Lemon is surprisingly open about his opinions on certain points - such as when he will and will not use the N-word in his work. The show features conversations with celebrities and experts about the devastating and disproportionate impact of the virus on people of color.
It’s called The Color of COVID - there have been two episodes so far, with more expected in the future.
#Don lemon series
In April, he and political commentator Van Jones launched the first edition of a special series about the coronavirus and race. Lemon is an award-winning television journalist, and host of CNN Tonight with Don Lemon. It’s a notable shift from being accused of engaging in respectability politics to calling the President a racist on live air.Īnd by the way, the President called him “the dumbest man on television.” Over the past several years, we’ve watched Lemon’s trajectory from a semi-conservative broadcast journalist to an emotionally expressive, openly opinionated public figure. This is why I wanted to talk with journalist and CNN anchor Don Lemon. Where is the line between opinion and fact if you are a black journalist in America? In recent years, I have leaned into my role as a cultural critic and opinion writer, because it started to feel like the bosses in newsrooms where I was working were only ever going to see my ideas, observations and reporting as opinions anyway. And the facts, particularly in this era of “fake news,” are suddenly considered subjective. The concept of journalistic objectivity comes from a completely white male standard of values and normative truths. What I didn’t know until I started my career in media, was that what is called “the objective truth” was established without me or anyone else who looks like me in mind. I’m not a traditionally trained journalist - I didn’t go to journalism school, but I believe that being a journalist is about telling the objective truth and reporting the facts. I never anticipated that when I pitched stories pertaining to anything black, I would be accused of pushing an agenda, nor that this accusation would be a recurring theme that would surface well after I’d graduated from college. So when I got to college, and a professor encouraged me to consider writing for the school paper, it seemed like a natural evolution. From as far back as I can remember, it has always felt imperative to use language as a tool to broaden the scope of the world around me.Īll throughout my childhood and in high school, I wrote short stories and plays, essays and research papers. I didn’t set out to become a journalist, I only knew that I wanted to write as a way to understand the truth and meaning of things. But still, no brown-skinned faces, or stories about black people like me. It was a dispatch from New York City, where I dreamt of moving one day. Later, when my parents began to get the hefty Sunday edition of New York Times, I became obsessed with the Style section, the Magazine and Book Review, and William Safire’s column, On Language - I loved the nuance and mash-up of fashion, culture, art and books.
I was raised on Frog and Toad, Amelia Bedelia, and Beatrix Potter, and while I loved these stories, I never saw myself reflected in their pages. I wanted to tell and read stories that included me, along with other people who looked like me. When I was little, I was determined to write myself into existence. I’m Rebecca Carroll and this is Come Through: 15 essential conversations about race in a pivotal year for America.
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