Members of 'black media' say it's not their job to protect Bill Cosby

Lauren Gambino in New York
theguardian.com, Wednesday 17 December 2014 12.00 GMT

Bill Cosby has implored the “black media” to remain “neutral” as he faces mounting allegations of sexual misconduct that have threatened his career. But some members of the “black media”, if such a monolithic entity can even be said to exist, say it’s not their job to protect the fallen star, despite what he has meant to the African American community.

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After weeks of silence, Cosby gave a brief interview to the New York Post in which he criticized the media’s coverage of the stories about him and appealed to black media “to uphold the standards of excellence in journalism and when you do that you have to go in with a neutral mind”. (Cosby has since, through his lawyer, claimed the Post reporter with whom he spoke misrepresented himself as a freelance reporter for black news outlets.)

“There’s something deeply painful about it all,” said David Wilson, co-founder and executive editor of the Grio.

“What people don’t understand, and particularly white Americans don’t understand, is that Bill Cosby changed the way black people saw themselves,” Wilson continued. “And if this guy is somehow a phony, if this guy is somehow a crooked person, then what does that say? How do we go back and be proud of what this guy’s done – the thing that he’s done that made us feel so great about ourselves? That’s why it’s such a big story for black America.”

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