-By Warner Todd Huston
In December, ABC’s World News saw no news at all in the historic appointment of African American Tim Scott to the Senate in South Carolina. No mention was made of it during the broadcast.
Only a month later, though, the same program suddenly hailed African American William “Mo” Cowan’s appointment to the Senate as history making.
When Republican Tim Scott was appointed to fill retiring Senator Jim DeMint’s Senate seat he became the first African American from South Carolina to be sent to the Senate since 1881. Further, when he took his seat he was the only black Senator from either party in Washington D.C. But despite all these notable historic facts, ABC’s World News never mentioned Scott’s appointment.
However, this month when the Governor of Massachusetts appointed African American, Democrat Mo Cowan to finish out John Kerry’s term, ABC suddenly found it to be a moment worthy of coverage.
During the January 30 broadcast of World News, anchor Dianne Sawyer was effusive over Cowan’s appointment.
And there’s another note out of Washington tonight. Look closely at this picture. That is William ‘Mo’ Cowan of Massachusetts. He will be heading to Washington, DC soon and straight into the history books. He will take over the Senate seat of the new Secretary of State, John Kerry. And that means, for the first time in America’s 236-year history, we will have two African-American Senators serving at one time in the Senate. The other is Tim Scott of South Carolina.
To recap, the first African American wasn’t news worthy enough to mention, but the second African American is history making.
As to the other two networks, Brent Baker notes that CBS Evening News ignored both appointments while NBC’s Nightly News reported both.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.