Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has long attacked the 1619 Project, spearheaded by researcher Nikole Hannah-Jones as racist, false, and anti-American, working hand-in-hand with critical race theory. So, unsurprisingly, the MRC's discussion of Hannah-Jolnes' attempt to find a tenured university position was just as bile-filled. Curtis Houck whined on May 21:
MSNBC’s ReidOut host Joy Reid joined the chorus of defenders on Thursday of the racist, America-hating 1619 Project and creator Nikole Hannah-Jones in light of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's decision to deny her immediate tenure as part of a professorship.
Reid blasted the move as an “chill[ing]” act of “cancel culture” against a (factually-challenged) series of essays that teach “a clear-eyed, factual understanding of our history.”
Houck went on to claim that "thesis that America was founded on the basis of and preserving slavery has been widely debunked." Houck's idea of "widely debunked" was to link to an article from the right-wing Federalist.
On May 23, Alex Christy worked hard to denigrate the awards the 1619 project received:
Leftists got upset at the recent news that the University of North Carolina's board of trustees decided not to give New York Times Magazine writer and 1619 Project organizer Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure, but despite this, she will still be teaching at UNC starting in July. Still, MSNBC's Ali Velshi used his Saturday show to accuse conservatives of silencing and cancelling her, because they don't support free speech.
Velshi alleged that "the UNC’s board of trustees denied Hannah-Jones tenure, reportedly bowing to conservative criticism of her most prominent work: The 1619 Project, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize." Winning the Pulitzer is just a left-wing credential, as is the McArthur "genius" grant, which Velshi also threw in.
When Hannah-Jones was ultimately granted tenure at UNC, Gabriel Hays melted down:
The world was a much better place when Nikole Hannah-Jones, the creator of the 1619 Project, wasn’t given institutional street cred. But good things never last.
Not only has Nikole Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer for her dubious, divisive and frankly malignant critical race theory reinterpretation of American history, she has been given tenure at an actual big name university. The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill actually granted her tenure on June 30, after being denied following complaints from conservative groups. In the school of journalism. Really.
Well, yeah. It is a travesty that a journalist with such a dishonest and resentful attitude toward American history would get a top tier intellectual profession. Conservatives were right to complain, and now that Hannah-Jones has received tenure, our country’s standards of higher education have suffered another major net loss.
He concluded by huffing; "The fact that UNC is elevating an activist journalist like Nikole Hannah-Jones to a tenured position proves that higher education is a joke." Se suspect Hays will not be rushing to renounced his own college degree in protest.
And when Hannah-Jones ultimately rejected UNC's belated tenure offer as tainted and chose to join Howard University instead, Hays melted down about that too:
1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones has employed her victimhood status to devastating effect in her professional career. Now, her recent suckering of UNC into giving her tenure - and then ultimately rejecting it - shows us all how race-baiters have been playing the American public for fools.
According to Slate, Hannah-Jones just rejected University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s offer of tenure after weeks of demanding the school give it to her. After finally guilting the school’s board of trustees into granting her tenure along with a teaching position they gave her in May, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist said she wasn’t interested anymore and instead took a tenured position at Howard University, a Historically Black College.
And for the nice cherry on top, the 1619 Project author claimed she thought racism was at play in UNC dragging their feet. Checkmate. Great job, UNC, you let the professional wokester castrate you.
Hays did concede that UNC initial decision not to grant her tenure "may have hinged on complaints brought up by multiple North Carolina conservative groups, which demanded Hannah-Jones not receive tenure," but he seemed cool with that -- the opposite reaction he would have if liberals tried to stop a conservative from getting a job. He mocked the idea that Hannah-Jones was denied tenue because of racism, even though every single person who held the job she was seeking for the previous 40 years was automatically granted tenure: "Oh, it was because of race - and not the fact that Hannah-Jones’ contribution to journalism is a bit of historical fanfiction that takes the founding principles of America out of context for the sake of promoting racial resentment."
On July 8, Kyle Drennen lashed out at an interview with Hannah-Jones and the UNC journalism dean:
During a gushing interview with left-wing New York Times staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones on CNN’s New DayWednesday morning, co-host John Berman also brought on University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Media Dean Susan King to hail Hannah-Jones as “an important voice in our time and in journalism” and lament that the leftist was leaving UNC. In addition, King pledged to indoctrinate her students with the radical ideas preached by Hannah-Jones.
[...]
The most important priority for the leftist media is to make sure the radical ideology they espouse gets passed on to the next generation of political activists masquerading as journalists.
Doesn't the MRC run on the radical ideology that journalists are "enemies of the people" and must be destroyed? What college professor indoctrinated Drennen and his co-workers to that idea?
