Black media in metro Atlanta are flummoxed and exasperated regarding the extremely conspicuous lack of invitations and applications to attend the presidential debate at CNN Studios in their city.
Equally perplexing is the fact that multiple foreign publications were reportedly granted access to the debate that Black publications were shut out from — despite the realization that the overwhelming majority of non-American citizens cannot cast a vote in the election in November.
“It was disrespectful. I thought it was very tacky not to invite the Black newspaper. I thought that was just cheap and typical of CNN,” Atlanta Voice editor-in-chief Donnel Suggs said during a phone conversation with the Atlanta Black Star.
ABS noted in their scathing report about CNN that their representatives stated they were “unable to accommodate any additional credential requests” because the deadline to apply to the event was June 7.
It must be noted that those publications were not informed in advance when the deadline was, like the other publications.
Some Black newspaper executives find this circumstance questionable, if not highly objectionable, when you consider that Blacks make up a sizable and essential demographic for Biden and the Democratic party.
“(CNN) never reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, June 7, you guys better have this thing in.’ Had they told me that, we would have done that, right? So, right, that’s messed up,” Suggs told the ABS.
Afterward, ABS reported that CNN contacted them to offer transcripts of the presidential debate as consolation for not being able to attend in person.
