On Tuesday, The Washington Post's Felicia Sonmez noted how MSNBC's Tamron Hall moderated the recent Congressional Black Caucus town hall where Rep. Andre Carson smeared the Tea Party by accusing them of wanting to bring back Jim Crow laws and endorsing the lynching of blacks. Former Obama aide turned NBC employee Joy-Ann Reid also attended the CBC event, but omitted Rep. Carson's attack from her report.
During the August 22 town hall in Miami, Carson, a leader within the liberal Congressional Black Caucus from Indiana, actually apologized to Hall in the midst of his inflammatory remarks against the Tea Party:
REP. ANDRE CARSON, (D), INDIANA: Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens. (audience members reply, "Yes!") Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party would love to see you and me- I'm sorry, Tamron- hanging on a tree. (audience members reply, "Yes!") Some of them right now in Congress are comfortable with where we were 50 and 60 years ago.
Hall anchored her 2 pm Eastern hour program from Miami on both August 22 and August 23, but as the 23rd was also the day East Coast earthquake struck, she covered the aftermath of that tremor for the entire hour, mentioning the CBC event only in passing. She hasn't mentioned it on-air since that day.
In addition to Hall, the RealMReynolds blog on Wednesday pointed out that Reid, the anchor's colleague in the NBC family (as managing editor for TheGrio.com), live-Tweeted the CBC town hall. The former Obama 2008 campaign press aide, who bashed Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann as "crazy" and "loopy" earlier in August, and defended Newsweek's "queen of rage" cover of the Indiana congresswoman, actually highlighted Rep. Carson's lynching attack against the Tea Party in a Tweet (while admitting she didn't know his name), but neglected to mention it in her report on TheGrio.com. She did mention other attendees attacks on the conservative grassroots movements, including Rep. Frederica Wilson ("the enemy is the Tea Party"), Jesse Jackson (who, like Carson, likened the Tea Party to segregationists), and Rep. Alcee Hastings.
On August 23, the day following the town hall, Reid appeared on MSNBC on the Jansing & Co. program, but focused on the jobs fair component of the CBC event, and mentioned the town hall only briefly.
In the broader mainstream media, the Big Three networks have so far punted on Rep. Carson's smear of the Tea Party, ignoring covering the event on their evening news programs on Tuesday and their morning shows on Wednesday.
