While at Harvard's Black Policy Conference I got to chat with Democratic strategist and hot guy Jamal Simmons and asked him if he was still under contract with CNN. He informed me he never was. Then I asked him how he was spending his days and he said he was running his own business and initiatives. Yet very few calls were coming from CNN.
I couldn't remember the last time I saw Jamal's handsome baldy up on the CNN. Then I started thinking, "Hey? Where's Amy Holmes? It's been a while since she enraged me and made me still want to be her friend and braid her hair?" And then I began to wonder where all my favorite black pundits were. Was there a pundit purge when I wasn't looking?
While MSNBC seems to still be nurturing the likes of Michelle Bernard and Ron Christie (and for the life of me I don't know WHY Ron Christie, he's the anti-Jamal and I'm not talking politics), CNN seems to be reducing the screen time of every pundit who isn't Roland Martin, who was recently made host of Campbell Brown's show.
I chatted with an insider about what the eff is going on here and they came up with the "theory" that CNN's ratings surge during the election season was really a "black surge." This individual said the network crammed more black people and black related specials on than you could shake a stick at in 2008 and were rewarded with a crush of black viewers. Now they've pulled back as the black viewers have gone away. CNN's ratings have tanked of recent. But which came first? The black viewer decline or the purge of the pundits they enjoyed watching and arguing over?
Yeah. That's what I thought too.
It's not a conspiracy, just the obvious. Obama was elected and CNN went back to the status quo. CNN also fell behind MSNBC in some areas of the ratings. CNN is also pimping things like Rick Sanchez like he's the future of news. If that's the future of news, news is DEAD people.
Los periodicos esta muerto. ¡ESTA MUERTO!*
*(And I didn't do that in Spanish to mock Sanchez, but because it is the only foreign language I took six years of study. I know like two French phrases, but I can scream out "esta muerto" with the best of them.)
So of COURSE all the black pundits saw their time reduced (Donna Brazile and Amy Holmes) or became invisible (Jamal Simmons). Of COURSE. News networks are the slowest to adapt to change. Me, if it weren't broke, I wouldn't have fixed the "black" CNN problem. I would have just put MORE black people on. Screw it. No one else is trying to put more of us on. Start a trend. Create a niche. Bring Bernard Shaw back. Hell, bring them all back. Let's do this thing, CNN. Go the full minority. Hire Lisa Ling. Get Connie Chung out of retirement. Steal folks from Univision. It's about to go bankrupt anyway. Give Suzanne Malveaux more face time. Hell, hire her family and give all those damn Malveauxs face time. Put Don Lemon back on five days a week. Move TJ and Betty to the daily morning show. Get Soledad out of that closet you keep her locked in, tell her to put down those kids and that Top Ramen and GIVE HER SOMETHING TO DO!!!
Like Wolf's job.
I'd even let Rick stay ... as fact checker and hurricane coverage guy. I do enjoy his pompous self blowing like the bag of hot wind he is. But I'll stop. For some reason that Sanchez brings out the meanie in me.
Question: Have you also noticed the gradual re-lightening of cable news pundits? Do you miss DL Hughley Breaks The News? Does anyone, other than DL Hughley's bank account?
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