Don Lemon Criticizes Megyn Kelly and Lack of Diversity in the Media

On a segment of Cuomo Prime Time, CNN host Don Lemon called out Megyn Kelly for her comments saying that blackface is not racist and that it was ok when she was a kid because people are only dressing up. Lemon also called out the fact that the panel was all white with no people of color giving their perspective and criticized her past racist comments when she was a host at FOX News. Lemon also discussed the fact that he is the only black primetime news host and the fact Kelly’s show took the place of two black journalists, Tamron Hall, and Al Roker, who had much better ratings. Lemon stated this situation shows how important diversity in the media is and that media organizations need to keep that in mind when hiring journalists.  

The fact that Kelly was still hired at NBC and became the highest paid anchor in the news business despite her past racist comments shows how white supremacy is still a huge problem. As Lemon points out too, Kelly was able to exist in an “echo-chamber” since she was able to go her whole life not understanding the history of blackface and why it is so racist for a white person to dress up as a black person on Halloween. Lemon also points out the fact that there is little diversity in media and that perhaps if the newsrooms were more diverse, these types of racist remarks would not keep occurring.  We have talked in class about how the lack of diversity in the media leads to stereotypes and one-dimensional coverage of communities that are not part of the dominant group. Perhaps NBC will learn from this mistake and hire more people from diverse backgrounds and not hire people who have such a racist history.