#Socialites, get a load of this! Several members of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) were left outraged and ready to cancel their memberships after the organization invited former President Donald Trump to its convention in Chicago this week; it has also lost its co-chair, who stepped down after the move.
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Donald Trump, the GOP nominee in the 2024 presidential race, was invited to appear at the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention in Chicago on Wednesday (July 31). However, many of the organization’s members and some of the nation’s top Black journalists immediately became enraged to learn about the move.
One member, Pulitzer Prize nominee Carron J. Phillips, slammed the group on X (formerly Twitter), writing, “When membership numbers and those dues fall off a cliff, remember the day y’all made this dumb a** decision.” He also tweeted and said, “This is the single dumbest and worst decision in NABJ history. Whoever made this call is an idiot. And I’ll say it to their face this week.”
In another tweet, Phillips added, “Y’all just made the only safe haven that Black journalists have, potentially unsafe, all because y’all want to look ‘smarter than everybody else,’ when this is…. idiotic at best.” Phillips continued to blast the NABJ and its organizers who invited Donald Trump to this week’s event. However, while slamming the organization, Phillips also retweeted others, who eventually revealed that each election year the NABJ invites all candidates. It just so happens that this year, Trump accepted the invite for the Republicans, which some users claimed is unheard of.
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Meanwhile, other users online wanted to know if Donald Trump was invited to represent the Republicans, was Vice President Kamala Harris offered the same invitation as the presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential race. It turns out that she was invited, but it was later revealed that VP Harris reportedly will not be attending the NABJ Convention in Chicago this week.
April D. Ryan, who is the White House Correspondent for TheGrio and 2017 NABJ “Journalist of the Year,” made the announcement and said, “A source familiar also says Harris is hitting the ground running as the new presumptive Democratic Nominee days into her campaign working through all of the necessary planning and attending the funeral of late Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. The source also says the Harris for President campaign team worked very closely with NABJ leadership to find an alternative option. The NABJ team, unfortunately, denied a request for the VP to take part in a fireside chat virtually, or to host an in-person fireside chat with the VP at a later date.”
In the midst of all of the hoopla, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah spoke out and announced that she was stepping down as co-chair of this year’s convention with Donald Trump. Taking to X, Attiah said, “I have decided to step down as co-chair from this year’s #NABJ24 convention in Chicago. To the journalists interviewing Trump, I wish them the best of luck. For everyone else, I’m looking forward to meeting and reconnecting with all of you in the Windy City. #NABJ.” In a second tweet, she continued to clarify her move, stating, “While my decision was influenced by a variety of factors, I was not involved or consulted with in any way with the decision to platform Trump in such a format.”
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