April 23, 2025 • 14 mins
BIN News Anchor Amber Payton sits down with Emmy-nominated journalist and MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid to discuss Howard University’s upcoming event, "Journalism Under Fire: Guarding Against Threats to Our Democracy." Held on April 24, the powerful conversation will feature Reid in dialogue with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and historian Heather Cox Richardson.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Black Perspective, a weekly community affairs program
on the Black Information Network featuring interviews and discussions on
issues important to the Black community.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good Sunday, everyone, and welcome to the Black Perspective. Black
Information Network news anchor and Amber Payton spoke with award
winning journalists, political analyst, and cultural commentator Joy Area, a
powerhouse voice in American media who continues to speak truth
to power. She's said to take the stage at Journalism
under Fire, Guarding against Threats to our Democracy, which is
(00:29):
happening April twenty fourth, hosted by the Center for Journalism
and Democracy.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
At Howard University.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Ahead of that important conversation, the two discussed the current
attacks on press freedom, the role of journalists in defending democracy,
and why walking in truth has never been more necessary.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Such an honor to have you on.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
And let me just start by saying, black woman to
black woman, now, seeing you lead political discourse with so
much fire and so much grace, it gives not just
black women in media, and I know that's what we're
going to talk about today, but it gives women black
women period permission to show up boldly in any and
(01:09):
so we thank you well.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
That's very kind. Thank you. You are very welcome.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
And I know that you are set to take the
stage at Journalism under Fire Guarding against Threats to our
Democracy that's happening at Howard University this month, and I
want to dive a little bit into you and your
career and then we'll talk a little bit about journalism
and democracy. But you've covered some of the most pivotal
and painful racial justice stories of our time, from Trayvon
(01:37):
Martin to Breonna Taylor, very very heavy stories in our
black community. What does that meant to you, both personally
and professionally, just to be a voice for those stories.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, you know, it's interesting that when you know, when
I left local news because I opposed the Iraq War,
I kind of went on this journey and I did
politics for a while, worked on an four campaign where
we did not win, to try to do George W.
Bush because I was against the war. But I found
myself in talk radio and in two thousand and six
(02:09):
after we lost that election in two thousand and four,
and one of the first stories that we focused on
and wound up really fixating on at News Talk ten
eighty WTPS, which was a radio one station.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It was a part of the Radio one network.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Was a case called Martin of a young kid called
Martin Lee Anderson, who was a fourteen year old boy
who died, who was killed beaten in a boot camp
because he had taken his grandmother's car on a joy
ride and she just wanted to teach him a lesson
and thought that, you know, if he was put in
this boot camp, it would straighten him out, but instead
(02:45):
he ended up debt.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
It was a fourteen year old boy.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
This is actually how I met Ben Crump because Ben
Crump took up that case, and so I had had
that experience of being on the radio and dealing with
the anguish of a community over this four teen year
old Black Lives Matter case.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Right that was before Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And then fast forward to my winding up at the
Grio dot com and we covered Trayvon. It was equally
personal for me because I have three black children, and
in the case of Trayvon, our middle son, Jamar, is.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Trayvon's exact age.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So covering that case and you know, going to Sanford
and staying in a little hotel and covering this case
and meeting the family and sitting in the service in
Florida where he was memorialized. It's hard for it not
to be personal, just as a black mom, as a
black person, and as a part of this community. And
I think what it shows is that because we cannot
(03:44):
not take it personally, we just have different insight into
the deaths of these young people.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
We care more and we bring that to the table.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And I bring that up to say that that is
the diversity, equity and inclusion piece that a lot of
the white press despises because they think it means we're
not objective.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It's not that we're not objective.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
We still do journalism, but we actually understand the humanity
of the subjects. And so for me, covering these really
painful cases while my kids are asking me how this
can be happening was really hard, but I think it
was really important and it helped me bring something to
the story that needed to be there.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
How do you relay those stories when you are when
you take that journalism hat off, and then you do
have to go talk to your kids about conversations that
I didn't think that I would have to have with
my younger brother and sister. In twenty twenty five, right,
How are you relaying that message to them while still
maintaining their innocence, right?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I mean, we wanted our kids, my husband and I
wanted our kids to be able to be kids and
enjoy their lives. But I mean I was the mom
who had to inspect them before they went to school
every morning because I needed to know what they were wearing.
And they thought I was just annoying, but it was
because I They had this fear that some police officer
would pull up on them, they would get hurt, and
(05:07):
or there would be some school shooting. And if authorities
ask me what they were wearing, I wouldn't know. And
so I've always kind of walked around with that fear,
and it's hard not to convey that to your kids.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
We've had to warn our children about the police. We've
had to have that talk with our sons and our daughter.
You know, we've had to warn them about racism and
racists that could hurt them and get away with it,
like what happened to Treymont that was not a cop,
that was a civilian. And so we've had to have
a different relationship with our kids in terms of the realism.
(05:37):
We had to bring to the table in raising them.
And that's just the way it is being black in America.
So while you know, I've really gone out of my
way to make my children's lives fun, you know, and
to give them adventure and to give them a not
a fear, but it's a victorious spirit as young black kids.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
There's no way to get around it.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
It doesn't matter if you are or not rich or poor,
suburban or urban rural, if you're black, this is reality.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
That's a harsh truth. This is reality. What does it
cost you emotionally and mentally to just be so publicly
honest in a country that punishes the truth tellers, especially
black women.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, And I mean the thing is is that it's
one of those trains that you see coming. You know
it's coming, but you also feel an obligation to stay
on the tracks.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And fight, you know what I mean. Like I mean,
Melisam Harris Perry is like a mentor and friend to me.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So I saw what happened to her, you know, I
mentored and you know, you know Champion Tiffany Cross, I
saw what happened to her, So you kind of know,
you know that there's a certain kind of presentation of
of yourself as a black woman in media.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
That's acceptable, and there's a kind that's not.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
You know, there's a kind that's rewarded and there's a
kind that's punished, and we all know what that is.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And so you know what the third rails are.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
But you also, you know, I had this conversation I
always recount this conversation I have with Tana hose Coats.
We just ran into each other at an event, and
we were just talking about our mutual third rail walk
with the hunt that we've been doing on Palestine. That
we knew it was a third rail in the American press.
We just knew it was something that is unacceptable and
(07:22):
unaccepted to view Palestinians with humanity. It's just not allowed
for some strange reason I've never really understood. But we
both you know, he said to me, but why have
the platform if you're not going to use it? And
I've always repeated that is that, you know, it's so
hard to fight to get these platforms.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
There's such there's such precious platforms.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
I mean, for a while, I had five hours a
week of primetime television at my disposal. So the choice is,
what are you going to use it for you know,
you can use it in a traditional way that saves,
that protects your position, or you can use it to
try to do something you know about what you think
is are the injustice in the world. I just chose
the latter, and I knew the risks of it, And
(08:05):
I understand that no one is owed a TV show,
So I know that you know, those things are at
the they are at the whim and large ass of
the company, so they have a choice, they don't have
to keep you, And so I knew I was taking
those risks.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
And you bring up a good point because you have
you spent years calling out misinformation and political spin on air.
So in this current media climate, what does it mean
to you to guard democracy through journalism?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, I think one of the most one of the
most important fights that we're facing right now is whether
there'll be any guardians left of this democracy. This democracy
is two hundred and forty nine years old. There's no
guarantee it will get to two fifty. And Black people
have always been the strongest guardians of democracy, even when
we were literally written out of it and written in
(08:57):
as chattel, We've still fought harder in my view than
anybody else. You know, whether it was I to b Wells,
you know, getting her printing press bombed because she called
out lynchers as criminals, you know, or whether it's Jet
magazine that put Emma Till's picture in the real gore
(09:21):
of his lynching on in its pages and forced people
to see, you know what racism and white supremacist violence
looks like.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
You name it, right.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
We have been the ones who have said, have called
democracy and called this constitutional republic to the carpet to
be what it says it is going to be or
playing or what it claims to be. So in this
era we really count on the press. We're supposed to
count on the press to be guardians of democracy. And
it's not to say to take aside and be partisan,
(09:51):
but to be honest. But we know the press has
failed at that over and over again. I mean in
the New York Times in the nineteen thirties was an
abomination of Hitler appeasement. You know, they treated Hitler like
a cultural story and an interesting and in some cases
story about is the design of his country house, you know, and.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
It's not a threat.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And I think the American media written largest treated Trump
that way as not a threat, as an interesting story,
as somebody who gives access, as somebody fun to cover,
somebody's not boring like the Democrats, who's not ordinary, who's
a showman. And there's been an appeasement of him in
the press, but not the Black press. And the Black
press I think has been the most honest about Trump
from the bear beginning, because we we saw him for
(10:36):
what he was.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
But again, that.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Doesn't mean people are gonna listen, you know, and I like,
whether we're in the Black press or whether we're black
people in the mainstream press, we keep saying, hey, guys,
this guy has fascist tendencies because we know what those
look like more than anybody, because we've seen them in
our own communities and states where we live. It's unfortunate
that the media isn't fighting harder, that they're not collectively
(11:00):
fighting for the Associated press. You know, the administration is
literally defying a Supreme Court order and not letting the
Associated Press do a job. There's no collective media outcry
about that. You know. Amber Ruffin was supposed to address
the White House Correspondence dinner. She was cashiered out because
the leadership of that organization that's supposed to generate the
protect the press back down because they didn't want to
(11:21):
hurt Trump's feelings. And there's no guarantees even going to attend.
So the press is not winning, is not doing what
it could do. And so I think those of us
in the press, I think there are some great journalists
who are doing fantastic work. We just all have to
support them, support each other, and just keep doing it.
We's have to put our heads down and keep doing
it because if we don't speak up, we're just this
(11:44):
democracy won't survive.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yes, well, we're going to wrap up, But I do
want to ask one more question, and that is, if
we looked ten years into the future, what role do
you hope the black journalists or a journalist general are
playing in shaping and saving American democracy.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I hope ten years from now we still have access
to the public spaces in order to do journalism. If
I'm being honest, I hope that we still you know,
I hope that they haven't removed our access to things
like YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and to the public
forums where we can still do journalism. I hope and
(12:27):
pray We're not in a position like Hungary is where
the media is fully suppressed, or like my father's country
in the Congo, where there came a point where you
couldn't even do journalism.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
It was unless you left the country and did it
in exile.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Right, we are speeding back to an earlier era when
you had to be I to be welled and risk
your life to do journalism. And I hope we don't
get to the point where we're like Russia or like Hungary,
or like El Salvador, or like Argentina or like Venezuela,
all of which or China. You know, none of those countries,
(13:03):
In none of those countries can you freely do journalism.
And if Americans don't think we can beat Venezuela or
China or Russia or Hungary, they're kidding themselves. I think
Americans need to spend some time reading about foreign countries
and thinking about what it would be like to have
to live like people in Russia live, or like people
(13:26):
in the Congo, still a war torn country that's been
destroyed by colonialism live, because that's where we're going.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
To me the country.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
The two countries probably the most like us because they're
in our hemisphere right now are Venezuela and El Salvador,
and so maybe people might want to google those countries
because that's the way it's going. I don't see right now. Again,
I need we need a collective will to prevent that
and not pssivity.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I've been to Cuba and those people have given in,
you know, and.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
If we give in, we'll be them.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Joey, thank you so much for just being everything that
the culture needs. You are incredibly intelligent and unapologetic and real.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
And I know that this conversation is.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Going to it's going to feed some souls, but hopefully
not too much because they have to get the full
meal this month on the twenty fourth. But I am
wishing you nothing but continue success and peace as you
continue on this journey.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
I wish you the same, Amber, thank you so much.
Thanks again, Amber and Joy.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Journalism under Fire Guarding against Threats to our Democracy is
happening April twenty fourth at six pm at Howard University.
For more information, go to events dot Howard dot edu.
Black Trailblazers in the FA
Welcome to the Black Perspective, a weekly community affairs program
on the Black Information Network featuring interviews and discussions on
issues important to the Black community.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good Sunday, everyone, and welcome to the Black Perspective. Black
Information Network news anchor and Amber Payton spoke with award
winning journalists, political analyst, and cultural commentator Joy Area, a
powerhouse voice in American media who continues to speak truth
to power. She's said to take the stage at Journalism
under Fire, Guarding against Threats to our Democracy, which is
(00:29):
happening April twenty fourth, hosted by the Center for Journalism
and Democracy.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
At Howard University.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Ahead of that important conversation, the two discussed the current
attacks on press freedom, the role of journalists in defending democracy,
and why walking in truth has never been more necessary.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Such an honor to have you on.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
And let me just start by saying, black woman to
black woman, now, seeing you lead political discourse with so
much fire and so much grace, it gives not just
black women in media, and I know that's what we're
going to talk about today, but it gives women black
women period permission to show up boldly in any and
(01:09):
so we thank you well.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
That's very kind. Thank you. You are very welcome.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
And I know that you are set to take the
stage at Journalism under Fire Guarding against Threats to our
Democracy that's happening at Howard University this month, and I
want to dive a little bit into you and your
career and then we'll talk a little bit about journalism
and democracy. But you've covered some of the most pivotal
and painful racial justice stories of our time, from Trayvon
(01:37):
Martin to Breonna Taylor, very very heavy stories in our
black community. What does that meant to you, both personally
and professionally, just to be a voice for those stories.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, you know, it's interesting that when you know, when
I left local news because I opposed the Iraq War,
I kind of went on this journey and I did
politics for a while, worked on an four campaign where
we did not win, to try to do George W.
Bush because I was against the war. But I found
myself in talk radio and in two thousand and six
(02:09):
after we lost that election in two thousand and four,
and one of the first stories that we focused on
and wound up really fixating on at News Talk ten
eighty WTPS, which was a radio one station.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It was a part of the Radio one network.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Was a case called Martin of a young kid called
Martin Lee Anderson, who was a fourteen year old boy
who died, who was killed beaten in a boot camp
because he had taken his grandmother's car on a joy
ride and she just wanted to teach him a lesson
and thought that, you know, if he was put in
this boot camp, it would straighten him out, but instead
(02:45):
he ended up debt.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
It was a fourteen year old boy.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
This is actually how I met Ben Crump because Ben
Crump took up that case, and so I had had
that experience of being on the radio and dealing with
the anguish of a community over this four teen year
old Black Lives Matter case.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Right that was before Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And then fast forward to my winding up at the
Grio dot com and we covered Trayvon. It was equally
personal for me because I have three black children, and
in the case of Trayvon, our middle son, Jamar, is.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Trayvon's exact age.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So covering that case and you know, going to Sanford
and staying in a little hotel and covering this case
and meeting the family and sitting in the service in
Florida where he was memorialized. It's hard for it not
to be personal, just as a black mom, as a
black person, and as a part of this community. And
I think what it shows is that because we cannot
(03:44):
not take it personally, we just have different insight into
the deaths of these young people.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
We care more and we bring that to the table.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And I bring that up to say that that is
the diversity, equity and inclusion piece that a lot of
the white press despises because they think it means we're
not objective.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It's not that we're not objective.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
We still do journalism, but we actually understand the humanity
of the subjects. And so for me, covering these really
painful cases while my kids are asking me how this
can be happening was really hard, but I think it
was really important and it helped me bring something to
the story that needed to be there.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
How do you relay those stories when you are when
you take that journalism hat off, and then you do
have to go talk to your kids about conversations that
I didn't think that I would have to have with
my younger brother and sister. In twenty twenty five, right,
How are you relaying that message to them while still
maintaining their innocence, right?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I mean, we wanted our kids, my husband and I
wanted our kids to be able to be kids and
enjoy their lives. But I mean I was the mom
who had to inspect them before they went to school
every morning because I needed to know what they were wearing.
And they thought I was just annoying, but it was
because I They had this fear that some police officer
would pull up on them, they would get hurt, and
(05:07):
or there would be some school shooting. And if authorities
ask me what they were wearing, I wouldn't know. And
so I've always kind of walked around with that fear,
and it's hard not to convey that to your kids.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
We've had to warn our children about the police. We've
had to have that talk with our sons and our daughter.
You know, we've had to warn them about racism and
racists that could hurt them and get away with it,
like what happened to Treymont that was not a cop,
that was a civilian. And so we've had to have
a different relationship with our kids in terms of the realism.
(05:37):
We had to bring to the table in raising them.
And that's just the way it is being black in America.
So while you know, I've really gone out of my
way to make my children's lives fun, you know, and
to give them adventure and to give them a not
a fear, but it's a victorious spirit as young black kids.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
There's no way to get around it.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
It doesn't matter if you are or not rich or poor,
suburban or urban rural, if you're black, this is reality.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
That's a harsh truth. This is reality. What does it
cost you emotionally and mentally to just be so publicly
honest in a country that punishes the truth tellers, especially
black women.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, And I mean the thing is is that it's
one of those trains that you see coming. You know
it's coming, but you also feel an obligation to stay
on the tracks.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And fight, you know what I mean. Like I mean,
Melisam Harris Perry is like a mentor and friend to me.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So I saw what happened to her, you know, I
mentored and you know, you know Champion Tiffany Cross, I
saw what happened to her, So you kind of know,
you know that there's a certain kind of presentation of
of yourself as a black woman in media.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
That's acceptable, and there's a kind that's not.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
You know, there's a kind that's rewarded and there's a
kind that's punished, and we all know what that is.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And so you know what the third rails are.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
But you also, you know, I had this conversation I
always recount this conversation I have with Tana hose Coats.
We just ran into each other at an event, and
we were just talking about our mutual third rail walk
with the hunt that we've been doing on Palestine. That
we knew it was a third rail in the American press.
We just knew it was something that is unacceptable and
(07:22):
unaccepted to view Palestinians with humanity. It's just not allowed
for some strange reason I've never really understood. But we
both you know, he said to me, but why have
the platform if you're not going to use it? And
I've always repeated that is that, you know, it's so
hard to fight to get these platforms.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
There's such there's such precious platforms.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
I mean, for a while, I had five hours a
week of primetime television at my disposal. So the choice is,
what are you going to use it for you know,
you can use it in a traditional way that saves,
that protects your position, or you can use it to
try to do something you know about what you think
is are the injustice in the world. I just chose
the latter, and I knew the risks of it, And
(08:05):
I understand that no one is owed a TV show,
So I know that you know, those things are at
the they are at the whim and large ass of
the company, so they have a choice, they don't have
to keep you, And so I knew I was taking
those risks.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
And you bring up a good point because you have
you spent years calling out misinformation and political spin on air.
So in this current media climate, what does it mean
to you to guard democracy through journalism?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, I think one of the most one of the
most important fights that we're facing right now is whether
there'll be any guardians left of this democracy. This democracy
is two hundred and forty nine years old. There's no
guarantee it will get to two fifty. And Black people
have always been the strongest guardians of democracy, even when
we were literally written out of it and written in
(08:57):
as chattel, We've still fought harder in my view than
anybody else. You know, whether it was I to b Wells,
you know, getting her printing press bombed because she called
out lynchers as criminals, you know, or whether it's Jet
magazine that put Emma Till's picture in the real gore
(09:21):
of his lynching on in its pages and forced people
to see, you know what racism and white supremacist violence
looks like.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
You name it, right.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
We have been the ones who have said, have called
democracy and called this constitutional republic to the carpet to
be what it says it is going to be or
playing or what it claims to be. So in this
era we really count on the press. We're supposed to
count on the press to be guardians of democracy. And
it's not to say to take aside and be partisan,
(09:51):
but to be honest. But we know the press has
failed at that over and over again. I mean in
the New York Times in the nineteen thirties was an
abomination of Hitler appeasement. You know, they treated Hitler like
a cultural story and an interesting and in some cases
story about is the design of his country house, you know, and.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
It's not a threat.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
And I think the American media written largest treated Trump
that way as not a threat, as an interesting story,
as somebody who gives access, as somebody fun to cover,
somebody's not boring like the Democrats, who's not ordinary, who's
a showman. And there's been an appeasement of him in
the press, but not the Black press. And the Black
press I think has been the most honest about Trump
from the bear beginning, because we we saw him for
(10:36):
what he was.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
But again, that.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Doesn't mean people are gonna listen, you know, and I like,
whether we're in the Black press or whether we're black
people in the mainstream press, we keep saying, hey, guys,
this guy has fascist tendencies because we know what those
look like more than anybody, because we've seen them in
our own communities and states where we live. It's unfortunate
that the media isn't fighting harder, that they're not collectively
(11:00):
fighting for the Associated press. You know, the administration is
literally defying a Supreme Court order and not letting the
Associated Press do a job. There's no collective media outcry
about that. You know. Amber Ruffin was supposed to address
the White House Correspondence dinner. She was cashiered out because
the leadership of that organization that's supposed to generate the
protect the press back down because they didn't want to
(11:21):
hurt Trump's feelings. And there's no guarantees even going to attend.
So the press is not winning, is not doing what
it could do. And so I think those of us
in the press, I think there are some great journalists
who are doing fantastic work. We just all have to
support them, support each other, and just keep doing it.
We's have to put our heads down and keep doing
it because if we don't speak up, we're just this
(11:44):
democracy won't survive.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yes, well, we're going to wrap up, But I do
want to ask one more question, and that is, if
we looked ten years into the future, what role do
you hope the black journalists or a journalist general are
playing in shaping and saving American democracy.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I hope ten years from now we still have access
to the public spaces in order to do journalism. If
I'm being honest, I hope that we still you know,
I hope that they haven't removed our access to things
like YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and to the public
forums where we can still do journalism. I hope and
(12:27):
pray We're not in a position like Hungary is where
the media is fully suppressed, or like my father's country
in the Congo, where there came a point where you
couldn't even do journalism.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
It was unless you left the country and did it
in exile.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Right, we are speeding back to an earlier era when
you had to be I to be welled and risk
your life to do journalism. And I hope we don't
get to the point where we're like Russia or like Hungary,
or like El Salvador, or like Argentina or like Venezuela,
all of which or China. You know, none of those countries,
(13:03):
In none of those countries can you freely do journalism.
And if Americans don't think we can beat Venezuela or
China or Russia or Hungary, they're kidding themselves. I think
Americans need to spend some time reading about foreign countries
and thinking about what it would be like to have
to live like people in Russia live, or like people
(13:26):
in the Congo, still a war torn country that's been
destroyed by colonialism live, because that's where we're going.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
To me the country.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
The two countries probably the most like us because they're
in our hemisphere right now are Venezuela and El Salvador,
and so maybe people might want to google those countries
because that's the way it's going. I don't see right now. Again,
I need we need a collective will to prevent that
and not pssivity.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I've been to Cuba and those people have given in,
you know, and.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
If we give in, we'll be them.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Joey, thank you so much for just being everything that
the culture needs. You are incredibly intelligent and unapologetic and real.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
And I know that this conversation is.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Going to it's going to feed some souls, but hopefully
not too much because they have to get the full
meal this month on the twenty fourth. But I am
wishing you nothing but continue success and peace as you
continue on this journey.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
I wish you the same, Amber, thank you so much.
Thanks again, Amber and Joy.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Journalism under Fire Guarding against Threats to our Democracy is
happening April twenty fourth at six pm at Howard University.
For more information, go to events dot Howard dot edu.
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