MSNBC Adds Al Sharpton to Promos for Ed Schultz-Hosted Special ‘The Black Agenda’

MSNBC has taken some rather pointed criticism over its upcoming A Stronger America: The Black Agenda special (airing this Sunday at noon EDT), co-hosted by Ed Schultz and Rev. Al Sharpton. The chief complaint, from across the political spectrum, has been the choice of white commentator Ed Schultz as headliner, and how it highlights the lack of diversity at the network. MSNBC had been promoting the show without billing co-host Al Sharpton, but MSNBC has now added Sharpton to the promo’s graphic, if not the accompanying voiceover.

Here are the two versions of the promo for A Stronger America: The Black Agenda, the first without Sharpton, the second with:

To be clear, the event was always to include Sharpton, as it takes place at the conclusion of his National Action Network summit, but he was only recently billed as a co-host, and more recently, added to the promos.

As Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times points out, last year’s version of the special was co-hosted by Tamron Hall, while this year, Schultz is going it alone, pointing up a lack of diversity at MSNBC that hasn’t gone unnoticed, especially by those who would like nothing more than to embarrass the network. Deggans also identifies another problem with the special:

Is it the use of a dated term like “black agenda,” which sounds oddly pejorative? Regardless of who came up with it — MSNBC or Sharpton’s group — it feels like the kind of term anti-civil rights people used to describe work towards social justice decades ago.

Even so, I was, and still am, looking forward to the special, and while Deggans, et al, certainly have a point (one which occurred to me the first time I saw one of these promos), that is not to say that Ed Schultz is necessarily ill-equipped to host a panel about black issues. Since MSNBC’s audience is primarily white, someone with Schultz’s point of view can act as a bridge between them and the panel. I do wonder if Schultz might be a bit too far into the President’s camp to be an effective moderator.

An undertold story of this presidency is the fact that, despite being the first black president, Barack Obama has made a studious effort to be everyone’s president, and has left many black voters and leaders feeling abandoned. In my two years covering this White House, I haven’t seen anyone go as hard at this administration than AURN’s April Ryan, who routinely braces the President’s spokesmen on black issues.

To be sure, the election of Barack Obama was a sign of the progress our country has made on racial issues. But the fact that MSNBC (or any number of media outlets, for that matter) would seem to have so much trouble coming up with a black personality to host the show is an indication that not enough progress has been made.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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