Speaker 1: I'm a homegrow that knows a little bit about everything
Speaker 1: and everybody.
Speaker 2: You know, if you don't lie about that, right, Lauren
Speaker 2: came in.
Speaker 3: Hey, y'all, what's up.
Speaker 1: It's Laura l Rosa and this is another episode of
Speaker 1: the Latest with Laura l Rosa. This is your daily
Speaker 1: dig of all things pop culture, entertainment, news, and all
Speaker 1: of the conversations that shake the room.
Speaker 3: Baby.
Speaker 1: So checking in behind the scenes of the ground. You
Speaker 1: guys know, we did the photo shoot. I've been telling
Speaker 1: you guys or keeping you just along the journey with
Speaker 1: me behind the scenes as I'm like I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: like building the business side of it, but like it's
Speaker 1: been there, I think now I'm just.
Speaker 3: Not elevating it. I'm I'm leveling it up.
Speaker 1: We're leveling up the business side of the business when
Speaker 1: it comes to the podcast. You know me as talent
Speaker 1: and just really learning how to like be in a
Speaker 1: talent space, so you know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: is required or images and photos and all the things.
Speaker 1: And we used to do a lot of photo shoots
Speaker 1: when I had more time. Now I'm always just trying
Speaker 1: to focus on making sure my quality of my work
Speaker 1: is good that I kind of don't even take the
Speaker 1: time to also pop out, you know, with the new
Speaker 1: photos and the photo shoots and the brand deals and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But I'm literally at the point now,
Speaker 1: y'all where it's not a thing of a my questioning
Speaker 1: am I really supposed to be here? Which is weird
Speaker 1: because I didn't start off that way. It just slowly
Speaker 1: crept up on me, and I was fighting that for
Speaker 1: like three months. It's not that though, not that at all. Now,
Speaker 1: it's just a thing of you only get a set
Speaker 1: window to make mistakes and what I do, so I'm
Speaker 1: always focused on, like, is the work right, Am I
Speaker 1: making mistakes or not? And in order to do that,
Speaker 1: a lot of times me and the things that I
Speaker 1: personally want to do outside of what I'm reporting and
Speaker 1: the information I'm trying to get right take such a
Speaker 1: back burner. I'm learning how to balance, I'm learning how
Speaker 1: to bob and weave. Okay, So this weekend we did
Speaker 1: that photo shoot. We actually did some of it at
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club studio, which is cool because my little brother,
Speaker 1: he shot a lot of the behind the scenes and
Speaker 1: was able to come to the Breakfast Club studio. He's
Speaker 1: been here, but he's never been in the studio, so
Speaker 1: that was cool and just to you know, be working
Speaker 1: with him and have.
Speaker 3: Him on the team.
Speaker 1: So we do have some of the audio just from
Speaker 1: behind the scenes of the photo shoot, conversations you guys
Speaker 1: will hear me kind of like going through and giving
Speaker 1: instruction a bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I think that this is like a whole new era
Speaker 1: of walking into the room like God sent you there.
Speaker 1: That's like it doesn't send to me, y'all be in
Speaker 1: a business woman. And the thing about this is like
Speaker 1: whenever I see these lists of like the top paid
Speaker 1: podcasters and you know, Forbes doing list on you know,
Speaker 1: podcasters who are dominating the money that they're making, and
Speaker 1: you know, like those type of lists. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I always ask questions about, and normally it's
Speaker 1: to Charlomagne, is what sets these podcasters apart from all
Speaker 1: the other people that pack the mic. And what I
Speaker 1: notice a lot of is the business, like the infrastructure
Speaker 1: that they've built around them, like podcasting and turn it
Speaker 1: on these microphones, and the talent of it is literally
Speaker 1: one part I think sustaining even if you never you know,
Speaker 1: even if the growth is never vertical, right, And I
Speaker 1: mean like that means you hit a spot and you're good.
Speaker 1: You're able to provide for yourself people know about the
Speaker 1: show is doing everything you needed to do, but it
Speaker 1: never goes up from there. There is a business model
Speaker 1: that is needed in the infrastructure that is needed around
Speaker 1: your voice and your talent so that you'll be able
Speaker 1: to sustain that. Now, I don't want to hit a
Speaker 1: plateau and hit a ceiling and look up and be like, dang,
Speaker 1: I can't Like I want to always feel my business
Speaker 1: model needing to grow, the pivot needed to happen, and
Speaker 1: understand that. But I say that to say, those podcasters
Speaker 1: who are able to sustain on very high levels, they
Speaker 1: have this understand all of.
Speaker 3: It works together for the greater good.
Speaker 1: And I'm teaching myself that, And I'm also teaching myself
Speaker 1: that it is okay for me to be thinking like
Speaker 1: that in this era of my life, because when you
Speaker 1: are a person who is having conversations about people and
Speaker 1: things in a journalistic way, you're not the story, Like
Speaker 1: I've never been the story for real. But if you
Speaker 1: building a talent, if you're building a personality, if you're
Speaker 1: building a podcast, with a community that listens to you
Speaker 1: daily and grows with you. I'm here, I'm letting y'all
Speaker 1: lan We're doing this thing. So yeah, this is one
Speaker 1: of many to come. I'm also really proud of the
Speaker 1: team that I've built, Like that was one of my
Speaker 1: biggest takeaways after this weekend as well too. It's like
Speaker 1: I have a really really strong team. We're all learning
Speaker 1: and growing and young and excited, but we're getting We're
Speaker 1: doing what we.
Speaker 3: Need to do.
Speaker 1: Everybody's performing on the level that we need to perform
Speaker 1: on for this to elevate and what it's going to do.
Speaker 1: So you guys will see some of those images soon.
Speaker 1: We have some big announcements coming up that we'll be
Speaker 1: using those for, and of course across social So yeah,
Speaker 1: make sure you guys are following me everywhere. Laura le
Speaker 1: Rosa l O r E N l O R O
Speaker 1: s A. Now let's get on into the latest. Now,
Speaker 1: speaking of journalism or personalities, Tracy Ellis Rass is having
Speaker 1: a conversation. I know that we had this conversation often
Speaker 1: about why girlfriends did not get there just do when
Speaker 1: the show was at its peak. She actually calls out
Speaker 1: Jay Leno during this conversation, let's take a listen.
Speaker 2: Never had thought no talk shows, no Tonight Show, no
Speaker 2: David Letterman, no, no Emmy's. Had never been to the
Speaker 2: Emmy line, had never been.
Speaker 3: To anyone, never on a late night show.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, I have a story. It
Speaker 2: was Jay Leno and I had girlfriends and the comment
Speaker 2: was we love Tracy call Us when she at something
Speaker 2: and oh yeah, And I was like, I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: get what, like, what else do you have to get?
Speaker 2: I don't know, and it just was not we love her,
Speaker 2: but it was not considered. And the other thing was
Speaker 2: I remember this. I remember specifically the show Monk. Do
Speaker 2: you remember that that show had a quarter of our viewership?
Speaker 3: A quarter of our viewership?
Speaker 2: And I remember seeing him on the show, and I
Speaker 2: was so confused, and I was like, I don't understand.
Speaker 3: Is it viewership?
Speaker 2: And the only thing you can boil it down to
Speaker 2: you're like, is it just racism?
Speaker 3: Like I don't, like, I'm not sure how to like,
Speaker 3: how do you categorize it?
Speaker 2: Like I don't know what it is. I never went
Speaker 2: to the Emmys. The first time I went to the
Speaker 2: Emmys was on Blackish.
Speaker 3: Yoh, this is crazy. Yeah, this is like, this is
Speaker 3: to me, this is mind blowing.
Speaker 5: So yeah, because they they all existed in the same Yeah,
Speaker 5: and ignorantly.
Speaker 2: Because we were in South Africa.
Speaker 5: We're just watching this going these are all the same,
Speaker 5: they all occupy the same level.
Speaker 2: So interesting.
Speaker 3: I've never heard that.
Speaker 1: I would be honest with y'all, like, I'm a huge
Speaker 1: fan of the show Girlfriends. I love mar brockyck Kill,
Speaker 1: I love all the cast of Girlfriends, and I know
Speaker 1: so many of the like behind the scenes stories, like
Speaker 1: I've heard Tracy alas Strauss talk about having to like
Speaker 1: literally fund a lot of her own wardrobe and them
Speaker 1: having to borrow the clothing from each other. I've heard
Speaker 1: Mar brocka Kill talk about that as well. I've you know,
Speaker 1: heard the conversations about more money being needed to ever
Speaker 1: bring Girlfriends back in the right way. Today, Mark brock
Speaker 1: Kill was just on a breakfast club talking about that.
Speaker 1: But this was the first time that I heard, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the specifics around, like even the promotion of
Speaker 1: the show and what did not go well. And I
Speaker 1: think what was so surprising for me is Girlfriends has
Speaker 1: always been a huge show to me, Like I've never
Speaker 1: felt like there was any promotion or you know, marketing
Speaker 1: not there because by the time, like by the time
Speaker 1: I came, I got to age where I could understand
Speaker 1: the show and what it meant to us, and it
Speaker 1: was already like this iconic, like historic piece of culture,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like the Girlfriend's cast literally
Speaker 1: the symbolism of them is such an embedded iconic piece
Speaker 1: of culture. And for all of the time that I
Speaker 1: can remember, it was that I've only ever heard stories
Speaker 1: about the other stuff. So hearing her talk about Jay
Speaker 1: Lennon and I'm like, you know, Jay Little during his
Speaker 1: time was one of the biggest late night talk shows.
Speaker 1: How do you not have the biggest with the biggest
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, putting things into perspective, they weren't
Speaker 1: treated that way.
Speaker 3: And a lot of it too.
Speaker 1: I've heard people have conversations about sex and the city
Speaker 1: in comparison to girlfriends and how you know, designers and
Speaker 1: fashion houses would throw clothing at sex in the city
Speaker 1: because these were white women living these lives and it
Speaker 1: was so much more believable that they could do it
Speaker 1: versus the black women.
Speaker 3: But yeah, pretty interesting to hear one of the things
Speaker 3: for me too.
Speaker 1: That I always think about when it comes to the
Speaker 1: Girlfriend's cast and remake and the things that didn't happen
Speaker 1: for them, is what would have been the ending of
Speaker 1: the show if all of that had actually gone right, right,
Speaker 1: Like if they had been able to stay on for
Speaker 1: more seasons, if they had gotten the budgets that they
Speaker 1: needed to you know, build in the wardrobe the way
Speaker 1: that they wanted to continue the things that they were doing.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've even asked for their not to even
Speaker 1: be a full like second part of the series, but
Speaker 1: to just bring in like even if they did, like
Speaker 1: Sex and.
Speaker 3: The City did two movies.
Speaker 1: Before they brought back an actual you know, and just
Speaker 1: like that Sex and a Series TV show. We've asked
Speaker 1: for even if it just one Girlfriend's movie, so we
Speaker 1: could get the closure of the cast and the stories.
Speaker 1: I always wonder like what would that be, Like, what
Speaker 1: would be the storyline, especially in today's time, like there's
Speaker 1: so much to be talked about. These women have lived
Speaker 1: so much life. Marl Brock I killed, you know, genius
Speaker 1: writer and brains behind the show has done so much.
Speaker 1: Would that be and why y'all let me know? I mean,
Speaker 1: I have my idea. I think at this point, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the things that didn't end the best, like
Speaker 1: people's love lives, careers, shoot Lynne, just finding a home
Speaker 1: of our own. Some of those things, of course would
Speaker 1: be answered. But you know, I feel like what the
Speaker 1: Girlfriend's show, the beauty of it was like there was
Speaker 1: those small things and simple things on the top, but
Speaker 1: at the crevices of it, there were these really deep
Speaker 1: conversations that like women, like especially as a black woman,
Speaker 1: we felt like yeah, girl, yes, like thank you for
Speaker 1: saying it.
Speaker 3: What would be the thank you for saying it?
Speaker 1: Of twenty twenty six for The Girlfriend's Cast, Shifting gears
Speaker 1: a bit. Speaking of journalism and conversations, nab j Okay
Speaker 1: had a conversation about Steven A. Smith, not even had
Speaker 1: a conversation, but they started a conversation about Stephen A.
Speaker 3: Smith.
Speaker 1: So NABJ and then Association of Black Journalists, which is
Speaker 1: an organization full of journalists journalists of color. It is
Speaker 1: actually the largest organization for journalists of color in the
Speaker 1: United States. So this organization supports thousands of black media professionals, students,
Speaker 1: educators worldwide. They do, you know, they advocate for journalists
Speaker 1: in the space, there's training, they do a bunch of
Speaker 1: career fairs. When I was in college, NABJ in this
Speaker 1: conference that they have every year was such a thing
Speaker 1: because not only could you go and literally rub elbows
Speaker 1: with some of the biggest black journalists across all spaces,
Speaker 1: so whether they were working at black outlets or not
Speaker 1: black outlets, but you go and try to get a job,
Speaker 1: whether it was an internship, a job job, from local
Speaker 1: news to sports to entertainment.
Speaker 3: All of the black journalists.
Speaker 1: This is like our homecoming ceremony, right, like you know,
Speaker 1: homecoming to HBC. You everybody come back. Everybody there on
Speaker 1: the yard, having a good time. You can run into everybody.
Speaker 1: Nabj's conference or nearly annual conference, the big one that
Speaker 1: they do, because they do a ton of differ stuff
Speaker 1: the year. It's kind of like the homecoming a black journalist.
Speaker 1: So during this year's during this year's award show, they
Speaker 1: did a rendition of their Thumbs Down Award and they
Speaker 1: gave it to Stephen A. Smith, which has sparked some conversation.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to Steven A. Smith receiving that award.
Speaker 1: He was not there, but this is a video of
Speaker 1: them presenting him the award.
Speaker 4: Stephen A. Smith, sports analysts and political commentator, Smith has
Speaker 4: established a recurring public pattern of disparaging commentary directed at
Speaker 4: prominent Black women across politics, sports, and media. Such commentary
Speaker 4: reinforces harmful narratives, undermines the fair and respectful representation of
Speaker 4: Black women in public discourse, and stands in direct conflict
Speaker 4: with nabj's long standing commitment to accurate, responsible and inclusive
Speaker 4: portrayals of Black communities.
Speaker 1: So the thumbs Down Award, per the nabj's website, is
Speaker 1: presented to an individual organization for especially insensitive, racist, or
Speaker 1: stereotypical reporting, commentary, photography, or cartooning about the Black community,
Speaker 1: or for engaging in practices at odds with the goals
Speaker 1: of NABJ. Nabj's goals, as I just mentioned to you guys,
Speaker 1: are to advocate, to educate, to uplift, and to further
Speaker 1: black journalists the spaces that we work in and what
Speaker 1: we're able to do. So this all comes following a
Speaker 1: lot of the comments that Stephen A. Smith had about
Speaker 1: Jasmine Crockett, black woman. I mean, everybody should know who
Speaker 1: jasminc Crockett is, but black woman in the political space
Speaker 1: who he I don't know, like he got a little
Speaker 1: crazy when it came to some of the things that
Speaker 1: he was saying about her. Let's take a listen to
Speaker 1: some of his comments on Jasmine Crockett.
Speaker 5: When I point to a Jasmine Crockett is because here's
Speaker 5: what I know. All I ever hear her doing is
Speaker 5: going off about Trump, ladies and gentlemen. Can I tell
Speaker 5: you what my belief is, I have no desire to
Speaker 5: be a politician. Let me reiterate that. And I appreciate
Speaker 5: House Leader Democratic Leader Hakim Jeffrey speaking to me in
Speaker 5: the way that he did by saying that I speak
Speaker 5: with the frustration of the American people, because you damn right,
Speaker 5: I do. Let me tell you what gets me annoyed.
Speaker 5: And I hope Jasmine Crockett is listening to this, by
Speaker 5: the way, she's welcomed on the show. When you go
Speaker 5: on national television and you call him the President of
Speaker 5: the United States out of his name and you being
Speaker 5: all disrespectful as a representative in this country, do you
Speaker 5: believe the citizens of Texas sent.
Speaker 2: You there to do that.
Speaker 5: They don't like him either. I'm talking about those who
Speaker 5: voted for her in all likelihood, But because he is
Speaker 5: who he is and he is in that position, they
Speaker 5: expect you to go to Capitol Hill and figure out
Speaker 5: a way to maneuver yourself through that terrain, to work
Speaker 5: in a fashion that's gonna facilitate get things done on
Speaker 5: behalf of your constituents.
Speaker 6: That's your job. That's your job, extus my language on
Speaker 6: serious except but it ain't your job to say he
Speaker 6: ain't shit, he ain't worth a damn.
Speaker 3: That's not your job.
Speaker 6: Ain'ybody to do that.
Speaker 5: He's a deal maker. And if you figure out a
Speaker 5: way to make him look good in any way, quick
Speaker 5: pro quote is something he lives by here reciprocate if
Speaker 5: you know that, why you can't figure it out?
Speaker 1: Gord, Now, that was the one that really takes people off.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason why I take people off
Speaker 1: is because you know, there's always this conversation when you're
Speaker 1: a journalist, you're black. You're black in any space, whether
Speaker 1: you're not a journalist, you could be a freaking electrician.
Speaker 3: No matter what you are.
Speaker 1: When you're black, there's always a conversation about like the
Speaker 1: politics of the room and how you should navigate the
Speaker 1: politics of the room, whether it's how you're speaking, what
Speaker 1: you're saying, how honest and real you can get. So,
Speaker 1: you know, people didn't like to hear Steven and say
Speaker 1: that because especially with Jasmin Crockett, because one of the
Speaker 1: things for me, like I'm not a person who like
Speaker 1: is die hard politics. I follow things because my life
Speaker 1: is impacted by it and just because I like to
Speaker 1: know what's going on. But what I always loved about
Speaker 1: Jasmin Crockett and still love to say about her is
Speaker 1: the fact that she cuts through. Like I think, you know,
Speaker 1: like people get tired of hearing politicians talk to politics
Speaker 1: to them. And when I say that, I mean, like
Speaker 1: not everybody wants to hear about the promises and the
Speaker 1: things you're going to do and go out and vote.
Speaker 1: Some people need to hear yo. Stuff is really fed
Speaker 1: up right now and here's exactly why. And they want
Speaker 1: to see people be called out for the wrongs that
Speaker 1: are happening. I honestly think that a young, sharp, cut
Speaker 1: through voice like a Jasmine Crockett and a building an
Speaker 1: army of those and actually having them supported across the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party, I think that would kind of change the
Speaker 1: way that politics are set up to not be for
Speaker 1: us by us. Like if you think about like what
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been able to do in this time,
Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing is that he don't care
Speaker 1: and I don't does he not care about what he's
Speaker 1: saying how he say it? So it cuts through because
Speaker 1: people were like, Okay, you're talking straight to me. He
Speaker 1: goes anywhere to do it, Like he's on podcasts that
Speaker 1: like a normal regular person is listening to just for
Speaker 1: shits and giggles or just for their best commentary, not
Speaker 1: even for politics, Like he's meeting people where they are,
Speaker 1: And the respectability politics thing never works well. Our sins
Speaker 1: well with black people because I you know, I mean
Speaker 1: it's deep rooted. It goes back to racism, it goes
Speaker 1: back to you know, there's colorism that comes into it.
Speaker 1: There's you know, proximity to whiteness, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: right like we've been through four hundred plus years of
Speaker 1: trying to figure out not even trying to figure out.
Speaker 1: We've been through four to five hundred years of people
Speaker 1: having conversations about what we could have done to make
Speaker 1: sure that certain things didn't happen to us, and the
Speaker 1: reality of it is it's no matter how much you do,
Speaker 1: no matter how much you look, no matter what you say,
Speaker 1: You're still black. These things are still real, these things
Speaker 1: are still apparent, are still happening. And Steven A. Smith
Speaker 1: in his brand and to me, like, again, I don't
Speaker 1: watch sports, but I like Steven A. Smith because he's
Speaker 1: not afraid to say he's not And I like people
Speaker 1: who talk like that because I believe you it's real.
Speaker 3: So for him to.
Speaker 1: Go across the room and then tear down Jasmine Crockett
Speaker 1: at a time where Trump was also like the right,
Speaker 1: like the wrong, people in this conversation were already doing that,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a lot of what it was
Speaker 1: as well too. I think that there is a way
Speaker 1: for him to I don't think that everybody has to agree.
Speaker 1: I don't think that he has to love how she
Speaker 1: does things, but I do think that there's a way
Speaker 1: that you talk about another black person, especially a black
Speaker 1: woman who was literally the target of so many attacks
Speaker 1: because of what she's doing. You don't get, to my opinion,
Speaker 1: you don't get on your platform and demean her in
Speaker 1: the way that he did.
Speaker 3: And he came back and apologized. He heard some people out.
Speaker 5: Let's say, listen, I wanted to take a moment because
Speaker 5: I saw something disturbing in regards to President Donald Trump
Speaker 5: and how he came at Representative Jasmine Crockett, and I
Speaker 5: wanted to take this opportunity to attack this issue as
Speaker 5: it attained to me in Jasmine Crockett, because I personally
Speaker 5: have had an issue with how things have been misconstrued
Speaker 5: and misinterpreted. But at the end of the day, I
Speaker 5: have to own it. And that's what I'm going to
Speaker 5: do today. And so when somebody says to me, Stephen,
Speaker 5: rather than point to her and her verbiage and her
Speaker 5: language and how she talked about the president, what about
Speaker 5: how he talks. I have no problem with that. I
Speaker 5: can understand that. And if that is the reason that
Speaker 5: everybody is in an uproar, that is fine. And I
Speaker 5: have no problem apologizing to that to my sister, because
Speaker 5: damn it, I want her to know I don't feel
Speaker 5: that way about her, just like I didn't feel that
Speaker 5: way abou Kamala Harris, just like I don't feel that
Speaker 5: way about the marvelous, the wonderful, the incomparable, the greatest
Speaker 5: first Lady ever in Michelle Obama in my estimation or
Speaker 5: anybody else. But what we're gonna do on this show
Speaker 5: is understand who the hell I am and how it's
Speaker 5: gonna be. As long as I'm doing this show, I
Speaker 5: have no problem apologizing if I'm wrong. I have no
Speaker 5: problem apologizing if I've made somebody feel a certain kind
Speaker 5: of way. But I'm gonna challenge the legitimacy of what
Speaker 5: people come at with at me with when I think
Speaker 5: that challenge is warranted and deserved. If you came to
Speaker 5: me and you said to me that it came acrourd
Speaker 5: as a bit dismissive, Steven, you should have been more
Speaker 5: protective of her than that, because look at how he speaks,
Speaker 5: look at how they act on Capitol Hill towards her.
Speaker 5: I understand that, But when somebody tries to take that
Speaker 5: to accused me of being disrespectful or in any way misogynistic,
Speaker 5: I'm going to push back on that because that's emphatically false.
Speaker 5: There's no truth to that whatsoever, and I'm not accepting
Speaker 5: that and I'm not owning that.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that we stop his conversation. I
Speaker 1: think that there is a way to have a difference
Speaker 1: of approach in a conversation about it. And even with this,
Speaker 1: I saw some people saying that it was messed up
Speaker 1: that the NABJ basically targeted him in this list of
Speaker 1: people that they gave this thumbs down award too right,
Speaker 1: because he wasn't the only one that received the award.
Speaker 1: Brandon Carr, the FCC chairman, was called out as well.
Speaker 1: Dewa McCoy, the City of Circle City Broadcasting CEO, also
Speaker 1: included CBS News because of all of their like structural
Speaker 1: things that are happening with that merger and you know,
Speaker 1: people losing shows, basically them trying to control or from
Speaker 1: what it looks like from the outside looking at them,
Speaker 1: from what it appears, trying to control the way that
Speaker 1: news is reported to not be as fair across the board,
Speaker 1: which is what we're talking about in the Washington Post. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I can understand people being like, well, Dan,
Speaker 1: y'all gonna throw steven A. Smith on that list like
Speaker 1: he's one of ours. But at the same time, again,
Speaker 1: I feel like people can disagree. I feel like you
Speaker 1: can call out, you can disagree, but I do think
Speaker 1: that there's a way that you go about it.
Speaker 3: Now. Steven A.
Speaker 1: Smith responded to this, and I'm sure he will be
Speaker 1: responding more in depth on his platform as well. He says,
Speaker 1: the NABJ wants to call out folks. Fine, you had
Speaker 1: your turn, now mine is coming. I don't know what
Speaker 1: do y'all think fair or not. I think receiving this
Speaker 1: award does give him some time to reflect about how
Speaker 1: his words are hitting people that look like him. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if he really like not that he
Speaker 1: doesn't care about his people that is. That's one of
Speaker 1: the things that I don't like when I hear people
Speaker 1: say about Steven A.
Speaker 3: Smith.
Speaker 1: I work with an organization called I'm ambassador for organization
Speaker 1: called HBCU Week shout out to Ashley Christopher. It's a
Speaker 1: Delaware based organization, but they send students two and through
Speaker 1: college like no other. I mean millions and millions of
Speaker 1: dollars in scholarship money. I just went to the gala
Speaker 1: this year where Steven Asmith was there and he spoke
Speaker 1: and we talked about it here on another episode of
Speaker 1: The Latest with Lauren Rosa. He has been such a
Speaker 1: force for that organization, and reason being is because whenever
Speaker 1: you have something like that where you're trying to get
Speaker 1: money for black people and black students.
Speaker 3: You need somebody that people are going to listen to.
Speaker 3: You need the star power.
Speaker 1: And not only does he not only is he a
Speaker 1: force for the organization, he shows up like I mean,
Speaker 1: he's at every gala, He's doing media for them, he's
Speaker 1: traveling for them. He just created another extension of a
Speaker 1: show across some of his platforms that he does, and
Speaker 1: he put Ashley on that show that where they discuss
Speaker 1: topics and stuff. So people need get to know her
Speaker 1: and know more about what she does. And you know,
Speaker 1: I know I've seen him do first take from HBCUs
Speaker 1: as well too. He was at my HBCU Delaware Set University.
Speaker 1: I don't think is that he doesn't care, but as
Speaker 1: people when people try to make you know, these isolated
Speaker 1: comments that I do think though some of the some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that he says, in my opinion, it
Speaker 1: is off it's off balance, Like I don't agree with it,
Speaker 1: and it's okay, y'all for us not to agree. But
Speaker 1: was this award wrong? Was NABJ as an organization that
Speaker 1: is supposed to understand like, yeah, they do all this advocacy,
Speaker 1: they do all these things NABJ is an historic, amazing
Speaker 1: organization that should be mentioned as such. But if you
Speaker 1: are an association of journalists, you should also understand people
Speaker 1: don't always agree, and we should be able to have
Speaker 1: conversations across the room, across the table. Let me know
Speaker 1: what y'all think. Were they wrong? Were they right? Because
Speaker 1: you know from what they're saying. This award is being
Speaker 1: awarded to Stephen A. Smith, sports analysts and political commentator
Speaker 1: because he has established a reoccurring public pattern of disparaging
Speaker 1: commentary directed at prominent Black women across politics, sports, and media.
Speaker 1: Such commentary reinforces harmful narratives, undermines the fair and respectful
Speaker 1: re presentation of Black women in public discourse, and stands
Speaker 1: in direct conflicts with nabj's long standing commitment to accurate,
Speaker 1: responsible and inclusive portrayal of black communities. They said that
Speaker 1: in a statement following this award, and you know everybody
Speaker 1: having a conversation about it. Let me know what you
Speaker 1: guys think. I'm Laura l Rosa. This has been another
Speaker 1: episode of the Latest with Laura La Rosa. I tell
Speaker 1: you guys, every single episode, y'all could be anywhere with
Speaker 1: any old body talking about all of the things, but
Speaker 1: y'all choose to be right here with me, my Lowriders,
Speaker 1: I see you in my next one.