, on-air contributor for CNN and ABC’s The View; Sunny Hostin of ABC’s The View; and Tiffany Cross, Alicia Menendez, Geoff Bennett, and Yamiche Alcindor of NBC/MSNBC made up the event’s host committee.
Lemon Said,”When I came into the business, there were not this many people of color who had prominent roles.”
“I was just talking to Eugene Daniels, who I watched this morning on Morning Joe, my colleague Abby Phillip who I watched do her politics show on news today and so on and so forth. And being in a room with Gayle King, Symone Sanders, who was at the White House, and MJ Lee, who is here.”
“I mean, so much representation that we haven’t had. I’m just proud to be among all of these people.”
“It’s being in the game and you do it from inside You have to be a part of an organization in order to make a difference and so you have to do it from inside of that organization. So for years I’ve spoken up about diversity. I’ve made it known.”
She said, “A couple of years ago, it was not like this. I remember Don Lemon and I were just looking at each other thinking, it’s going to get better, it’s going to get better. And Wolf Blitzer would always tell me it’s going to get better. Well, it’s gotten better and this is really cool.”
“My superpower is that I can tell my story and the story of my community better than anyone else because I have the lens of a lived experience. It’s not about color. It’s about culture. I think Denzel Washington explained it really well when he was talking about directing an August Wilson play and Steven Spielberg directing Schindler’s List. It’s really about culture and I hope executives take note of when it comes to politics, people of color can tell our stories the best.”
She shared “Walter Cronkite retired at 65. He had to retire at 65. I’m 67 and I’m not even kind of thinking about retiring nor is anybody to my knowledge thinking about asking me to retire. So have we made progress? Yeah, I would say so. But is there more to come? Yes, definitely. There are still not enough of us sitting in the key decision-making positions. There’s still a need for more of us at the table where the decisions are made. No question about that.”
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