CNN and MSNBC have given an enthusiastic boost to the NAACP’s so-called travel advisory cautioning black Americans not to visit Florida. Hosts on both cable networks giddily parroted the hyperbolic warning throughout the weekend and into Monday afternoon, all while conveniently omitting the NAACP’s overt far-left leanings.
On Sunday, MSNBC fill-in host and caustic New York Times journalist Charles Blow wondered if the travel advisory might portend a mass-exodus from Florida:
The NAACP just issued a travel advisory for Florida, in direct response to the Governor’s attempts to erase black history and restrict diversity programs. Could we see more Floridians moving away as a result of these policies? … Are we about to see some sort of Florida flight?
To drive home just how stupid this theory is, consider that Florida was the fastest-growing state in 2022 according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The NAACP enjoyed another round of free publicity on Monday morning, when the organization’s president and CEO, Derrick Johnson, was invited onto both CNN and MSNBC to talk at length about the press release.
Meanwhile, CBS was the only of the big three broadcast networks not to get in on the action. The story featured heavily in a Sunday evening segment of ABC’s World News Tonight, while NBC hyped the advisory on Monday’s Today show.
None of the TV journalists covering this story dared challenge the NAACP’s claim of “non-partisanship.” While the organization does not directly fund political candidates, OpenSecrets data show that its members have donated exclusively to Democrats since 2016. Furthermore, Johnson has been quite open about his own far-left leanings. Back in 2021, he told CNN’s Oliver Darcy that he wished Fox News could be “banned:”
I wish it could get banned, quite frankly, because it creates more intolerance and more racial instability… If you think about the average person who consumes Fox News, their sense of reality is disconnected from facts.
Despite this, the NAACP continues the facade. They even released a statement in 2020 correcting then-candidate Joe Biden after he falsely claimed that they had endorsed him for President: “The NAACP is a non-partisan organization and does not endorse candidates for political office at any level.”
At least the second part is true.
