WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (Host): The 1970s were a time of change in Memphis media. The Commercial Appeal, which had long been a conservative paper, hired three Black reporters in important roles. Jerome Wright covered the cops beat. He later became a city editor. Karanja Ajanaku covered city hall and went on to be the editor of the Tri-State Defender. Then there was a farmer's son from Como, Miss. who became the federal courts reporter. Today, listeners may know him as WKNO's political analyst Otis Sanford. Welcome back.
OTIS SANFORD: Thank you, Chris, and thank you for that great introduction.
BLANK: Otis, you wrote a lovely tribute to Karanja Ajanaku who passed away this week. And it got me thinking about the three of you as the faces of diversity at a time when there was no term like DEI. And I see some relevance here today. Let me start by asking you: what was behind this editorial decision to diversify the newsroom, and in a larger sense, Memphis media as a whole?
SANFORD: The truth is, Chris, that after Dr. King's assassination in 1968, there were some people in the newsroom who realized that the Commercial Appeal was, for lack of a better term here, a lily white organization. But the effort really picked up when Michael Grehl became the editor in 1975. He saw that the newspaper had a commitment to be more reflective of the community. So, he was bound and determined to do that. And he had editors directly up under him who bought into it as well.
BLANK: You say "bought into." Buying into this idea that a newsroom is better when it's diverse: It doesn't sound like that should be a hard sell, but maybe it was at the time.
SANFORD: Absolutely, it was. Some of our listeners may not know about something called the Kerner Commission that came about after the race riots in 1965, 66, 67. President Lyndon Johnson put together a commission. Part of that commission stated that the news media needed to do a better job of having racial diversity and covering more diverse topics, and [it] even said that communities like Memphis should make it an effort to reflect the population of the community. It may sound preposterous now to think that that was something that needed to be intentional, but it was, because of the history of media, especially newspapers in this country.
BLANK: 50 years later, it seems strange that this idea of encouraging diversity has become such a divisive political issue. And as soon as the Trump Administration ended DEI programs, state Republicans here in Tennessee passed a law forbidding local governments to even consider minority status in things like public contracts. Maybe we could use some historical perspective on why the city started these initiatives to begin with.
SANFORD: Look at the numbers here. Memphis is almost 65% African American. The county is over 50% African American population. To say that we have to have a long, drawn-out discussion about whether African American business owners, entrepreneurs, professionals should be included in government contracting and government business and even government jobs is a conversation that's out of the 1970s and 80s, to be quite frank with you. But I just believe that if the local leaders are smart enough, and I think they are, you don't have to call it "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion." You can call it anything you want. But you still need to have a commitment that government business is spread equally among people who deserve a chance to serve at the highest levels of government in this community.
BLANK: On a sort of professional note, years ago on my first day as a reporter at the Commercial Appeal, I was given a desk right next to your former friend and colleague, Jerome Wright. And he was the one who gave me the tutorial on Memphis politics. And then for years, Karanja Ajanaku was the night editor, and he was the one fixing my stories at 10 at night. And, of course, you were the Managing Editor of the newspaper, and now you're a friend of mine. And I mention this because no part of my own career has been without Black mentorship or guidance. I am a beneficiary of DEI. And I wonder if you think maybe we've been talking about this the wrong way?
SANFORD: Maybe the effort to just be who we are, which is a professional in a business that we love doing, communicating, writing, reporting. Maybe we have been talking about this wrongly. What we did was based not on our race, but on our ability, our love of the profession, and our commitment to help others like you. If you wanted to be a good journalist, Jerome, Karanja, and I, and others, were there to help make that happen, and I think we did a real fine job of doing it.
