*Award-winning journalist Ed Gordon returns to Primetime television on Tuesday, Sept. 13 as Bounce TV world premieres its first-ever news magazine show Ed Gordon at 10:00 p.m. ET. Gordon serves as executive producer and host of the new original series, sitting down for investigative pieces, celebrity profiles, current event segments and human-interest feature stories. He describes it as “news and entertainment” that he hopes will “service both sides of the street.”
The series premiere features Gordon’s exclusive and emotional interview from Ferguson, Missouri with five Mothers of The Movement, Black women whose children have been victims of violence: Sybrina Fulton (Trayvon Martin), Lucia McBath (Jordan Davis), Lezley McSpadden (Michael Brown), Wanda Johnson (Oscar Grant) and Marian Tolan (Robbie Tolan).
During a recent media conference with Gordon, he said the segment with the mothers was one of those rare moments where he “really got caught up in the emotions.”
“Normally I have been really-really good at divorcing myself emotionally from most stories, but this was difficult, even for me to sit across,” he said. “Because as a parent, I’m sitting there thinking, “What if this were my child?” At one point, the tears just flowed with all of the women, and the crew got misty eyed.”
Gordon also chats with director Nate Parker and the cast of his much-anticipated slave drama “The Birth of a Nation.” Their conversation occurred prior to Parker’s rape controversy, and Gordan explained that since the decades old incident wasn’t news at the time, he saw no reason to discuss it with the director and actor. Instead, the segment will explore the controversy surrounding Parker’s past.
Gordon has been a contributing correspondent for “60 Minutes II,” “The Today Show” and “Dateline NBC,” the host of “News and Notes with Ed Gordon” on NPR, anchorman for BET and is a weekly contributor to the national Steve Harvey Radio Show.
With social media, the internet, blogs, and 24/7 media coverage, EUR/Electronic Urban Report asked Gordon about the evolution of journalism, and how it’s affecting the way he covers the news.
“The business has changed tremendously over the last decade, and it’s certainly not the business that I started in almost thirsty years ago. So with the advent of social media, I think we’ve seen pluses and minuses. I think we’ve seen the ability for anyone to be an agent of change. I think about the Mothers of The Movement, and all of these black males prior to the advent of the cell phone, who were brutalized by police and it was just their word against the police forces, and no one bought it. I think about the Rodney King video, by virtue of someone just happened to have a camcorder and shot. So we all now walk around with camcorders.”
Gordon is the recipient of an NAACP Image Award, as well as the prestigious Journalist of the Year Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. He believes one of the downsides to this digital age that we live in is that it allows anyone to believe “themselves to be a journalist.”
“We’ve seen a degradation of the news business to some degree,” he said. “And while I don’t think being a journalist is necessarily brain surgery, you really should be trained for it. Now if you want to be a social-shaper, an opinion maker, and don’t call yourself a journalist, that’s one thing. But if you call yourself a journalist, there’s certain rules that you should stick by and abide by. And I think that if you’re not trained for that, that can be detrimental.”
Gordon notes how “false stories run rampant,” and people assume that, ” ‘Well, it was on the Internet.’ As if, that made it true,” he said.
“You go online and there’s Trayvon laying on the ground, dead. I think about his mom has to see that anytime she goes online and looks up his name, or at any given time may see it come across a social media feed or on someone’s Facebook page.”
The upside to the advancements in journalism is that we have “seen revolutions started through social media.”
“We’ve seen things like Ferguson, and other incidents covered that would not have been covered in the same way,” Gordon pointed out, recalling “the Dallas police shootings” as another example.
“Ed Gordon” premieres Tuesday, September 13 at 10pm ET on Bounce TV, but the host warns not to tune in just because he’s a professional black man delivering the news on a black network.
“We have to support the things we say we want to see. Don’t support it just because it’s me. Don’t support it just because it’s black. Don’t support it for any of these reasons solely. You want to support it cause you like me and the history I’ve done? Great. You want to support black folk? Great. But also, make sure you hold us accountable. I want you to support it for those reasons, plus that it is really a good show that people [can] learn from.”
“Ed Gordon” will also include a sit down with singer-songwriter Maxwell. The multiple GRAMMY-winner opens up about his life, his music and his activism in a rare one-on-one interview.
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