Episode 34 - The Biggest Story in America with Emmanuel Felton

Diversity Hire

Hello and welcome to Episode 34 of Diversity Hire. Today’s guest was Emmanuel Felton, who is an investigative reporter at Buzzfeed. We talked about his experiences covering education and segregation in the South and in Boston, why the identity and biases of journalists matter, especially when covering race and education, what it was like to talk to Black police officers who fought back rioters at the capitol on 1/6, abolishing Ivy League schools, and much more. Kevin and Arjun also talk about their favorite snacks and the revenge of FOMO that spring will bring. Thanks for listening!

* Kevin and Arjun talk about early-onset FOMO (0:00)

* Emmanuel Felton leads us through his career timeline (8:43)

* On the diploma factory, aka Columbia Journalism School (12:48)

* How Emmanuel began covering education (15:03)

* Emmanuel’s writing a book about the Boston school desegregation program (17:42)

* The new mainstream media interest about desegregation (20:50)

* How are people rationalizing resegregation (re: “The Department of Justice Is Overseeing the Resegregation of American Schools,” The Nation, 2017) (23:17)

* Who “gets” to tell the story about school segregation? (25:00)

* Being a justice-oriented reporter (27:45)

* Will the media start ignoring stories of injustice under Biden? (29:50)

* Joining BuzzFeed and covering race and racism (33:19)

* Reporting on Black cops at the insurrection (re: “Black Police Officers Describe The Racist Attacks They Faced As They Protected The Capitol,” BuzzFeed News, 2020) (36:20)

* Coving Black police officers in the aftermath of last year’s protests (42:30)

* On living in SoHo (47:10)

* Arjun’s Feelings Don’t Have Facts Corner (49:07)

* The Diversity Tribunal (55:03)

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