Episode 6 | MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross: The Cross Connection August 08, 2021
GUEST: Tiffany Cross, Host, MSNBC's "The Cross Connection" and Author, Say It Louder: Black Voters, White Narratives, and Saving Our Democracy
What happens when you have a diverse newsroom? All stories are told. MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross, who had to fight her way into the newsroom from tough beginnings, joins us to talk about broadening the narrative and creating a more informed and politically aware public. She brings a unique perspective to this discussion having spent her career at the crossroads of media, politics, and policy. In her book, she further explores the political landscape by delving into the role African Americans have played in shaping democracy and the political forces that work to suppress their votes.
GUEST BIO:
Tiffany Cross is a journalist, media and political analyst and author. She recently served as a Resident Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. She has spent the past two decades honing her narrative skills in newsrooms, as well as on the campaign trail where she has worked with local, state, and federal candidates. She began her journalism career at CNN, before moving on to BET News where she covered Capitol Hill and produced political specials. She also is co-founder of The Beat DC, a multimedia platform where national politics, policy, business, media, and all people of color meet.
LINKS:
Say It Louder: Black Voters, White Narratives, and Saving Our Democracy
Full Transcript
BRAD PHILLIPS, HOST, THE SPEAK GOOD PODCAST:
On Saturday, July 17, 1999, tens of millions of Americans were glued to their television sets. Late the night before, a small plane carrying three passengers had crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. These weren’t any three passengers, of course. The plane’s pilot was John F. Kennedy Jr. His passengers were his wife and sister-in-law.
I was working at ABC News’ Nightline with Ted Koppel at the time, and we worked an unusual weekend shift to contribute to the network’s breaking news programming. Sometime that evening, I was walking down the third-floor hallway at the ABC News bureau in Washington, when I casually mentioned to a colleague that for me, JFK Jr.’s death was like if Madonna had died or Prince had died – Prince, by the way, was very much alive at that point. What I meant was that I knew JFK Jr. only as a pop culture figure – and that like other pop culture figures, I knew his death was newsworthy, but questioned whether it really warranted an entire network news bureau going into overdrive to air days’ worth of wall-to-wall coverage.
Rounding the corner at that very moment was another ABC News colleague – the bushy eyebrowed and Stentorian-voiced news anchor Sam Donaldson. He had overheard my comment, stopped dead in his tracks, and bellowed in his Sam voice, “LIKE PRINCE?” Then, with dramatic flair, he beckoned me to follow him to his office.
Now, I had never spoken with Sam before, with the exception of a passing hello in the hallway or restroom. But he proceeded to lecture me for the next half hour – in a friendly way – and dispensed wisdom that I’ve never forgotten.
One night in December 1980, he told me, he was guest anchoring ABC’s evening news program, World News Tonight. John Lennon had been murdered the night before – and, as a 40-something man who wasn’t exactly the coolest guy in the room – he didn’t perceive John Lennon’s death as being big enough to lead the newscast. “It’s not an A-Block story,” he told his younger producers, meaning that they’d get to the Lennon story, but only after the first set of commercials.
His young producers pushed back. They told him he was wrong. That it was a huge story. That of course John Lennon’s death should be the lead story – and that it wasn’t even a close call. To his credit, Sam relented. He moved the story to the lead. And, he told me, that he remembered in that moment just how important it was to have diversity in the newsroom.
His younger colleagues saw what he had missed, just as I had missed the cultural significance of John F. Kennedy Jr. for older generations. To me, he was just a pop culture icon whose great looks made him a favorite of celebrity magazines. To Sam, and others of his generation, he was John-John – a boy who, on his third birthday in November 1963, offered a heartbreaking salute at his father’s funeral, a gesture that was instantly imprinted on the brains of millions of viewers around the world and became an unforgettable image during a moment of national mourning.
You know, the word “bias” gets tossed around a lot. That term is usually meant in an ideological context – that the conservative news channel told a “biased” story that didn’t fairly represent the progressive viewpoint, or that a centrist news organization aired a distorted piece that entirely failed to mention a key reason for right-wing dissent. And, of course, ideological bias exists.
But there’s a different type of bias that’s important to acknowledge. And Saturday Night Live memorably captured it on the Saturday after Donald Trump won the presidency in November 2016. The sketch featured Dave Chapelle and Chris Rock watching the election results come in with four left-leaning friends, all of them white. As state after state went for Trump, those four white friends became increasingly shocked, almost unable to comprehend the red-heavy map appearing on their television screen.
(SNL SOUND BITE, Nov. 12, 2016)
Beck Bennett: “You never know, guys. Alaska is still out there.”
Announcer: “We’re now calling Alaska for Donald Trump.”
Cecily Strong: “Oh my God. I think America is racist.”
Dave Chapelle: “Oh my God. You know I remember my great grandfather told me something like that. He was like a slave or something.”
Aidy Bryant: “I just, I can’t believe it.”
They were horrified – Can you believe this country won’t elect a woman president, they said – while Chapelle and Rock stood back, nodding and laughing knowingly, because they were under no illusions about whether or not Donald Trump could be elected president.
So, sometimes, “bias” isn’t intentional at all. It’s the young producer who sees a man with model looks, not a national symbol. It’s the middle-aged anchor who misses the significance of a rock star. It’s the well-intentioned white woman who hasn’t experienced racist hate. It’s the black man who has.
When you have all those people in newsrooms – a mix of people who better represent their communities – they will inevitably make different choices about which stories they cover, and how they cover them. When you don’t, a different kind of bias – story selection bias – will take hold. It’s a bias toward stories that are familiar to us, centered within our own experiences and backgrounds, and a bias against stories that we personally haven’t experienced and don’t understand.
So, diversity in newsrooms isn’t about “quotas” or being “politically correct” or “woke.” It’s about selecting stories that would otherwise be missed, and making sure they’re told accurately.
My guest today, who once aspired to become the “brown Murphy Brown,” knows all about that. Tiffany Cross is the host of MSNBC’s “The Cross Connection,” which airs Saturdays from 10AM – Noon. She’s also a resident fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, and the author of Say It Louder: Black Voters, White Narratives, and Saving Our Democracy.
(MUSIC PLAYS)
TIFFANY CROSS:
You look the same, Brad. You’ve not aged.
PHILLIPS:
Do I really?
CROSS:
Totally, totally. Well, except the glasses.
PHILLIPS:
Well, I have them. But, you know, what’s happened now is I have my list of questions and I can’t even see them with my glasses on now. That’s how bad things have gotten.
CROSS:
Oh, wow! Time gets us all.
PHILLIPS:
Tiffany, it is so good to have you here.
CROSS:
Thank you so much for having me, Brad. It’s been, it’s been forever. I think it’s been two decades since we’ve connected. I’m thrilled and honored.
PHILLIPS:
Isn’t that crazy.
CROSS:
Yep.
PHILLIPS:
My starting point, my memory of us working together, and it was only for a few months, but I think the two of us were in one little kind of tube together. It was a two-person office that we were both, I think working for the Capitol Gang at that point, which was what I call the screaming Roundtable pundit show.
CROSS:
(LAUGHS)
PHILLIPS:
And you were pretty new at that point to CNN’s DC bureau. And my memory of you is that you were really shy. That would have been the word I would have used to describe you back then. And then I read your book and I learned more about your background that I had never known until I read your book. And suddenly I realized, oh, it may not have been shyness that I was seeing.
CROSS:
Yeah, that’s true.
PHILLIPS:
So, I’m wondering if you could just talk about who you were back then and, and maybe what you were going through as somebody new to the unit and as a young African American woman, there weren’t many other people who looked like you in our corner of the newsroom.
CROSS:
Totally, and I don’t think you’re completely wrong. I was a little shy and unsure of myself, because not only was I knew, so our unit and the, um, bureau, I was also new to the field. You know, this was my entree into news. I had come from the CNN bureau in Atlanta. Prior to that, I was in radio as like a field reporter. And so ,I was really eager and excited to be there and to learn. And I remember, Brad, you and I spent several times in an edit day with you showing me how to cut a package. I was a sponge I wanted to learn from everybody. And we worked with somebody, Tansy Soltysiak, and I remember you had showed her how to cut packages. And when you were showing me, you were saying how great Tansy is. And you were like giving me tips on what she does and what you do. And I just remember, like everything you said. I was taking it in like, oh, how can I be this? How can I, you know, be as great? And I remember wanting you to feel like, oh, Tiffany is great at cutting packages (LAUGHS). So, I was shy, but I was also very eager to please and eager to learn. And I really wanted my colleagues to be impressed by me, but I was very unsure of myself. It was a new landscape. I wasn’t used to reading five or six papers in the morning. In the Atlanta bureau, I was like the shining star. There, I was like a screw-up sometimes, you know?
PHILLIPS:
(LAUGHS)
CROSS:
So, it was a combination of not really being sure of myself, but also not really knowing what I was doing because I was learning. And then just feeling blatantly unwelcome in a lot of spaces.
PHILLIPS:
Can you talk about that, that feeling unwelcome? Because I know in your book you were very open about your own background. You mentioned that your parents were both addicts, your father passed away from alcoholism when you were just 11. You did not have an easy path to a newsroom. And I know in your book, you also pointed out that even some of the other people who were around you, your colleagues seem to have the right fashion sense and dress the right way and have the right hair and all of that. So, I mean, I think there’s a lot of reasons, probably you felt like a fish out of water.
CROSS:
It was very strange because this wasn’t my family background. I was working with people who were the sons and daughters of like ambassadors or people who were friends with Senator so-and-so and that just wasn’t me. They also had parents who could subsidize their rent. They could live downtown and get back and forth with no problem. I didn’t have that. And I remember that was the first time somebody would ask, “Who are your shoes?” Like I had never heard such phrases before. And they would talk about shopping trips and parties and their cute Capitol hill apartments. All of that was so foreign to me. My trajectory in life was obviously handicapped by institutional racism and that had a rippling effect through time. My parents didn’t have those opportunities. My grandparents didn’t have those opportunities. So, it was really strange to be around peers and people my age. You remember that Bob Novak and Al Hunt — we would have these dinners, these black-tie dinners and we’d get invited. And I would have a panic attack every time because I had no idea how I was going to get an evening gown, you know, to wear to these dinners. It was just a very strange place, but it was a place I so wanted to be. But even understanding news, I think we had the benefit of being around people who kind of grew up understanding global news, understanding domestic policy, and having these kinds of discussions. And again, that just wasn’t my experience. So, I was coming at it from a different perspective, a more novice approach. And I had a lot of catching up to do to be quite honest.
And that’s not to say that my colleagues didn’t make mistakes, but I felt like they had more support, more of a welcome mat. People saw themselves in them. So it was like, yeah, I want to help you. And I didn’t really have that. I didn’t have that godfather role in the newsroom. It was just figure it out, Tiffany, and stop being a screw up, you know? And I was really hard on myself and other people were hard on me, but nobody was as hard on me as I was.
PHILLIPS:
Well, your determination is incredible, because when I read what you would do when you were facing transportation challenges – I think you’re right, as you looked around the newsroom, I don’t think people were stressed out if they got an early morning shift because public transit wasn’t running yet. But you tell a story about having to rely on a neighbor and crashing into
edit bays.
CROSS:
So that was in Atlanta. The trains just didn’t start running early enough. I would have to get there at midnight, and I would just find a quiet edit bay. And, you know, the Atlanta bureau was 24 hours. So, people were always there, and I would find a quiet edit bay in a dark corner and just sleep there and then get up at 5 a.m. and work my shift. When it came time to DC, I was still in the same situation. I think I was making $26,000 at that point. Every penny counted, Brad, every single penny. And so having to take a cab to work for $17 was a huge expense for me. And I didn’t have the option to sleep in an edit bay at that time. It was intimidating, because again, I worked with people, like you said, that just wasn’t an obstacle for them. And I didn’t have support. Nobody was subsidizing my rent. I was responsible for me. I was solely responsible for my expenses. So yeah, it was really, really challenging. And I write in the book about trying to figure out ways to do that and talking to my supervisor at the time, who was also your supervisor at the time. And I wasn’t very well received. But, honestly, at this point in my career, I look back and I say, well, you know, it really is the employee’s responsibility to figure out your transportation to and from work. I completely get that. But the fact that I even brought it up, and the way the response I got. It wasn’t like, “Oh, completely understandable, Tiffany.” It was like, “How dare you bring us your inconvenience of getting to work (LAUGHS). Figure it out. And we’ll see you here at 6 a.m. for Late Edition. So, it was a challenge, but one that was surmountable, thankfully,
PHILLIPS:
And I have to say, I’ve been thinking about you for the past couple of weeks, as I’ve been reading your book and preparing to talk to you. And I think I have two feelings. One is I was really happy a few minutes ago when you brought up me helping you in the edit bay and helping you cut soundbites, because my memory of that time is very hazy. And what I was thinking about is I wish I had had the presence 20 years ago to say, “Hey, Tiffany, how are you?” And recognizing that maybe you didn’t feel like you were totally included. Or I would like to think that if I was aware of your transportation challenges, I would have said, “Hey, I could grab you on the way in.” And, that is not as a savior complex, but just as a human helping another human and that’s all past tense. I can’t do anything about that. I wish I had known or been able to help you. But I do know that there are dozens or hundreds or thousands of other young Tiffanys out there now. People who are facing the same things you did 20 years ago. And I think about that term allyship a lot. And it’s very easy to say you’re an ally, it’s a lot harder to do the work. And so, I’m wondering, do you have any thoughts about how people like me who want to do the work and want to be helpful, authentic, sincere allies can do it and help the Tiffanys out there like you were 20 years ago.
CROSS:
Well, I’ll first say, Brad, the best thing that you did – and I think anybody can do – is to teach somebody. I mean, you, I didn’t ask you, I wanted to, there were plenty of things that I wanted to ask you all the time, but you would just grab me and say, “Hey, I’m coming to do this. Or these are the sound bites you need to cut. I’ll cut them with you the first few times you can get it. Conversations you would have with me, I would get lost in them. I just didn’t understand because I was still .. you know when you are living and working in DC, there are certain things you are just going to know by osmosis. You know, there are certain like jokes and humor that’s very centric to Beltway life, particularly political coverage about Beltway life. And you would have these jokes with me, and I would laugh. But sometimes I wanted to say … I remember very specifically, you were talking to Bob Novak one time and I don’t remember what the issue was, but I remember you saying, “ Oh, that’s such a demagoguery.” And I remember I wanted to ask you, what do you mean by that? And then there was another story where you and Bob, the whole team was talking and there was like that rumor that there was a secret government – Tom Daschle (Democratic U.S. senator from South Dakota) was a part of it. He was aware …
PHILLIPS:
The shadow cabinet …
CROSS:
Yes, it was like the whole, if this happens, these are the people who are going to be in charge and you guys were all like, obviously they knew about them. Like there’s no way they didn’t know, because Tom Daschle was trying to pretend he didn’t know. And I remember thinking, but why is that? Like, how was that obvious to you guys. I don’t get it. There were times where I was as intimidated to ask a question, but the mechanics of the newsroom and navigating the newsroom, I don’t think you were intentional about helping me. I think you were intentional about, we need to spread this work and we need to put on a good show, but just in the process of doing that, you did help me. I mean, you taught me things, that I still, I mean, there are probably specific stories I could tell you that you don’t even remember, but I just, I remember being a sponge around you, everything, you said, everything you did. Because you and I worked the closest together because you were in AP (associate producer) at the time. I think that, outside of intentional allyship, I think that was just a huge help to me. Had I been more sure of myself … at that time it seemed like everyone around me was so sure of their self. But, looking back, I think we were all trying to figure it out. (LAUGHS) Right? But at the time I’m like everyone else had it figured it out but me. I would never have thought to say to you, “Hey, I don’t know how I’m going to get to work tomorrow.” And when I did build up the courage to say that to somebody and you know, I got my head bit off. I just, I would shrink. I would shrink with shame and embarrassment and humiliation and somehow felt like this news landscape is not for me.
I write about when Tracey Webb joined the team and it wasn’t, she didn’t make me feel like charity. She was just like, “Hey, I have to be in early on Sunday. You want to ride in with me? The relief that gave me. The opportunity it gave me. I think in terms of being an ally, just what you said, just asking. No, really. How are you, how are you adjusting outside of professionally, personally? Are you feeling welcome? On my team, if I notice someone’s quiet or someone’s not contributing, I asked publicly, I ask privately, “Hey, you look like you’re going to say something in the meeting. If you feel more comfortable, you can call me after. I’m intentional about that. And I think all of us in newsrooms should be more intentional about that for sure.
PHILLIPS:
Well, I’m really happy to hear your recollection of that time and that I was a decent human being.
CROSS:
You were! I can’t believe that you remember. You were great, honestly.
PHILLIPS:
Well, I will say this and, and that whatever mask I had on at that time that gave you the impression that I had it altogether was not a real, the mask must have been working better than I knew because I was not nearly as together as I’m sure that I gave you the impression that I was.
CROSS:
You seemed like it.
PHILLIPS:
Well, thank you. I want to ask you about the importance of diversity in the newsroom. I touched on this in the opening monologue and there was a story you told in the book about Bob Novak and Al Hunt and Mark Shields, and whoever else was there, the host of that time of that show, the Capitol Gang. And they were chortling over Bill Clinton being inducted into what was it, the Arkansas Hall of Fame?.
CROSS:
Yes, yes (LAUGHING).
PHILLIPS:
I’ll let you tell the story, but he was being co-inducted with somebody else.
CROSS:
Yeah. We … you know what, Brad, I think you may have gone at this point. It could have been the other Brad, because after you left, a younger guy (named) Brad came in and took your place. Because, I remember we used to joke and say, you know, everybody who works in this position has to be named Brad.
PHILLIPS:
(LAUGHS)
CROSS:
So, we were cutting tape and having our team meeting as we would. And Al Hunt was laughing. Everybody was laughing that Bill Clinton was being inducted into the Arkansas African American Hall of Fame, or maybe it was Black Hall of Fame. I can’t remember what it was called. But I laughed too. But I think we were all laughing, perhaps, for different reasons. And Al Hunt says, “Wait, this is not even the best part. You guys, guess who he’s being inducted with? I’ll give you a hundred dollars if anybody can name a song by this singer. What’s his name? Al Green. And I remember thinking, oh my God, these people are talking about Al Green as though nobody would know him. As though nobody would be familiar with this man who was a legend, a legend.
PHILLIPS:
You know, what’s so funny about that, too, is Barack Obama during his presidency stood up in front of a group of people and sang the opening notes of Let’s Stay Together.
CROSS:
Exactly.
PHILLIPS:
And so, it just, that just seems so full circle. And you know, obviously, at that point a 60- something, 50-, 60-something white man, not knowing Al Green is not the worst crime in the world. But I do think it’s indicative of a lot of other things that they don’t know. And this is probably a good pivot to your book, which, again, is called, Say It Louder: Black Voters, White Narratives, and Saving Our Democracy, that you wrote: “When it comes to our politics, white media gatekeepers are bleaching the black American experience and killing democracy at the same damn time.” Let’s start with that. And let me ask you what you mean by that.
CROSS:
Well, um, I think the story I told is a great example, because if you’re laughing at Al Green being an unknown name, what else are you not covering? What else are you not speaking about? And so granted, this was, you know, an opinion show and punditry. However, it wasn’t uncommon. I mean, when you looked around on the eighth floor, because we were on the seventh floor, when you looked around where the assignment desk was not too many people looked like me and the stories that were happening just at that time were not very reflective. And I think a great example is Rudy Giuliani. After 9/11, he was quote, unquote America’s mayor. Well, that title was given to him by white media gatekeepers. And his entire history he had just become sanitized. It was like, this is the most amazing person. So even now, when you have these segments, What happened to America’s mayor? What happened to Rudy Giuliani? And the response is, of course, nothing happened to Rudy Giuliani. He was always a terrible person. He was Donald Trump before he became Donald Trump. But when you had white media narratives, painting him as this big patriot, he gave us stop and frisk. He’s the one who started a race war in New York on the backs of law enforcement. So that’s just one example of how you can be somebody of color and never see your lived experience normalized. Never see your life, reflected back to you. There was also the quote, unquote war on drugs, um, and how we got these terms. That didn’t mean anything. They weren’t based in data or science. How got the term crack baby. And what that meant and how that led black children in public schools all across the country. Something that was born in a newsroom based in nothing but conjecture, led to the school to prison pipeline, led to black boys and girls getting fed into remedial classes and courses because they were presumed to be these crack babies who wouldn’t learn as well. There are many examples throughout history that are not specific just to the Black experience. I mean, you look at the AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) community, the fastest growing demographic in this country, and how little history has been taught and there is not a lot of representation across the media landscape. In 2020, Latino voters, for the first time, eclipsed Black voters, not in terms of registered voters, but in terms of eligible voters. But how much reflection is there. And when we talk about voting, which I write about in the book, there’s the soccer mom and the NASCAR dad. But, when it comes to our vote, we’re just limited to our ethnicity. You know, the Black vote, the Latino vote, when, really, we aggregate in those same ways. And I think we deserve those little colloquial names and stories to be attached to our experience in this country. But look, I will say, I think newsrooms are battling it out. Like, they are trying to figure it out. I think it’s up to those of us to press the gas and keep pushing and say, yeah, this is long overdue, so let’s play catch up, but let’s hurry up and get it done and have, you know, that kind of representation on and off camera, in front and behind the camera. And I just want to give a quick shout out. I’m not being a kiss here, Brad, but this is something that means a lot to me. Cesar Conde (Chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group) has committed to 50 percent diversity in front of the camera and behind the camera, which I think just will make a major difference in the trajectory of newsrooms at the demographics of the country change.
PHILLIPS:
Absolutely. I talk about in the open to the show that when people think about issues like media bias, they’re often thinking in terms of ideological bias. But I think just as often it’s story selection bias, which is driving the decisions that happen in newsrooms. And, you know, a moment ago, you brought up how you deconstruct language, or you analyze language like crack babies, how did that term get used? And soccer moms, and what does that mean? One of the other terms you brought up in your book, which I thought was really smart, was when they talk about voters in the Heartland. And I just want to read you this passage or not, you, you wrote it, but I would read our audience of the passage and have you talk about it. You wrote: “There are endless segments of campaign reporters visiting countless diners in the Heartland where few if any black people eat. Somehow these voters are supposed to represent what Americans are really thinking. I’ve never seen these reporters visit a Wingstop in East Cleveland, Ohio, or Golden Corral in Montgomery, Alabama, after a black Baptist church service. Are these not American voters in the Heartland?” So why do you think reporters aren’t visiting that Wingstop? Is it out of ignorance that they exist? Is it their personal experience wasn’t to go to those? What’s driving those editorial decisions?
CROSS:
I think everything you just said. So, one, I will say it is ignorance that those voters don’t exist, for sure. When you look at the diversity of political reporters who are these campaign embeds and out on the trail, what do they look like? But then there’s also just the structure, the power structure of newsrooms, where people still, I think, operate out of fear. Let’s say you’re a person of color and you’re part of the campaign embed. Your role sometimes, I think people view it as to maintain the status quo. And I’ve seen countless segments like these. So let me do the same segment and do it better instead of disrupting that system and say, you know what, let me not go to the diner. Let me go to that Wingstop and on this side of town, or let me go to this Golden Corral after a black Baptist church has let out. You know, I think that people are hesitant to, to tell a different story sometimes, which is what we should be doing as journalists. Right? I think there’s this assumption that has been baked into the cake when we cover campaigns about who votes and who’s deciding elections. When they’re really pockets in this country where the black vote is the base vote. It is not a niche vote. There are pockets in Mississippi and Georgia, in Michigan, where this is the base vote. It’s not some niche vertical that people have to penetrate. And I think, again, as the demographics of the country change, people are figuring it out and doing it differently. And like I said, the power structure, because like it is verry easy to celebrate this cultural shift that we see happening in newsrooms. But I think when you really start to see a change in how we cover news, particularly politics, is when that cultural shift is accompanied by a power shift.
And when you have decision-makers, because you could easily have a room full of APs (associate producers), you know, and junior folks who are of color, but when you have a president of a network who’s a woman of color, or you have a share of a newsgroup, who’s a man of color, or you have the assignment desk populated by people of color, then I think you see the way that we cover things change. But, can I just say really quickly, Brad, also, I think newsrooms are not, you know, totally altruistic here. It’s not like, “Hey guys, we should do better.” There’s a business to it. And if we keep catering to an older, whiter demographic, I make this point, that we have to realize that that demo is not immortal. And so, what we saw that was really punctuated in 2016 is that people will find that content elsewhere. And that has a devastating impact on our democracy. If you’re not seeing your lived experience reflected anywhere, but in a Facebook post or an Instagram meme, that’s a problem. And if you decide that these people, these random people on YouTube have more credibility than the voices you see, and from trained broadcast journalists, that’s a problem. And newsrooms have to figure out a way to maintain that credibility, meet people where they are, and reassess, quite frankly,
PHILLIPS:
Absolutely. Now, one of the things you talked about in your book, probably more than anything else is voter suppression. And clearly this is one of the most important topics in our country today. It is classically speaking, not a quote, unquote sexy broadcast story. It’s not necessarily a visual and exciting story. There’s, I think, this disconnect between what’s important and what’s splashy on news programs. You cover this a lot on your show, and I’m wondering how you think about making that topic, how do I say this, maybe you can prove the lie a little bit, that this topic isn’t sexy and how you think about going about doing that.
CROSS:
Yeah, it’s interesting because I write about how voter suppression used to just be baked in the cake. People just assumed that it was a part of the process, and it wasn’t even a topic that was covered. Something that frustrates me recently is we keep saying that all of these voter suppression tactics are in response to quote, unquote the big lie. And my pushback is that is actually a big lie …
PHILLIPS:
Right.
CROSS:
… because voter suppression has been something that the Black community, in particular, has battled for a century. Even before Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was devastated, there was always voter suppression and it looked in forms of like, you know, closing polling places, purging voters from the rolls. Voting in certain areas is a lot easier than it is in communities of color. And so, you know, I think because it impacts so many people, my town’s now every week we want to do a voter suppression story. And there’s a plethora of examples, from Arizona to Georgia, to 41 states where nearly 400 bills have been introduced to suppress the vote. But I even think that we have to have those conversations in a different way. And if we can stop making it all about Donald Trump, because Donald Trump, like we’ve said many times, is the symptom, not the problem. [inaudible]
PHILLIPS:
That’s what I was trying to get to in my question that I asked very awkwardly that, it’s the infrastructure of the things like felons not being given the right to vote once they’ve served their time and are released. And some states being very aggressive with that. And, of course, proponents of that will say, look, this isn’t targeted at race. This is just about felons, but who are the people who have been convicted of felonies disproportionally? So, it’s this very insidious way of purging people from the roles. And to your point, it’s something that has received just a tiny amount of coverage on broadcast television, if any, at all.
CROSS:
Completely. But, I think it’s changed. It used to rarely get any coverage. Like I said, now it’s totally changed. But still, it’s getting coverage now, because, again, I think Trump is the provocative factor in all of this. How we have a deeper conversation? I’ll tell you, you know, being on the broadcast side, it’s challenging to have some of these deeper conversations in a five- minute segment. This is where I think, you know, broadcast and print journalists really are necessary components to each other because the print folks will do the deep dive and spend months unpacking something and broadcast journalists will bring it to an audience that doesn’t necessarily wake up reading the New York Times and the Washington Post every morning. But I do think it’s changing, Brad, because, it’s not, at this point, it’s not just, the Black community. This is something that’s impacting the rising majority of America. When you think about native Americans and how their voting rights are being narrowed. The path to the ballot box, I mean, just trying to keep it more narrow and wider and speaking about it in a very truthful and unapologetic way, I think changes the landscape. Just having the first, having the conversation, highlights the problem. And even that is, I think, we’re light years from where we were 20 years ago.
PHILLILPS:
When you’re hosting your show and, and, for our listeners, it’s The Cross Connection MSNBC Saturday mornings from 10 a.m. to noon, who is in your head that you’re trying to reach? I mean, if I were to ask you, who the specific person is that you’re talking to, when you’re looking into the camera. Who is that person?
CROSS:
(LAUGHS) I would say me, that sounds incredibly narcissistic, but ..
PHILLIPS:
No, that’s a great answer!, But, finish your thought.
CROSS:
I think about what my friends and I have discussed, and we can have an intense debate, Brad, an intense debate about who’s a better lyricist NAS or Jay Z. We can have an intense debate about fashion or the commercialization of hip hop. We can bring that same passion to our foreign policy in this country. And, what is the role of governments? If defunding the police is the proper mantra that we should be pushing. And so, for all the people who have a wide-reaching interest and have massive intellectual curiosity, but sometimes may feel a bit left out of Beltway speak driven by the chattering class, I try to give those folks a home. What you’re sitting around at brunch discussing with your girls, what you’re sitting around in the barbershop, what you’re discussing in your living rooms, I want people to feel like they can reach inside that television and touch me because I’m having a regular down-to-earth, digestible conversation, giving them the old news manager, right? What they want to know and what they need to know. So, yeah, I really do reflect a lot of the conversations I have with my friends who are raising children, raising young adults, navigating and returning to a workforce post-COVID, or, having all these opinions about the function and role of our government; and, people who felt quite frankly, that everybody would come close to saying the thing is a thing and then backing away from it. It really is important to me that I call a thing, a thing. Let’s not dance around the issue of white supremacy. Let’s talk about it. Let’s not pretend that … I remember when I first started doing television and I’d said Donald Trump is a bigot, and it was like pearl clutching. But then a year later, everybody was saying, it’s like, yeah.
PHILLIPS:
And I remember some journalists even pushing back on people who said that like shocked that somebody would be so audacious as to use that word, despite the fact that there were decades of evidence of him committing racial acts or saying racist things.
CROSS:
Exactly.
PHILLIPS:
But I want to ask, because I know you only have a few minutes left .. First of all, I will admit, I do not know nearly as much about rap and hip hop, as I wish I did. I don’t know a NAS and Jay Z, who’s the better lyricist, but I do want to say probably the segment you did recently that I was the most envious of was when you had Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on.
CROSS:
Ah, yes.
PHILLIPS:
Because, for listeners who aren’t aware of who these two gentlemen are, they are the producers who produced the big Janet Jackson hit albums of the early eighties and nineties, or the mid to late eighties and nineties – the big ones with all of the hits. And I have to say, I collect vinyl records and those Janet records are probably among the ones we go to the most.
CROSS:
I can’t believe you collect vinyl records. If you have a vinyl of Rhythm Nation, I’m coming to your house when I’m in New York.
PHILLIPS:
Not only Rhythm Nation. But I mean, of course, Control.
CROSS:
Oh my gosh.
PHILLIPS:
We have the self-named Janet, just the one word. We have the velvet rope. I mean, we have a discussion in our house about Michael, Jane, or Prince. So that’s much more in our lane of music. NAS and Jay Z, I’d have to admit, we would not have a very smart conversation.
CROSS:
Yeah. (LAUGHING). But even the Michael Jackson, Prince discussion. Again, I want to have those conversations on my show, as well. It’s interesting Brad, because a lot of these conversations, my assumption is they may resonate with communities of color. But when I talk to people, like when I’m walking down the street in DC, it’s younger people of all backgrounds. I think I forget the fact that I’m so busy trying to make people feel seen, I forget the fact that there are younger white people who have curiosity who watch my show and they are sponges. They’re saying, wow, I never knew this thing. Or you talk like my friends and I speak. Or, you talk about the things my friends and I are talking about. So, it is something interesting to me as we see this younger generation navigate a world where they’re surprised at history. And they’re saying, no, no, no, this is not going to happen on our watch. And I’m learning these things because I want to make this a better place. And I just think, man, what if newsrooms are doing that all along? I love being a part of that now, because I really think what we do informs the kind of society we live in. So, I take that responsibility very, very seriously. And I’m blessed and honored and thrilled to have this platform to be able to do that.
PHILLIPS:
Well, that’s clear from the work that you do, both on the air and in your book. And I will just say, as somebody who has observed your career from a distance for the past couple of decades, in your book you say that one of your aspirations was to become “the brown Murphy Brown” and you’ve achieved that. And it’s so great to see, thank you for coming on and talking to us and continued success.
CROSS:
Thank you so much, Brad. And seriously, I cannot wait to see you in person. I want to hug you because I haven’t seen people since COVID, but I also just want to have a catch up with you and catch up on 20 years.
PHILLIPS:
Well, likewise, you have an invitation to our home. We’ll put on that vinyl record of some Janet, and we will talk as we listen to some great tracks.
CROSS:
I love it. Thank you.
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