Al Sharpton’s Broadcasting Career Is at Odds with Being Civil Rights Leader
June 30, 2015
The Reverend Al Sharpton’s performance as a broadcast journalist has been criticized on a number grounds. His mispronunciations of his guests’ names are so legend that they have been parodied by Saturday Night Live. Similarly, his broadcast skills do not include the ability to read scripts or to make smooth transition from one guest or segment to another. Unlike most Democrats, he has not been able to find any action by President Obama worthy of criticism.
Other criticisms directed at Reverend Sharpton seem to be more annoyances about his defective performance skills. For example, Reverend Sharpton seems intent upon proving that he can project his voice, which sounds like a straining winch, to such a degree that MSNBC’s microphones are not needed. Moreover, some criticisms are true, but seem to be a requirement for MSNBC anchors. For example, Reverend Sharpton evinces nothing short of reverence for the accuracy and driving force of polls. The Reverend seemed totally befuddled when 90 percent of the public indicated that they favored background checks and the Congress failed to act. As other MSNBC anchors do, Reverend Sharpton is reluctant to let guests talk as long as his voice is in working order. Although the reverend silences his guest in a different way; he asks such elongated questions that his guests, not to mention the audience, are not able to follow the question.
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Background
A description of the leadership styles of most of the key African American leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries. Marable’s Malcolm X details the leader omitted from Black Leadership.
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Reverend Sharpton evinces nothing short of reverence for the accuracy and driving force of polls
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More important than the impact of Reverend Sharpton’s skills and background on his broadcast performance, however, is the impact of his broadcast career on his civil rights leadership. Previous African American civil rights leaders have been full-throated advocates in support of issues that matter to the African American community. They have spared no word or effort to denounce those who have argued against those issues.
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Malcolm X was not fair and balanced in his advocacy of economic self-reliance for African Americans and Martin Luther King did not preach compromise when advocating for social and voting rights. Moreover, previous leaders were able to identify points at which to apply leverage to achieve their objectives. Malcolm X, for example, recognized the importance of adversarial engagement with the liberal intellectual community as a way of legitimating and growing the Black Muslim movement. Similarly, Martin Luther King demonstrated the contradiction between the values set forth in the Constitution and the behaviors instigated by nonviolent appeals to those values.
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Previous leaders were able to identify points at which to apply leverage to achieve their objectives.
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While Reverend Sharpton has advocated for some issues of the issues of importance to the African American community, as a broadcaster he seems constrained in the points to which he can apply leverage. Reverend Sharpton has called for an increase in the minimum wage, educational programs, strengthening safety net program, and reducing social inequality. He has not called for sorts of programs that most social critics believe are necessary to achieving those objectives. Restructuring the banking and regulatory framework; weakening media consolidation; and reforming the individual and corporate tax structure are topics that the mainstream media has been reluctant to touch and, of course, so has Reverend Sharpton, the broadcaster. Reverend Sharpton, the civil rights leader is thus, constrained from leveraging the full force of these issues to achieve his objectives. Maybe Reverend Sharpton is attempting to change the template for a civil rights leader. If so, he will have to do more to convince his critics that this new template of fierce civil rights advocate by day and fair and balanced broadcaster by evening. Until then, the facts indicate that one cannot be a broadcast journalist and a civil rights leader.
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The facts indicate that one cannot be a broadcast journalist and a civil rights leader.