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Title Slate: The Eleventh Hour #338. Black Press. Rec: 4/490. Dir: Andrew Wilk

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Host Robert Lipsyte in studio sitting in frnt of 4 small tv screens with Black Media in large letters. He talks about tonight's program. With more than one quarter of New York's population Black, the Black newspapers and radio station's have new clout now, how will they use it?

Pan down on New York's City Hall to the steps leading into entrance of building.

INTERVIEW - LYNCH

Robert Lipsyte:
being elected mayor,

Bill Lynch
very important. Let me just say that I think that it helped to, to get our message out in the African American community. They were very interested in this race. They covered it extensively. And I think they bought a kind of sensitivity and understanding of what we were trying to do that that at least in the early part of the campaign that might not have been there in In other media outlets.

Robert Lipsyte
Well, how important is the black media in general?

Bill Lynch
I think very important. I think the African American community itself reads the black press extensively. They want to get that slant that interpretation of of what's being said out there?

Robert Lipsyte
Are they getting out a different message or slant? As an example, how would the black media's slant about the appointment of Dr. Woodrow Meyers inform the black community in ways that the mainstream press might not?

Bill Lynch
Well, let me say that not to say that the mainstream press didn't do this, but in the appointment of you go back and look, they talked about his appointment in in broader terms, and what I mean by that a lot of focus got put on the controversy around the AIDS and HIV crisis that that we have in this city that also affects the African American community, but we're also having problems with infant mortality and tuberculosis. And, you know, this report about the life expectancy of a male in Harlem is is is less than a male in, in Bangladesh. That was of interest to the to the to the African American community that and and the African American press talked about that. That is that is there is there going to be a health commissioner, not only concerned about AIDS and HIV, but are there going to be concerned about these other health problems that that are plaguing the African American community

Robert Lipsyte
in the the growth of the beautiful mosaic? And as minority so called minorities become majorities in the city? Do you see a change in the role of the black press?

Bill Lynch
No, I think that the only thing I could say is that I think that the the majority community in particular majority, community, opinion makers and media pay more attention to what is printed in in the African American press.

INTERVIEW

Robert Lipsyte:
to putting David Dinkins in City Hall. How important will it be in shaping the agenda of his administration?

Gary Byrd
Well, I think that that's going to certainly depend clearly on the continued listening, that will occur at City Hall now that the Mayor Dinkins is in office. I think that in terms of black radio, specifically, one of the things that we're able to do besides the idea of just reporting what's going on at City Hall, is that we can give City Hall the opportunity of hearing exactly what people are saying about how they feel about things going on at City Hall. So it's a matter of how close that ear of City Hall is to the people, which is pretty much with black radio.

Robert Lipsyte
Did you have any sense yet of how responsive that he was going to be?

Gary Byrd
I think people are sort of maybe getting to a point where they want to know specifically in the areas of police brutality, how things are going to be handled by the mayor's office. And I think that they are waiting at this point, to hear something forthright on the issue of racial bias in the city and how the city feels about that. I think that that's pretty much where it comes from our audience almost everyday literally

Robert Lipsyte
Bill Tatum. What role does the Amsterdam news is going to play in in shaping this administration? You've always been kind of close to Dinkins.

Wilbert Tatum
David happens to be a friend. But he's the mayor now and fair game. I've got to go back a bit to the 12 years of Ed Koch. I was not welcome at City Hall. Nor did I walk into the mayor's office for almost 12 years. As a matter of fact, when I told Koch that I refuse to give him free space to write a column in my newspaper. I was persona non grata there. I had difficulty even getting various and sundry commissioners to talk to me. And very often my reporters, there was no room for black in room nine at that time, though, that's not handled by the mayor's office, but by the inner circle, that all has changed. And it's a welcome development because we can perhaps get closer to what is going on in the city as a consequence of a new policy having been generated by the by the election of an African American mayor, who is sensitive to the needs of all the people.

Robert Lipsyte
Andrew Cooper, the city son has been critical of David Dinkins, certainly during the campaign. You were

Andrew Cooper
Yes, we were. And we're not going to we're not going to change a great deal. Although I must say that we've been extremely kind lately. I think that we will not change our posture at all. I am not persona non grata at City Hall, but I'm not welcomed with open arms. I haven't been before even though David is a friend of more than 30 years. It just seems to be that when you elect to criticize any politician, you have to understand that they do not greet you with open arms and that is probably what is to happen in the future with the city son?

Gary Byrd
Not so much black clergymen, what they're attempting to do is to have the black community involve itself in the campaign if they agree that the post has been

Robert Lipsyte
But the clergyman on Sundays are giving

Gary Byrd
No, no, not sermons. They will they will actually give the individual members some CEMOTAP the opportunity of presenting the information to those congregations. For them to then decide,

Robert Lipsyte
yeah, I'm sure you're accepted. We've shot on tape. The Reverend Calvin butts giving a sermon, attacking very personally attacking the New York Post. This this kind of story. We're bill Tatum, this kind of story of CEMOTAP a grassroots organization. boycotting the New York Post has not yet surfaced in the mainstream media.

Wilbert Tatum
Yes, it has. You've seen, there have been stories in several newspapers, including the observer, but they've been very tiny stories, but they've surfaced in the mainstream media. But I wanted to give an example, based upon what Gary said about mainstream press having its agenda, white press, not mainstream press, because that's precisely what I mean. Just recently, I returned from South Africa and from Sweden, where I met with Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. It just so happened, they had been they had invited a man named Jesse Lewis Jackson, to come to Sweden, and to meet with Oliver Tambo, and Jesse Jackson, at haga castle. Now, mainstream media was in Stockholm at that particular time, not one word, not one word. And the American press total about Jesse Jackson's visit invited by two of the most prominent figures of our time.

Robert Lipsyte
What does that mean to you?

Wilbert Tatum
It means a well, when I go up to Ethiopia, to the the African Congress on economics, the mainstream presses, they're never almost never a word. It means to me that Jesse Lewis Jackson was blacked out if you forgive the expression, blacked out of the white press. He was invited. Mr. Baker, our secretary went down to Johannesburg. Mr. Sisulu did not wish to have him there. Jesse Jackson, who got 7 million votes in America running for president was invited. He was also invited to Namibia almost ignored complete climbing by the white media

Robert Lipsyte
If you're a consuer of journalism, black or white, you're not getting obviously that kind of information. Are there other stories that that are being printed in the black press or broadcast and black radio, that black and white, you know, people are not getting

Wilbert Tatum
in number for number of arenas too

Robert Lipsyte
what would be an example.

Andrew Cooper
First of all, I think that the new Bob, and this program should be congratulated for doing the CEMOTAP story because it just is not widely disseminated at all, in terms of what is being printed, printed and not being printed, printed. My Report Porter, who was who is also the managing editor of the paper, you trace lead was in the courtroom of the opening statement by Alton Maddox around the shop and trial. Alton Maddox did a magnificent job in presenting in an opening statement statement what that trial was about. Absolutely fantastic. You never saw a word about that in the daily price press. And you're not going to say anything about the magnificence of this man who is a consummate lawyer, an excellent lawyer, you're never going to see that. You're never going to hit hear that unless you see it in a black newspaper. And unless you hear it on a black radio station, the gatekeepers of the news in this town in mainstream media, white meat media's bill accurately says our white males, they have an agenda. Black people are not on that agenda at all

Robert Lipsyte
Stanley crouch you have you are feeding several camps. Is it as black and white as that

Stanley Crouch
Oh no, I think that's absurd. I think one of the things is this is that I mean, if you I've listened to Mr. Maddox many times on WLIB By the way, or like I said, this is a codename for it not as a joke is called w MMS w Mason, Maddox and Sharpton. I mean, I've heard Mr. Maddox often saying that into just hysterical name, call it now whether or not that was what he did in courses. I was not there is not the question. But one of the things that I raise often in my book, is this. I mean, it seems to me that when something is wrong, as with the Tawana Brawley case, you know, I mean, a very serious questions that have to be raised about that case, and the way that those people were treated in black media, you know, and it seems to me that, to a large extent, black media was embarrassed, you know, because people tended to avoid addressing certain kinds of fundamental questions that had to be raised about what those guys were doing, how they were doing, how their demands constantly changed. Initially, people forget, they demanded that Abrams that Abrams prosecute the case himself, when he said he would do it, then they said he didn't have he didn't have enough trial experience. And it seems to me that that that what black media should be doing is not speaking solely to the black community, but to the condition at large. I mean, it seems to me that what the fundamental issue is this, you affect policy Finally, by converting enough of the electorate to your position to have an effect on how policy is changed. Now, whether if people want to constantly talk about us in them, that's not how politics works. The way you get bills passed, the way you get agendas changed is by convincing enough people that it is in their interest at large as people as citizens of New York or the state of New York, or the country at large. See when for instance, Cuomo got up and said of the Tawana Brawley case when it seemed like it was a serious case. Initially, when he said I look at Tawana Brawley as though she is my daughter, you know, as though this is something that all people should be concerned with. That, to me, is what the job of serious writers series broadcasters are supposed to be doing, not to pretend that there is not racism, it is not police brutality, that they are not double standards and hiring practices. But to be so strong in clarifying the issues that someone doesn't, you don't give a person the freedom to say, Oh, that's just those black people with their stuff.

Interview concludes, Lipsyte thanks each guest.

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