Diversity in the Newsroom

Making keen observations are essential to successful journalism. While

making observations about the people tasked with delivering the news to the public

on a daily basis, it’s easy to see a common denominator, lack of diversity. This could

be attributed to a myriad of different reasons and theories, all of which will be

covered in this case study. The purpose of this case study is to inform on the topic

and have the reader decide if the research provided leads credence to the notion of

lack of diversity in television news and the journalism field as a whole. This case

study is an updated continuation of research that has transpired over the past few

months and has extended to include a unique inside perspective by myself, having

worked at CNN throughout the Spring semester.

Introduction: Analysis of the Current Landscape

The first step is to survey the current news commentary landscape in the

United States. The ‘Big Three’ television networks news bureaus of ABC, NBC and

CBS currently have one news anchor of color on the national stage in primetime and

that is Lester Holt, anchor of NBC’s Dateline and the weekend anchor of NBC Nightly

News and Today. When evaluating the morning television landscape, which is

critical for generating revenue for the entire news bureau courtesy of advertising

rates derived from ratings success, only ABC News has a news anchor of color and

that is Robin Roberts, co-anchor of Good Morning America who has held the

position since 2005. CBS This Morning, which launched in January 2012, is the

flagship morning news program for CBS News and features Gayle King, an African-

American billed as co-anchor. However, playing closer attention to her role, you

begin to realize she exclusively appears on the second hour of the show, an hour

reserved in breakfast television for ‘soft’ news compared to the harder news which

airs in the first hour time slot. The other two co-anchors, Charlie Rose and Norah

O’Donnell, appear throughout the entire show for two hours.

NBC’s Today Show had Ann Curry of Japanese descent when she replaced the

popular Meredith Veira as co-anchor for a year from June 2011 to June 2012.

Savannah Guthrie, a Caucasian, controversially replaced her; amid the program

losing its ratings lead to ABC rival Good Morning America. According to the Brian

Stelter authored book, ‘Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning

TV,’ Curry was made the scapegoat for Today’s viewer erosion due to her mistakes

and appearance. “At one point, the executive producer, Jim Bell, commissioned a

blooper reel of Curry’s worst on-air mistakes. Another time, according to a

producer, Bell called staff members into his office to show a gaffe she made during a

cross talk with a local station. (Bell denies both incidents.) Then several boxes of

Curry’s belongings ended up in a coat closet, as if she had already been booted off

the premises. One staff person recalled that, “a lot of time in the control room was

spent making fun of Ann’s outfit choices or just generally messing with her”(Stelter

17). Once Bell determined it was time to make a change involving Curry, a careful

three-step process was formulated. “One morning-TV veteran suggested to him that

firing Curry, who had been co-hosting for only about six months at that point, would

be tantamount to “killing Bambi.” Undeterred, Bell hatched a careful three-part plan:

1.) persuade Lauer to extend his expiring contract; 2.) oust Curry; 3.) replace her

with Savannah Guthrie. According to this source, Bell called his plan Operation

Bambi. […] (Bell denies using the term “Operation Bambi”)(Stelter 19).

The Ann Curry fallout cast a negative viewpoint on the Today Show as

evidenced by the program losing its ratings led to ABC’s Good Morning America for

the first time in 16 years. The Today Show was number one in the morning

television news ratings department for 885 consecutive weeks until Ann Curry

tearfully departed. Curry has described leaving the Today Show as “professional

torture” and according to Stelter told colleagues that “it feels like I died and I’ve seen

my own wake.” From reading Stelter’s book, it appears Curry felt slighted by co-

host Matt Lauer after she was criticized for not having “chemistry” with him on

camera. Viewers subsequently blamed her premature departure on Lauer, who has

been with the program since 1994 and has seen his Q score which measures

likability decline by 25%. This example demonstrates the possible ramifications an

audience can present if it formulates a viewpoint that an anchor was replaced

unfairly, their support of the show will become severed.

On cable news, the landscape varies depending on the network. Fox News

Channel is the most popular cable news network ratings wise in the country as

evidenced by its primetime lineup consistently beating its cable news counterparts.

FNC does not feature a news anchor of color in its weekday-programming lineup

including in primetime. On the weekends, its lineup however is diverse as it feature

four people of color on various news programing. Kelly Wright and Harris Faulkner

are African-American, Uma Pemmaraju is of Indian descent, and Geraldo Rivera is a

Latin American with Puerto Rican heritage. In regards to Fox News and Lester Holt,

the question then becomes why are people of color limited to working on-air solely

on the weekends? Could it be that there is a smaller audience that watch weekend

news programming compared to its weekday counterpart? The ratings per Nielsen,

the official rating measurement database in the world show that on average, FNC

has half the audience on weekends compared to its weekday schedule. The average

weekday audience of FNC fluctuates between 1.3 and 1.5 million and 2.4 and 2.7

million in primetime. On the weekends, it features 700,000 to 800,000 viewers

throughout the course of a day and 1.0 to 1.2 million viewers in primetime.

MSNBC, NBC’s 24-hour cable news network has made a concerted effort to

hire black personalities for news anchor roles. The network’s current programming

lineup features a plethora of diverse talent that serve as news anchors including

Tamron Hall host of NewsNation, Toure of the Cycle, Al Sharpton of PoliticsNation

and Melissa Harris-Perry. For the exception of Perry whose show airs on Saturday

and Sunday mornings, all aforementioned news anchors broadcast during the

weekday. In an interview with mediate, MSNBC President Phil Griffin described the

diverse a semblance of talent is due to the network’s philosophy. “This has been

steady growth for us for some time,” Griffin noted on the network’s ratings

improvement. “I think we made a commitment, we decided, that in order for this

channel to succeed, that we had to reflect the country. This meant that we had to be

part of the country in ways that the other channels weren’t.” Griffin added, “We

have a diverse on-air group of people,” Griffin said, “because that matters, and

people want to know that we reflect their world. And it’s not just a single show – it’s

across the board. You look at the guests every hour and we make sure that we have

women, African Americans, everything, and I think to spend a day watching MSNBC

is to see America as we have seen it.” Due to the network’s commitment in that

philosophy, MSNBC saw it’s African-American audience increase by 60% last year.

“It wasn’t like we said ‘Oh, we have to have a diverse person on here and there,’” he

said. “We made a decision. We made a commitment in ideas, issues and everything –

the audience followed, and that goes back to four or five years ago. As we grew, we

recognized that it was the right thing to do. It’s giving a voice to people in these

kinds of programs who don’t always get a voice. Our look is as diverse as any on

mainstream TV. I’m incredibly proud of it. It’s not like we decided ‘We’re going to

increase our African American viewership by 60%,’ but I’m thrilled that it happened,

and it says a lot about what we’ve been doing over the last few years.”

CNN, the first 24-hour cable news network to launch in 1980 has been

criticized recently for lack of racial diversity. Since Jeff Zucker, former executive

producer of Today became president of CNN, wholesale changes have been made to

its programming lineup in regards to its on air personalities. Soledad O’Brien, a

Latin-American, lost her position as the morning news anchor in early 2013 which

CNN did not cite in its press release as to why O’Brien was removed from her on-air

position into a behind the seen production role. O’Brien cited inadequate support

from CNN as to why her morning television show ‘Starting Point’ failed to attract a

wider audience, an audience that was considered, “too ethnic, based on the high

concentration of minority viewers” by former CNN Vice President Bart Feder in a

controversial interview with Politico Magazine. Words can often become

misconstrued when conducting interviews but the comments made by Feder

displayed lack of judgment for someone in the position of VP and reflected poorly on

CNN to the point where the network felt the need to issue clarification on Feder’s

comments. Feder citing too much ethnicity of Starting Point’s audience as one of the

reasons for O’Brien downfall is cause for concern in regards to newsroom diversity.

O’Brien mentioned in an interview with the Huffington Post shortly after her

transition at the company that, “We (Starting Point) did not get a lot of promotion.

We did not get a lot of marketing, we weren’t fully staffed.” A report on Mediabistro

asserts that the cause for O’Brien’s Starting Point failing to attract a wider audience

was due to the show being rushed. The show’s premiere was pushed forward to

January of 2012 to coincide with the all-important Iowa Caucus. From the show’s

start, it was reported that Starting Point was not fully staffed and the initial promise

of promoting the show never materialized as expected, leading credence to O’Brien’s

beliefs as to why Starting Point was cancelled. Consistent ratings success compared

to the competition is often the measuring stick barometer that network executives

use to judge how successful a program is. That logic is simple and arguably

reasonable to understand as the more viewers a program brings in, the more a

network can charge advertisers to run a commercial during that designated time

slot. Production of news programming is not cheap hence the desire for a network

to have a show that will generate revenue based on its own rating success. When

evaluating the ratings of Starting Point for January 2013, its last month prior to

cancellation, the show attracted a daily, cumulative audience of 264,00 viewers.

Direct cable morning news competitors to CNN’s Starting Point, MSNBC’s Morning

Joe and FNC’s Fox & Friends had 468,000 and 1.07 million viewers respectively.

Those numbers for each network are nearly identical across the board a year prior

in January 2012, the month that Starting Point premiered. Considering the ratings,

there was not an improvement of O’Brien’s ratings nor was there viewership

erosion. The ratings for all cable morning news programming stayed constant

which leads to the question of why O’Brien was replaced after only one year? Could

it be that racial inequality played a role in her show’s cancellation? The National

Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) seemed to view O’Brien’s cancellation with a

jaundiced eye as it summoned a meeting with CNN President Jeff Zucker in February

to address the network’s commitment to journalists of color.

Working at CNN

In the fall of 2013, facing mounting pressure by my own expectations to

successfully land an internship with a reputable news organization, I made a

concerted effort to apply to CNN for possible employment opportunities. A mere

two weeks after submitting my application and resume, I was contacted by a CNN

human resource representative and had an over the phone interview. A week after

the initial phone call with CNN, I received an email congratulating me on

successfully landing a Spring internship with the network. Through my experience

working with CNN, I feel compelled to provide a first person account on how much

diversity is truly represented at these news agencies in order to help provide

further insight for this case study.

My analysis on Soledad O’Brien’s ‘Starting Point’ getting cancelled about a

year after its debut has to do with a regime change. Starting Point began in January

of 2012 when now former CNN President Jim Walton headed the network. Jeff

Zucker his successor had prior experience working as the executive producer for

NBC’s Today, a nonpartisan breakfast news program that has been successful in a

format derived on an eclectic mix of hard and soft news. Hard news being relevant

stories occurring throughout the political scene and conflicts domestically and

abroad, soft news delving primarily with entertainment. This has been the show’s

format since its inception in 1952. O’Brien’s starting point was a political

roundtable discussion program that catered to a segmented political audience.

Starting Point’s morning news replacement is New Day, which launched in June of

2013, six months into Zucker’s tenure. New Day is formatted similarly to Today as it

provides a diverse mix of news and to a lesser extent entertainment content. That

format is important to keep in mind here because the universal theme these

breakfast shows strive for bar Fox News’ Fox and Friends morning program is a

nonpartisan agenda. New Day fits that mold and as a result, replaced Starting Point.

CNN as a network also strives to portray its entire network programming as

nonpartisan specializing in breaking news, which is a stark contrast to its two

primary cable news competitors MSNBC, and Fox News, which has been accused of

providing a liberal and conservative agenda respectively.

Working primarily in the news bureau of CNN, I was exposed to a large

segment of CNN’s employee database. Different racial and ethnic backgrounds as

well as both genders were represented proportionately in prominent roles. In the

news bureau, there is a desk manager who is tasked with assigning roles to news

assistants. The desk manager assigns stories for news assistants to ‘chase’,

primarily developments within the Northeast. The desk manager assigned usually

varies but primarily they consist of two women and one male, all three Caucasian.

However the head in chief of the entire bureau is an African-American man. Many

producers are women and many news assistants are African American, Caucasian,

Asian and Latino. To surmise, the news bureau is a diverse environment. The

reporters stationed in the newsroom are also a diverse group. Rosa Flores is a

Hispanic American, Jason Carroll and Don Lemon are both African-American. The

diversity doesn’t exclusively extend to the news bureau either. Many CNN

employees I encountered elsewhere throughout the building where diverse in both

gender and race. Through my experience of working within the confines of CNN, I

was able to witness diversity firsthand that I would not be able to properly put into

context had I not been actually working there.

More importantly through my employment experience there, I was able to

talk to young CNN employees who were recently hired. The common and perhaps

obvious characteristic that they shared was that each individual was an aspiring

journalist. However what I quickly came to learn was that a large majority of those I

spoke to had no desire to eventually appear on camera. They surmised to me that

being on camera although glamorous was hard work and filled with pressure and

expectations. Most either yearned to become producers or continue to work

primarily in the print genre, delivering content to the CNN.com homepage. It was

through these revelations that I realized that not many people aspire to work on

camera like I do. The truth is most people get nervous on camera with the thought

of millions of people around the world watching and critiquing their every move

and word, something I can allude to having interacted with first time on camera

guests who were noticeably nervous about appearing on live television. When it

comes to on-air talent working at CNN, Don Lemon has recently been prominently

featured on the network devoting unprecedented coverage of missing Malaysia

Airlines flight 370. Through CNN’s ongoing coverage of the mysterious

disappearance of the plane, Lemon has significantly raised his profile and on camera

presence that was not seen previously, perhaps signifying that CNN’s primetime

lineup will become permanently more diverse in the foreseeable future.

Local and International

Are news networks more willing to hire a more diverse news team for its

local affiliates that have a segmented audience than on the national stage, which

feature a wider audience? When examining the local news broadcast teams in the

New York area alone, for WCBS-TV, WNBC-TV, and WABC-TV, diversity comes to the

forefront. Each network features a news anchor of color including in primetime.

Both of CBS 2’s primetime anchors for the 5 pm and 11 pm newscasts are of color as

Maurice DuBois is a Dominican American and his co-anchor Kristine Johnson is from

the Philippines. On NBC 4, diversity is widespread as Shiba Russell; an African-

American replaced another black news anchor, Sue Simmons in June 2012 as co-

anchor of the 5 pm and 11 pm newscast alongside veteran anchor Chuck

Scarborough. Darlene Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican-American, is the anchor of the

morning broadcast. David Ushery, an African-American is well respected

throughout the New York City journalism scene for his investigative reporting and

contributions to the community. Subsequently WNBC awarded Ushery with his own

show “The Debrief with David Ushery” which was awarded an Emmy in 2011. ABC

7 has news anchors of color as well evidenced by two African-Americans, Sade

Baderinwa and Sandra Bookman working weeknights, in primetime at 5 pm, 6 pm

and 11 pm. David Navarro of Philippine descent and Liz Cho, an Asian American,

anchor the afternoon newscast at 4 pm. ABC 7’s entire morning broadcast team is of

ethnic color as Lori Stokes is African-American and Ken Rosato is a Hispanic

American. Even the state of Utah which is stereotyped as ultra conservative due to

the Mormon religion hired a black, female news anchor, Nadia Crow, for Salt Lake

City’s ABC News affiliate this fall.

The international broadcast landscape is harder to assess accurately due to

most countries not having a diverse background of citizens compared to the United

States. In many countries throughout Europe and Asia, the demographics are

dominated by one overwhelming race. One country with a similar, eclectic mix of

racial-ethnic groups is the United Kingdom. Sky News, owned by News Corp, is the

UK’s version of CNN, a 24-hour cable news outfit. While observing various

programming throughout the course of a week, I noticed that there was not a

diverse presence of news anchors. Of the 18 employed news anchors that appear

throughout the course of the day on Sky News on various news programming, only

two anchors are of color. Gillian Joseph, an African-American female appears on the

morning news program Sunrise on the weekends, Friday through Sunday. Lukwesa

Burak, from Zambia, does not have a set schedule and appears periodically

throughout the week on-air.

Rival BBC News on the other hand features a more diverse lineup. Matthew

Amroliwala has family lineage from the Middle East and anchors weekdays from

2pm to 5pm. Clive Myrie, an African-Caribbean presents Monday through Thursday

in the evenings. Naga Munchetty and Babita Sharma are of Indian descent and

anchor during the night for BBC and BBC World News respectively. On BBC World

News, George Alagiah is a Tamil and anchors on weekday mornings. Four presenters

of various ethnic backgrounds including African-Caribbean, Indian, Pakistani and

Sindhi descent anchor on either the weekends or are considered substitute co-hosts.

Those presenters for BBC World News are Rajesh Mirchandani, Sonali Shah, Mishal

Husain and Sharanjit Leyl. Although there are some newscasters of color featured

during the weekday, there is a prevailing theme of diversity taking place more

frequently on the weekends similar to the United States news-broadcasting

counterpart.

Why? The National Association of Black Journalists React

A report by Poynter, a non-profit journalism school located in Florida, cites

that The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) reports that the percentage of

African-American, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American journalists continues to

decline in U.S. newsrooms for the third consecutive year. Astoundingly, there were,

“929 fewer black journalists in the 2010 survey than were recorded in 2001,” a drop

of 31.5 percent. This report strongly suggests that the perspective and unique

insight that black journalists, in particular, and minority journalists, in general,

bring to their newsrooms and communities are being marginalized and devalued –

and, by default, so is the paying readership. On the print side, NABJ applauded The

New York Times for its recent decision to promote an African American, Dean

Baquet, to managing editor of news. Unfortunately, black editors are becoming an

“endangered species” in the midst of layoffs. For example, daily newspapers in

Houston and Savannah have staffs that are disproportionately white. Yet, the

communities they serve are overwhelmingly of color. The Houston Chronicle does

not have a single black metro editor deciding what gets covered on a daily basis.

While the recession and digital revolution can be attributed to some of the dip, NABJ

believes that the downsizing decisions should be proportionate to the populations

served by each newspaper. The president of NABJ, Kathy Y. Times made the

argument in a letter in June 2011 that news anchors of color are qualified yet they

are being overlooked for possible promotions at their respective network of

employment. “People of color comprise more than a third of the U.S. population.

The 2010 Census shows the minority population is growing from coast to coast, and

the majority of children in the U.S. will be minorities by 2050. So, there’s a strong

case to be made that news media is running in the wrong direction of its audience.

The Big 3 networks and cable news channels have undergone a series of rare

changes behind the desk. While the replacements are all seasoned journalists, what

is glaringly missing in the flurry of changes is the failure to elevate African

Americans to any of these positions. The National Association of Black Journalists

finds this troubling – particularly since there are dynamic African Americans poised

to ascend to these coveted positions. For nearly four decades, NABJ has worked

tirelessly as advocates for diversity, calling out those guilty of maintaining the

“status quo.” As America inches toward a world that is more black and brown,

corporations are adjusting their cultures to embrace diversity because they know it

makes good business sense. But too many network executives are ignoring this

reality. Russ Mitchell of CBS News, Lester Holt of NBC News, and CNN’s T. J. Holmes

are weekend warriors who possess charisma, journalistic heft, and the handsome

qualities to front a prime-time show. Mitchell’s poise and professional bearing as he

commandeered the historic announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death surely put to

rest any doubt about his prime-time readiness. Holt has been the go-to guy as a

substitute for vacationing “stars,” but his primary shift is the weekend,” as detailed

in the letter to network executives complaining about lack of diversity.

Reaction

Glenn Proctor, former editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch who served in

the journalism industry for 40 years has encouraged news agencies to become more

vigilant in finding diverse reporting talent. “The lesson is simple, diverse

newsrooms are necessary for all the obvious reasons. But editors and publishers

sometimes need to be pushed to find and hire diverse candidates. But because

editors must fill jobs in a quick time frame, they don’t expand the pool of candidates

to include people of color,” said Proctor in an interview with Mediawire. The

Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications formed

in 2000, created a standard that media must reflect and serve the diversity of

America. The council requires journalism schools to hire women and faculty

members of color. In a video promo interview discussing his program on BET,

‘Don’t Sleep,’ TJ Holmes, an African-American and formerly the weekend morning

anchor on CNN said in regards to lack of racial diversity in the journalism field, “I’ve

always said that I’ve never had an African-American boss in my journalism career,”

said Homes. “But I’ve had plenty of my bosses look me dead in the eye and tell me

what black people think. This (show) is an opportunity now to tell people in the

country what we think,” said Holmes. This is one of the reasons Holmes cited as to

why he left his position at CNN to host his own weeknight show on BET. Holmes

went on to add that chose to leave CNN because, “they have a different type of

audience. “ The accrediting council also tired to give journalism schools some tools

for change in diversity in a 2003 handbook of best practices. The teaching strategies

ranged from bringing in guest speakers to integrating diversity into every part of

the school. In the most successful classrooms, all courses, from journalism history

to news values to ethics included ideas about how to incorporate diversity into the

field. In an interview with the Society of Professional Journalists, De Uriarte, who is

an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, recommends changing

the learning environment so that it supports intellectual diversity. “Readings and

discussions should include more writings and research by authors of color. New

classes should educate students about the history of race in America and the U.S.

power structure,” she says. “Students could read George Fredrickson’s A Short

History of Racism, for example, or Ronald Takaki’s A Different Mirror: A History of

the Multicultural United States.” A study by SPJ went on to conclude that like

newsrooms, journalism schools that commit to it could indeed diversify. The

University of Alabama went from no communication professors of color in 1989 to

about one in eight in 1998. The University of Florida more than doubled minority

faculty from 9.4 percent to nearly 20 percent over the same period. The University

of Missouri quadrupled its faculty of color to 12.2 percent and doubled its female

faculty to 40.8 percent during that time. Lee Becker and his colleagues at the

University of Georgia studied the reasons behind such successes. All three colleges

had targeted hiring and kept job descriptions flexible. They also developed student

recruiting and curriculum diversity at the same time.

When speaking to students who described themselves as observers of news,

one common response to why they believed there is a lack of diversity in journalism

had to do with who they would be learning it from. “I would be reticent to join

journalism because its not diverse a program as say business administration,” said

Rohan Vaidya. “If possible, students would like to learn from a diverse selection of

professors so that they can share in their respective life experiences in the

profession that you are also pursuing a career in, it’s not the fault of Rutgers if there

aren’t many diverse people in the profession to begin with. In this sense Rutgers or

any journalist department is limited in who they can choose as professors to teach

students” he said. Mike Bierman, a junior, mentioned that the younger generation

seeks people in their desired profession that they can relate to. “When you watch a

news show, you mostly see the same demographic reporting the news,” said

Bierman. “You usually see an older white male in his 50s or 60s and if you’re black

or Hispanic, you might find that hard to relate to. I aspire to be in finance and there

are people in that profession that I see that I can relate to in some ways,” he said.

Omotade Fetgeruson, a junior, who spent part of his childhood living in London, was

able to observe the United Kingdom’s style of delivering news content. “Whenever I

watch the news, one thing I notice is that the diversity isn’t the same as what I saw

in England, said Fetgeruson. “There’s more of a mix especially people from the

Middle East or India I often see reporting for like BBC News,” he said. Journalism

departments are encouraged to seek a wide mixture of students and in their

teaching choices; professors have been encouraged to expose their charges to a

spectrum of issues, voices and views. Research conducted by the Accrediting

Council show that the nation’s journalism school faculties does not reflect the

nation’s population. For the past two decades, less than one out of every 12 full

professors in journalism and mass communication was someone of color.

Journalism and mass communication programs include a smaller proportion of

faculty of color than the overall makeup of most four-year colleges nationwide.

Conclusion

From my perspective, it was an important study to conduct when I have an

ambition to become a news anchor in due time, regardless if the conventional role of

news anchoring becomes unconventional in years to come due to the emergence of

social media and how that reflects people receiving their news. It’s important to

find out if I would face being in a profession, dedicating my life to only realize that I

was operating under the dreaded professional “glass ceiling.”

Resource List:

Stelter, Brian: “Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning

TV,” (5 May 2013}

Bet.com: The Dwindling Black Anchor Stable at CNN, Cord Jefferson (27

February 2013)

Huffington Post: Soldedad O’Brien, ’Morning Show Didn’t Have A Lot of

Support,’ Jack Mirkinson, (22 February 2013)

SPJ.org: ‘Journalism Educators Must Leap Diversity Hurdles,’ Sally Lehrman;

Poynter.org: ‘NABJ: Where’s The Diversity in Network News,’ Jim

Romenesko; (28 June 2011)

Poynter.org: ‘Glenn Proctor: Journalism Associates Need to Help Online

Outlets Hire for Diversity’ Angie Chuang; (15 April 2011)

Mediate.com: ‘MSNBC’s Phil Griffin on 60% Black Audience Gain in 2012,’

Tommy Christopher; (7 January 2013)

TheRoot.com: ‘4 Questions with T. Holmes,’ Akoto Ofori-Atta; (8 December

2011)

Lee Bailey’s Eurweb: ‘TJ Holmes on New BET Gig and Why He Left CNN,’

Cherie Saunders; (23 August 2012)

Mediabistro: ‘Salt Lake City’s First Black Anchor? Hired This June,’ Kevin Eck;

(14 October 2013)

Nielsen.com: Top Tens & Trends; Category; TV Shows

News.BBC.co.uk: About BBC News; Profiles

Skynews.skypressoffice.co.uk/biography-categories/news-presenters

Politico: ‘CNN to Launch New Morning Show,’ Dylan Byers;

(29 January 2013)