{"id":529339,"date":"2021-05-20T11:35:53","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T15:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=529339"},"modified":"2021-05-20T11:35:53","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T15:35:53","slug":"lori-lightfoot-defends-giving-interviews-only-to-black-and-brown-journalists-calls-press-overwhelmingly-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lori-lightfoot-defends-giving-interviews-only-to-black-and-brown-journalists-calls-press-overwhelmingly-white\/","title":{"rendered":"Lori Lightfoot Defends Giving Interviews Only To \u2018Black And Brown\u2019 Journalists, Calls Press \u2018Overwhelmingly White\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flori-lightfoot-defends-giving-interviews-only-to-black-and-brown-journalists-calls-press-overwhelmingly-white%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=529339&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1134501042-scaled-e1621425561292.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot doubled down on her policy granting interviews only to \u201cblack and brown\u201d journalists overnight on Thursday, calling the Chicago press corps \u201coverwhelmingly white\u201d in a Twitter thread and in a letter addressed to Chicago\u2019s media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn a two-page letter to the media, Lightfoot, the first Black woman as well as the first openly gay mayor in Chicago\u2019s history, praised her own 2019 election for \u2018breaking barriers\u2019 and took a shot at media organizations in the city for not adequately addressing \u2018institutionalized racism\u2019 in their ranks. Her decision to temporarily speak only to Black and Brown reporters, she said, was part of her lifelong battle to fight for diversity and inclusion,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/lightfoot-slams-overwhelming-whiteness-of-chicago-press-defends-speaking-only-to-reporters-of-color\">Fox News reported late Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"3.8918918918919\">\n<p lang=\"und\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/duIQbTGccS\">pic.twitter.com\/duIQbTGccS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tahman Bradley (@tahmanbradley) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tahmanbradley\/status\/1395030890888187906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 19, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In her letter, she accused Chicago media outlets of embracing \u201coverwhelming whiteness and maleness,\u201d claiming it is the mayor\u2019s job to address the lack of diversity by filtering those who get direct access to the mayor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn looking at the absence of diversity across the City Hall press corps and other newsrooms, sadly it does not appear that many of the media institutions in Chicago have caught on and truly have not embraced this moment,\u201d Lightfoot wrote. \u201cI have been struck since my first day on the campaign trail back in 2018 by the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of Chicago media outlets, editorial boards, the political press corps, and yes, the City Hall press corps specifically.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I as the black woman mayor, the first-ever, don\u2019t challenge us, the collective us, to do better, to really make sure that in every institution it reflects the diversity, nuance, and texture, then shame on me,\u201d Lightfoot continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis isn\u2019t my job. It shouldn\u2019t be,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI don\u2019t have time for it. But as with so many festering problems, it has only gotten worse with time. So here I am, like so many other Black women before me, having to call your attention to this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lightfoot went further, taking to Twitter early Thursday morning to defend her policy in a series of posts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI ran to break up the status quo that was failing so many,\u201d Lightfoot tweeted. \u201cThat isn\u2019t just in City Hall. It\u2019s a shame that in 2021, the City Hall press corps is overwhelmingly White in a city where more than half of the city identifies as Black, Latino, AAPI, or Native American.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDiversity and inclusion is imperative across all institutions including media. In order to progress we must change,\u201d she continued. \u201cThis is exactly why I\u2019m being intentional about prioritizing media requests from POC reporters on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of my inauguration as mayor of this great city.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Critics blasted Lightfoot\u2019s decision from all sides Wednesday. Beyond the journalists who noted that they were shut out by the policy limiting interviews, Lightfoot faced criticism from a Latino news organization, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/latino-reporter-lori-lightfoot-interview-refusal-moratorium-skin-color\">which refused to interview the mayor<\/a> after she refused to lift the moratorium on white journalists, per Fox News.<\/p>\n<p>She also faced blowback on Twitter, where racial justice advocates suggested that Lightfoot was likely using the policy to distract from her inability to handle questions of violence. \u201cLori Lightfoot presided over an enormous increase in homicides, almost all of them in African American or Latino communities, and she\u2019s hoping these PR stunts get liberal America to give her a pass for failing to save people\u2019s lives,\u201d journalist Zaid Jilani pointed out.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, on the same day that the mayor\u2019s office announced the policy favoring \u201cblack and brown\u201d reporters, Lightfoot aides announced that \u201ca compromise plan to make past police disciplinary records available to the public,\u201d essentially turning down a request from Chicago\u2019s racial justice activists to expand police transparency.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i>member<\/i><\/a><i>.&nbsp;<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot doubled down on her policy granting interviews only to \u201cblack and brown\u201d journalists overnight on Thursday, calling the Chicago press corps \u201coverwhelmingly white\u201d in a Twitter &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2312462,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1134501042-scaled-e1621425561292.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Lori Lightfoot Defends Giving Interviews Only To \u2018Black And Brown\u2019 Journalists, Calls Press \u2018Overwhelmingly White\u2019","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1134501042-scaled-e1621425561292.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Lori Lightfoot Defends Giving Interviews Only To \u2018Black And Brown\u2019 Journalists, Calls Press \u2018Overwhelmingly White\u2019","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}