FishBowlDC reports that CNN president Jeff Zucker is meeting today with the National Association of Black Journalists “to discuss the state of black journalists at the network”.
There are two pieces of good news here. The first is that Roland Martin’s contract with CNN expires April 8. You could pluck any black person off the street and your chances of finding someone smarter and less impressed with himself are about 99.97%. Martin also shares a problem many of CNN’s talking head-mummies share: his opinions are tired, both boring and utterly predictable.
The second piece of good news is that it seems the NABJ is less interested in pressuring CNN to keep the black personnel is has and more interested in seeing Zucker groom and develop up-and-coming black reporters for prime anchor slots. That’s a perfectly worthy goal.
Now that Soledad O’Brien’s been canned, Suzanne Malveaux is the only black weekday anchor. She does a pretty good job. She’s certainly better than Carol Costello, Ashleigh Banfield, or Piers Morgan. Currently, CNN has three black weekend anchors. The only one I’m familiar with is Don Lemon, and nothing would make me happier than to see that that Obama-minion get a taste of Obama’s jobless economy.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC