Roland Blasts White Media Fixation While Black Media Builds The Trust They Need

[00:00:00]The reality is too many of them, Reece, are fixated on white media.

[00:00:07]>> Folks are mobilizing and organizing.

[00:00:11]And again, if I'm sitting in the position cuz I know what we do.

[00:00:16]You're covering these things. We're We're amplifying these things.

[00:00:20]But if I am sitting in these positions, >> [clears throat] >> if I am one of these generals that's a part of this plan, I'm looking at this whole landscape and I'm going, "Okay, how do people get information?"

[00:00:37]So, I'm going to have a listing of all of these syndicated um black radio shows.

[00:00:47]Then I'm going to identify the top 30 urban markets, which really are black markets.

[00:00:57]And I'mma say, in each one of those cities, is that morning show a syndicated show?

[00:01:06]Is it Ricky Smiley? Is it Steve Harvey?

[00:01:08]Or is it local?

[00:01:10]And then, what about the afternoon drive show?

[00:01:15]Then I'm going to look at Then I'm going to go look at say, "Okay, what in those markets are there any talk shows?"

[00:01:24]Then I'mma look at And then when I talk about syndicated And I talk about syndicated, I'm I'm including Sirius in that.

[00:01:32]But I'm not just including the shows on the Urban View.

[00:01:39]So then I'm over here, I'm looking at, "Okay, what are the black digital outlets?"

[00:01:46]Then I'm looking at, "What are the black news and information podcast digital shows?"

[00:01:54]Then I'm looking at, "What are the podcasts that does news and culture and not just fixated on entertainment and sports.

[00:02:01]Okay? So, I'm I'm sitting here looking at all So, now all of a sudden I have I have now created this matrix of a media of the media ecosystem.

[00:02:12]Then I'm sitting here taking that and I'm then going, "Okay, who are we sending on Monday?

[00:02:20]Tuesday?

[00:02:22]Wednesday?

[00:02:23]Thursday?

[00:02:25]Friday?

[00:02:27]Saturday?

[00:02:28]Sunday?

[00:02:31]Then Monday?

[00:02:33]Tuesday?

[00:02:35]Wednesday?

[00:02:36]Thursday?

[00:02:37]Friday?

[00:02:38]Saturday? Sunday? Why am I doing that?

[00:02:41]Because the opposition the opposition has Fox News, Newsmax, One America OAN.

[00:02:52]They've got Salem Radio, Sinclair, Nexstar, NewsNation, their right-wing network. Uh they've got the digital properties. So, they got this entire ecosystem.

[00:03:08]Progressives and black people and Democrats, Rece, if we really really want to be honest, you know how they're thinking?

[00:03:19]New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, MSNBC, they're thinking ABC, NBC, CBS. We're going to They all They all NPR, they are all important.

[00:03:35]And then we're going to go down.

[00:03:37]And then we're going to go down to the next level.

[00:03:40]And then here, that's where they actually have black media.

[00:03:45]On that fourth level, not that first-tier level.

[00:03:50]And then what invariably happens, Rece, you talked about this all the times. So, when you go through social media and then you begin to see what clips black people post.

[00:04:03]Oh, all of I mean I black people were posting like crazy when Rachel Maddow did not a whole show.

[00:04:14]Not half a show.

[00:04:17]But did a segment on the attack on the Republicans attack attack on black America.

[00:04:25]Folk was sitting here. I I saw it. And in the segment she actually interviewed a Asian lawyer from the ACLU.

[00:04:34]And I saw it and I was in matter of fact, three people hit me that night saying Roland look like Rachel following what you do.

[00:04:43]And I just sat there and I watched it, E.

[00:04:45]But I watched I waited for the reaction.

[00:04:47]And folk that y'all see this? Rachel's talking about the GOP attack on black America. And I was like, yeah, we did a whole 2 hours tonight.

[00:04:56]And the next night and the next night.

[00:04:58]This is part of the problem here.

[00:05:02]That all of these black folks who are involved in organizing and mobilizing and stuff along those lines, the reality is too many of them, E., are fixated on white media and not driving the information to black owned media first and black targeted media second.

[00:05:30]>> It's true. I mean, before I was ever on this show, before I ever had my own show, before I ever was on SiriusXM, I was screaming from the rooftops. Black media, black media. So, I'm not saying this because I'm in black media. I was saying this when I was making videos from my my Okay? So, it's been a very long time when we singing this tune, but the reality is that you have a couple things at play. Number one, even though black people are the tastemakers, we still are following behind whoever was on CNN at a time, on MSNBC at a time. Now that they've gone digital, now it's oh, let's look at the digital stuff. Oh, black media is Now that's black media. The ex, you know, major networks people who, you know, black media has been doing That's no shade because I I go on Don's show and I go on other shows as well. But the reality is that there's still this hierarchy that people have placed this unwarranted, in my view, weight on the big networks even though those networks don't really speak to our community. And to be honest, those networks don't move the needle in our community, either.

[00:06:31]The people that are moving the needle are the people that speak to our issues every day, in depth, that bring on people that look like us to talk about our issues, every day. Not topical, but every day we have that lens. And yet, there's still people who haven't caught up to where the community is. Now, the online sphere, that's a different story. That's I don't know if we'll ever be the the mainstream when we get our class I've made it to 500,000 followers across all the spectrums without I hardly ever getting reposted.

[00:07:04]I don't get reposted on nothing. Most people don't even share my Okay, nobody famous does. And yet I still managed to build this platform, but when you look at what we do in person, when we've done things in person, Clay and I have sold out our tours every single year, book tours, in-person events. You you rolling when you're a keynote speaker or whenever you do stuff, people follow. Black Voters Matter when they do stuff, people follow. And so, and you know, In Class with Car, and and with Dr. Car and Karen Hunter. So, there's all this evidence of the impact, there's all this evidence of the credibility, and yet there's not much investment that goes in the people who do have the credibility, the people who do the work, whether we get a check, whether somebody comes on our show or not, we're going to talk about it. And so, that's where the missed opportunity is. And it's a missed opportunity for those politicians because our shows are going to continue to be here.

[00:07:56]Our audiences are going to continue to be here. When they win, whether they lose, we still here.

[00:08:01]Whether they win or lose, the show goes on for us. So, when they wake up to it, when they wake up to the power of a black media the same way that Republicans woke up to the power of Charlie Kirk before he was anybody. He never He didn't even have a college degree. He didn't have nothing. They built a Charlie Kirk. They built all these people. They invested in them.

[00:08:21]When they wake up to not being so focused on who's a household name or who's famous enough, and they get away from now everything is about content creators, which you need.

[00:08:33]You need a whole ecosystem. When they get away from that instant gratification of making a video and then ooh, let's look at the comments. Oh, yeah, yeah, I got all this many likes and this and that. You don't get that satisfaction when you're doing a show, okay? A show of 2 hours a day, 3 hours a day. You don't get that instant feedback, but that is important because that is how you build the credibility that allows you to come and say this is the game plan, this is what we doing. All right, this is the person that we co-signing.

[00:09:01]Let's get behind them. This is where we're meeting to protest. This is who we're boycotting. You have to build that relationship with the community before you give people marching orders. And that is what is missing. It's all about instant gratification. It's all about getting the big marquee names. It's all about the people who have millions of followers. And it's not enough about actually investing in people who already have the credibility and investing the time with the audience of those people.

[00:09:30]Now, that's the only free political advice that I'm going to give people.

[00:09:33]>> [laughter] >> But what I do know is that whether they come on our show or not, whether we get however many followers or not, we going to continue to do the work cuz that's our charge and that's what our purpose is. And the proof is in the pudding of what we've been able to accomplish even without the kind of money that the Republicans get, the kind of fame that they get, the kind of awards that other people get, the kind of accolades, the invites, to any of that. And that's no shade. Everybody who gets those deserves them. But even without that, we still going to do what we need to do.

[00:10:00]>> And see the the thing the reason we are I'm laying this out cuz I need people to understand, Greg.

[00:10:07]Uh we're not fixated on attention.

[00:10:12]We're not fixated on uh me me me me me.

[00:10:15]No, no, no. We're trying to explain to people how they just did it. You just said it.

[00:10:21]Did anybody know who Charlie Kirk was?

[00:10:24]But that ecosystem that ecosystem elevated.

[00:10:30]That's what happened.

[00:10:32]And so when we're talking about this here, uh I was thinking about thinking back um we were in Montgomery.

[00:10:40]And I thought about I was just sitting, Greg. I'm over there and I'm looking at uh the riser.

[00:10:47]And I'm looking at how many media outlets were on the riser.

[00:10:55]And then I was just watching how they just began to get smaller and get smaller and get smaller.

[00:11:05]I think about when Bishop Barber, when they had their event, the Poor People's Campaign here in Washington, D.C.

[00:11:13]Uh it was in June of Was it 24 or 25? I got the video of it. I'm going to pull it up.

[00:11:19]And I remember >> [snorts] >> it was a PR firm that was hired to do some work.

[00:11:27]Let's just say um uh Was it a white Was it a white woman, uh Carol?

[00:11:35]The white woman with the Was it a white woman?

[00:11:38]The white woman who I who was a little perturbed cuz she felt that we were taking up too much space.

[00:11:46]So, she came over and she was really upset. She felt that we that our footprint, Greg, was a little too large.

[00:11:55]We have these spaces all the other media outlets.

[00:11:59]And I was like, "First, we ain't moving."

[00:12:02]So, let's just be real clear.

[00:12:04]We ain't moving.

[00:12:06]Um, but mind you, it was a lot of space.

[00:12:10]What was hilarious is um, they didn't show up.

[00:12:18]Then it was real funny. That was a sister who They sent a sister over.

[00:12:22]And I got they I guess they thought the sister was going to somehow make a difference.

[00:12:28]So, the sister came over.

[00:12:30]And oh, oh, what did she say, Carol? Oh, she was Yeah, she had heard about Roland Martin.

[00:12:39]She said, "Well, I heard about Roland."

[00:12:41]Now, I didn't know what that means.

[00:12:44]Oh, I I I heard how he could be difficult. No.

[00:12:48]See, I'm not difficult.

[00:12:51]I'm consistent.

[00:12:53]See, Greg, what I'm not going to allow I'm not going to allow white publicists or black publicists white organizational leaders or black organizational leaders to minimize our space and you give all your attention to ABC, NBC, CBS.

[00:13:24]Like I said, they never showed up.

[00:13:29]That day, in fact, I remember I did a hit from when the march was over for Symone Sanders weekend show on MSNBC.

[00:13:44]And they connected to our live view.

[00:13:53]Just want to show y'all, just so y'all can understand.

[00:13:56]People watching at home.

[00:13:59]They connected to ours.

[00:14:02]Cuz they DIDN'T HAVE A CAMERA OUT THERE.

[00:14:03]NOW, GO to the other shot. Go to the other shot. Go to the wide shot. They connected to our live view cuz they didn't have a camera there. I'm about to mess y'all up. Stay on it.

[00:14:18]Now, y'all know we streamed in Montgomery.

[00:14:22]WE SENT THE FEED.

[00:14:27]CARE, which paper was it? Was it the Washington Post, Care?

[00:14:31]We sent the feed to 50 other platforms. Different people said, um, no, no, no. Give me Go back to the other shot. Stay on it.

[00:14:42]WE SENT THE FEED WITH IT. Y'ALL, I NEED Y'ALL to understand.

[00:14:46]These cost like 20 grand each.

[00:14:49]The rack unit is like $40,000.

[00:14:52]This is the new one. This is the LU900.

[00:14:55]This is the LU800. We got another one of these.

[00:14:58]This is the top of line. Every other network, they own these. We got three of them.

[00:15:04]Okay?

[00:15:06]The Washington Post hits us up.

[00:15:11]Hey, um, um, um, do y'all have a clean feed of Do y'all have a clean Oh, it was it was the New York Times. Uh the New York The New York Times said, "Do you all have a clean feed of the March?"

[00:15:31]Y'all need to pull up in the control room. Pull pull the March up. We were like, "Huh?"

[00:15:37]So, what they didn't want, y'all, the New York Times didn't want to pick up the stream that had all roads lead to the South, that had the Black Star Network logo, and that had our crawl. They They didn't want to use that.

[00:15:57]So, can we get a clean feed?

[00:16:00]No, New York Times.

[00:16:03]CUZ YOU DIDN'T PAY FOR THIS.

[00:16:10]THE New York TIMES IS A PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANY.

[00:16:13]THEY GOT THEY MAKE MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

[00:16:17]Y'ALL DIDN'T SEND NOBODY.

[00:16:21]NO, that's the wrong one. That's the one in Selma. That's the wrong one. Pull up the one from Montgomery.

[00:16:26]Y'ALL DIDN'T SEND Y'ALL DIDN'T SEND Y'ALL CAMERA TO MONTGOMERY.

[00:16:32]Y'ALL DIDN'T SEND Y'ALL CREW TO MONTGOMERY.

[00:16:37]WE HAD 14 PEOPLE. WE PAID FOR A crew in Selma, a crew in Montgomery. No.

[00:16:45]They didn't want to run this.

[00:16:47]Cuz see, if they ran that on their pages, it's going to say Roland Martin Unfiltered. It's going to say Black Star Network. You goddamn right it's going to say that.

[00:16:57]Cuz we paid for it.

[00:17:00]Y'all, the point I'm making here, Greg, the people need to understand.

[00:17:08]If you are hoping and praying that they show up to cover you, okay, let's say the New York Times covered the March on that Saturday.

[00:17:23]What they cover on Monday?

[00:17:26]What they cover on Tuesday?

[00:17:28]And Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday. What was their coverage every day since?

[00:17:41]This is what I'm talking about when you're in a war. When you're in a war, you have to be understanding of the battle that you are in. It's