“I have a very strong perspective on things,” broadcast journalist Don Lemon said in an October 16 dialogue with Emil Wilbekin, assistant professor of Marketing Communications, at FIT. “Balancing Acts: Diversity and Civility in Media” was the signature event of FIT’s seventh annual Civility Week, an exploration and celebration of the ways we engage with each other and navigate conflict respectfully in a higher education environment, the week of October 14.
President Joyce F. Brown welcomed the audience in the Katie Murphy Amphitheatre with a meditation on the importance of civil discourse in journalism and the rise of threats to a free press.
“I thought it fitting that we kick off this year’s Civility Week by hearing and learning from some of our most accomplished journalists as they work to navigate a landscape that has been defined by record levels of incivility and chaos and confusion,” she said.
Throughout the conversation, Lemon proved that being civil does not mean watering down one’s opinions or shrinking from conversation.
He discussed the importance of bringing one’s own background and experience to journalism, as long as it’s done with transparency. “That’s why we call it diversity, equity, and inclusion … to share your perspective. Because otherwise people may not ever, ever hear it,” he said. “I don’t think because I bring a certain perspective, because I have a certain lens, because I have a certain outlook on life, that makes me biased. That just makes me, what?”
“Human,” Wilbekin answered, then added that he encourages his students to bring their whole self to their journalism assignments.
The two journalists discussed the presidential election and biased media coverage. Lemon shared his frustration with false equivalency, in which two sides of a debate are treated as equally valid, even when that is not the case. He believes that presidential election coverage is a victim of this logical fallacy, and that not every election story needs to include both sides of the debate.
“You don’t need to get someone with every opinion,” he said. “There are bad opinions.”
He also bemoaned how sensitive and easily offended much of the public has become, and the way diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives can be weaponized if treated as a religion.
Lastly, Lemon talked about two motivations for writing his new book, I Once Was Lost: My Search for God in America, a personal and journalistic exploration of the role of religion in the country. He said he had a crisis of faith when his sister died in 2018. He also had a friend who had an untenable pregnancy but was not allowed an abortion because Roe v. Wade had not yet happened.
His advice to students was to consume a diverse diet of news, from both liberal and conservative media outlets, to see outside the bubble that the social-media algorithm creates for them. “Read things you don’t agree with,” he said.
He also advised the audience to follow their dreams and not worry about what people think, “because that will inhibit you, and you will end up being someone else’s expectations rather than yours.”