Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masster. Jason Kelly, my co host, is off
Speaker 1: this week. Well the Impact Network. It's a privately owned
Speaker 1: African American inspirational TV network and audience of some ninety
Speaker 1: million in the United States at Arizon, Dish, Direct TV,
Speaker 1: Comcast Infinity, and much much more. Behind it all is
Speaker 1: Bishop Bishop Wayne T. Jackson. He's the founder and CEO
Speaker 1: of the Impact Network, and Bishop Jackson joins us on
Speaker 1: the phone on this Wednesday from Detroit. Bishop Jackson, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us on Bloomberg yr Old,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. First of all, I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about the situation Detroit having to deal
Speaker 1: with I feel like so much over the last five
Speaker 1: six months here because of the virus and then of
Speaker 1: course of the impact of what happened in Minneapolis. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the virus. How are you guys doing well
Speaker 1: in Detroit? We're doing well. But when you look at
Speaker 1: the overall view of African America's around the country that
Speaker 1: dealing with just COVID nineteen, you could see that the
Speaker 1: people of color are heavily impacted by UH, the virus
Speaker 1: when you talk about deaths and talk about hospitalization, and
Speaker 1: so we are definitely um within the storm. And when
Speaker 1: you look at what's going on in the community and
Speaker 1: the communities across the nation of black and brown community,
Speaker 1: you you see that the health care when it comes
Speaker 1: to UH, the type of healthcare that those were in
Speaker 1: the urban areas of getting opposed. Once in the suburban areas, UH,
Speaker 1: it's totally different. So all that that is a factor
Speaker 1: of what's happening with the COVID nineteen in our community.
Speaker 1: Perhaps I was talking about talking to the doctor this
Speaker 1: week in one of the uptown hospitals here in New
Speaker 1: York City too, and said, you know, because of our neighborhood,
Speaker 1: you know, we were overwhelmed. It was, you know, a
Speaker 1: minority neighborhood, UM socio economically poorer neighborhood, and they had
Speaker 1: tons and tons of cases. So what do we need
Speaker 1: to do to bring healthcare in the earth been areas
Speaker 1: up to what we see in the suburban areas well.
Speaker 1: You can see that first of all, the nutrition is
Speaker 1: a very big factor of how, you know, the African
Speaker 1: American community is impacted by this virus because when you
Speaker 1: don't have UH the type of national grocery change in
Speaker 1: our in our community and you have liquor stores, you
Speaker 1: have marijuana stores, you have a lottery stores and gas stations,
Speaker 1: when you don't have a place where you can even
Speaker 1: go get fresh produce and the nutritional meats and have
Speaker 1: the uh the type of nutrition that they need to
Speaker 1: sustain that when you look at how is going in
Speaker 1: the neighborhoods, you could see that going to fast food
Speaker 1: restaurants and eating fast foods and drinking UH soda and
Speaker 1: not having the proper awareness of nutrition. That's what impact
Speaker 1: it's all about. We are about making sure that we
Speaker 1: could educate our people not only in the spirit ritual aspect,
Speaker 1: but also in the net aspect, so on an impact.
Speaker 1: We are dedicated as a voice in our community not
Speaker 1: only to affect Dechoy, but again, as you said, we
Speaker 1: had ninety million billion homes all around, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about that voice, UM, because you're right, that's
Speaker 1: an incredible platform, UH that can certainly impact so many
Speaker 1: as you said, ninety million plus. But what I want
Speaker 1: to ask you to just talk about educating people. I
Speaker 1: feel like these concerns, these problems, these gaps, these inequalities
Speaker 1: that we've seen are not new to society. They're just
Speaker 1: being laid bare once again because of the virus, because
Speaker 1: of what happened in Minneapolis. So how do we really
Speaker 1: get changed? How do we make sure that in those
Speaker 1: urban areas you can get fresh produced I mean, I
Speaker 1: went to school uptown in New York City and it
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a sketchy neighborhood at that point,
Speaker 1: but there were markets where I could as a student
Speaker 1: access fresh pit produce. But how do we make sure
Speaker 1: because as we know, healthcare became such a determination or
Speaker 1: determining factor when it came to the virus and how
Speaker 1: well you did, So, how do we make sure essentially
Speaker 1: poorer neighborhoods have the same access to healthier eating options,
Speaker 1: that they can have, better supermarkets and so on, that
Speaker 1: they can have, you know, community gardens. Yes, so you're
Speaker 1: you're correct about that, and that's that's going on to
Speaker 1: uh we are. We have people who are setting up
Speaker 1: and thank God for that, the community gardens where people
Speaker 1: can come in and actually have organic vegetables and through
Speaker 1: that they can grow. It's a process of education, and
Speaker 1: this is what is all about. When you don't have
Speaker 1: the knowledge and understanding, what's that your disposal, you know,
Speaker 1: you go at that which is wrong because egns, that's
Speaker 1: what ignorance does. And when you have UM national change,
Speaker 1: grocery change that need to come into the city and
Speaker 1: be able to service the people. I believe that that's
Speaker 1: going to take um a community outcry of having the
Speaker 1: them to be responsible and putting these um these supermarkets
Speaker 1: into and grow storied into our community. But again, like
Speaker 1: you said, we could start somewhere and that's that's what's happening.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you mentioned that. What about policy, what
Speaker 1: do you think about lawmakers, whether it's on a state level,
Speaker 1: whether it's on a city level, whether it's on the
Speaker 1: federal level. What can be done, in your perspective, policies
Speaker 1: to help out and solve some of these gaps that
Speaker 1: are out there. What the policies you know what I
Speaker 1: believe Carol, especially we've we've come into this new UH
Speaker 1: presidential election that we've never seen before with its pandemic
Speaker 1: going going on. I believe that when we look at
Speaker 1: the different areas that we focus on, when we're talking
Speaker 1: about building our military, which is great. Also, infrastructure was great.
Speaker 1: I think we should have a policy to help the
Speaker 1: African American community where we have a investment in lives.
Speaker 1: And I really believe that when we look at how
Speaker 1: African Americans have been taken for granted when it comes
Speaker 1: to our vote, and now that we see UH President
Speaker 1: UM nominee of Joe Biden coming up now and picking
Speaker 1: a woman of color who was well qualified, I really
Speaker 1: believe that's going to bring a lot of energy. And
Speaker 1: it's got to take people who really realize that if
Speaker 1: you're not boots on the ground and don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on, then this is not really a issue with you.
Speaker 1: But I really believe that as we begin to get
Speaker 1: people inside who can help with the policies and get
Speaker 1: it past where we can really help the community, especially
Speaker 1: with health, healthcare, social justice and prison me for them
Speaker 1: and things like that. One thing I want to ask
Speaker 1: you about when it comes to crisis, Bishop Jackson, is
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like Hurricane Katrina, you know, taught
Speaker 1: us a lot about again the inequalities that are out there,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to the black community in the
Speaker 1: United States. Um, what did we learn, what did the
Speaker 1: black community maybe you know, get better prepared for perhaps
Speaker 1: when it comes to crises. I'm just curious about the impact. Well,
Speaker 1: you know that when that happened in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: that it was a major impact or on that American community.
Speaker 1: And the when they leties broke, they are you know,
Speaker 1: it went through all the different wards and and killed
Speaker 1: people and also uh ruling from their their places. When
Speaker 1: you even look at some of the pastor came to
Speaker 1: just happen the past years, we could see that the
Speaker 1: African American was affected by it and impacted by it
Speaker 1: in a negative way. And so when you look at
Speaker 1: what we learned by it, first of all, I feel
Speaker 1: that we as a community and I speak you know
Speaker 1: from my perspective, that we have to join together when
Speaker 1: our resources to help in those you know, nobody is
Speaker 1: uh born or want to be in harm's way. You know,
Speaker 1: that's where the people was living and that's what happened
Speaker 1: to him, the impact of that hurricane. And so what
Speaker 1: we did from Detroit, we got bus loads of people,
Speaker 1: We went down there, brought them back to Detroit, gave
Speaker 1: them jobs, put them in housing. And so we learned
Speaker 1: from that that we are resilient people and we have
Speaker 1: to help each other, work with each other, and work
Speaker 1: with mankind as a whole. But I do wonder, you know,
Speaker 1: we're in a society where for years, especially when we
Speaker 1: talk about the inequalities in society, whether it's men versus within,
Speaker 1: whether it's whites versus blacks, or you know, people of
Speaker 1: color in general. You know, people create focus groups, they
Speaker 1: create initiatives, and yet here we are and the inequalities
Speaker 1: and injustices still exist. What's the breakdown in the system.
Speaker 1: Why hasn't more change come about? I really believe that
Speaker 1: some of it is ignorance when it comes to people
Speaker 1: who can make changes. Uh, this is my personal view
Speaker 1: that it's ignorance or a lack of concern. Um. I
Speaker 1: you know, the problem has been going on, not just recently,
Speaker 1: but you know, before you and I were even born.
Speaker 1: And I just really believe that there's a great awakening
Speaker 1: is happening in our country with the Black Lives Matter,
Speaker 1: with the death for George Floyd. You could evidently you
Speaker 1: could see, you know, it's evident, you know, the way
Speaker 1: they choked the life out of him. And this is
Speaker 1: what's been going on not just with George Floyd, but
Speaker 1: you can we can sit here for now and name
Speaker 1: different ones. Well, well, and let me ask you because
Speaker 1: I think we all thought, or many people thought that,
Speaker 1: you know, the nation as a whole took a giant
Speaker 1: step forward when Barack Obama was elected president. And yet
Speaker 1: here we are yes and and als, you know, after
Speaker 1: hundreds of years of of slavery and being not you know,
Speaker 1: able to vote. You know, African Americans don't even have
Speaker 1: the privilege even getting the marriage license at want at
Speaker 1: one point in time. So it's not it's gonna take
Speaker 1: more than eight years to correct the things that has
Speaker 1: been going on, and it's going to take a continue
Speaker 1: uh effort from you know, from the political side, to
Speaker 1: the spiritual side to the business side. Well, and I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the business side. You run a
Speaker 1: network that reaches you know, ninety million people in the
Speaker 1: United States. That's that has the power to be pretty influential.
Speaker 1: It's quite a platform. We see other media networks certainly
Speaker 1: using that platform to be persuasive when it comes to
Speaker 1: policies and ways of thinking in the country. So how
Speaker 1: how do you approach that with your network and what
Speaker 1: you're thinking when it comes to content creation and so on. Well,
Speaker 1: I believe that I have a great responsibility because before
Speaker 1: Impact Network was born in two thousand and ten, there
Speaker 1: was no African American, Christian or faith based of television
Speaker 1: network in our nation. We have over forty seven million
Speaker 1: African America's in this country in seventy claimed to be
Speaker 1: strong religious. UH has strong religious conviction. It was there
Speaker 1: was no voice out there. And so what we have
Speaker 1: done and what we are doing is educating the people.
Speaker 1: I feel it's a great responsibility for us in ninety
Speaker 1: million homes, and as you said, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: influence that we have when it comes to UH. The
Speaker 1: voices that we put on Impact. We have Jesse Jackson
Speaker 1: and also l Sharpton UM. This is the only network
Speaker 1: to have to UH icons, UH civil rights icons who
Speaker 1: are on every week talking about things like does that
Speaker 1: affects the UH? The community and our our effort is okay,
Speaker 1: it's time to vote, okay if we want to not
Speaker 1: spend whether Republican or Democrats, we want to put the
Speaker 1: facts out to the people. What's best for the community,
Speaker 1: what's best UH for us as a people. And so
Speaker 1: what we're doing is getting our impact to vote, getting
Speaker 1: out the vote. We're bringing on qualified people that's going
Speaker 1: to talk about the different issues than our community needs
Speaker 1: to hear and and be able to respond to it. Hey,
Speaker 1: just quickly, just got about thirty forty seconds. I am curious,
Speaker 1: curious what the viewing trends have been, the growth maybe,
Speaker 1: or what you've noticed since since the pandemic and the shutdown.
Speaker 1: And just got about forty seconds here. Okay, real quickly.
Speaker 1: It has grown up. We thought it was going to
Speaker 1: take a major hit, but it didn't because people were
Speaker 1: at home and people are looking for good family entertainment,
Speaker 1: good family viewing and all their faith. Their faith has
Speaker 1: you know, kicked in a lot of times. We know
Speaker 1: we run in and we don't think about our faith,
Speaker 1: but their faith were kicked in, and so Impact has
Speaker 1: been a killer in a lot of these homes when
Speaker 1: it comes to of this COVID nineteen and what we're
Speaker 1: going through even without economic situation. Okay, we're gonna leave
Speaker 1: it on that note. Great to get some time with you,
Speaker 1: and we wish you well. Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, He's
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of the Impact Impact Network, joining us
Speaker 1: on the phone from Detroit and as I mentioned, they've
Speaker 1: got an audience of some ninety million in the US
Speaker 1: and air on Dish, Comcast, Verizon, Fire US, and so
Speaker 1: much more