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Five takeaways by a longtime NABJ member from Trump’s appearance before Black journalists
Former President Donald Trump walks off stage after speaking at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on Wednesday.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
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Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
Chicago, Ill. — At first, it felt like watching a slow-motion car crash.
I wasn’t actually in the room when Donald Trump brought his toxic rhetoric to the National Association of Black Journalists national convention Wednesday. But I was nearly there, sitting in a taxicab headed from the airport to the conference at the Hilton Chicago downtown, watching a livestream video as the former president insulted a roomful of Black journalists after ABC’s Rachel Scott opened with a tough question.
Scott asked about several instances where Trump said racist things, from falsely insisting Barack Obama wasn’t born in America to calling Black journalists losers and racist. Trump’s response was a torrent of barely-connected ideas, including a complaint that NABJ brought him to Chicago under “false pretenses” because they didn’t work out details to get Vice President Kamala Harris to make a similar, in-person appearance at the convention.
“I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said, drawing scoffs from the crowd. “That is my answer.”
In a flash, it felt like all the predictions critics made of inviting Trump to address Black journalists came true. He was offering his usual torrent of accusations, assertions and insults – some outrageous, most inflated – creating word salad that moderators struggled to fact-check in the moment, raising fears that he owned the organization at its own conference.
As a 34-year member of NABJ, I had my own qualms. Not about inviting Trump – the group has invited the major party candidates for president to its national conferences for many years, to platform questions on issues involving people of color. But, among other things, I objected to seeing an anchor from the right-leaning cable channel Fox News among the three people questioning Trump. (Though I have volunteered for decades as chair of the NABJ’s Media Monitoring Committee, I had nothing to do with organizing Trump’s appearance).
And I worried about the optics of a Black journalists’ group offering a prime panel spot to a politician who had attacked Black journalists, while the Black and Asian woman also running for president would not appear.
But, after some reflection and talking with other members at the conference, I think the actual impact of Trump’s appearance is more nuanced. Here’s my five takeaways from what happened.
Trump’s appearance pushed NABJ to face tension between its status as a journalism organization and an advocate for fair treatment of Black journalists and, by extension, Black people.
This is an idea I heard from a friend and fellow journalist/NABJ member, and it rings true. As journalists, we jump at the chance to ask direct questions of a former president who has often stoked racial fears, from birtherism attacks against Obama and Harris to false claims about undocumented immigrants.
But our website also notes that NABJ “advocates on behalf of Black journalists and media professionals,” honoring those who provide “balanced coverage of the Black community and society at large.” I’ve always felt that if the media industry can give Black journalists a fair shot, we can help provide more accurate, less prejudiced coverage of everything – particularly issues involving marginalized groups.
That’s why some NABJ members chafed at platforming Trump, with his long history of racist statements, at a conference aimed at reducing the prejudice Black journalists face every day. But I think part of reaching NABJ’s goals involves Black journalists learning how to confront racist ideas; trying to get Trump to explain himself in front of a group of Black media professionals seems pretty in line with that mission.
NABJ president Ken Lemon asserted during the conference’s opening ceremonies later that day that the group is, at its core, a journalism organization. On this day, at least, it’s obvious the journalism side took precedence.
Former President Donald Trump shakes hands with ABC’s Rachel Scott, one of the journalists who moderated the event at NABJ in Chicago on Wednesday.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
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Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
If the goal was to get Trump to reveal his terrible takes on race to the world – mission accomplished.
Lots of media outlets focused on his awful comments on how Harris “suddenly” became Black in his eyes. Trump tried the classic maneuver of turning an opponent’s advantage against them, acting as if the embrace of Harris as a history-making Black and Asian woman in politics was the result of some cynical marketing spin.
“I did not know she was Black until a couple of years ago when she happened to turn Black,” he said. “And now she wants to be known as Black. Is she Indian, or is she Black?”
True enough, the questioners struggled to pin Trump down on exactly why he talks about race the way he does. Or how he can believe such ideas aren’t racist.
Still, what Trump did say mostly made him look old-fashioned and prejudiced. Will it appeal to his base? Perhaps – but the moment didn’t feel like a strong, confident leader puncturing racial hypocrisy.
It seemed more like the wandering statements of someone who just doesn’t understand America’s modern melting pot of ethnicities.
Sometimes, with Trump, there is value in having an interviewer on hand who he trusts.
Much as I disliked seeing an anchor from a news organization that has won the NABJ’s Thumbs Down Award twice on the panel, Fox News’ Harris Faulkner did get Trump to open up a bit with less-pointed but telling questions.
In particular, when Trump said he thought the vice presidential candidates had “virtually no impact” on election results, he seemed to put into perspective his relationship with JD Vance while belittling the guy he is supposed to spend months alongside in a tight campaign.
There are other journalists from less partisan news outlets who likely could have achieved the same moment. But there is value in having one journalist in the mix who doesn’t immediately raise Trump’s defenses and might provoke more telling responses.
Former President Donald Trump appears on a panel at NABJ on Wednesday in Chicago. From left, ABC’s Rachel Scott, Semafor’s Kadia Goba and FOX News’ Harris Faulkner moderated the event.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
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Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
Trump is a chaos agent who divides people and divides NABJ
In the end, I was less concerned about how NABJ looked to the world in the wake of Trump’s visit than how it deals with itself.
As news of the panel spread, many journalists spoke out passionately against having him at the conference, reasoning that any appearance would likely benefit him more than the group, platforming his terrible rhetoric about racial issues. Well-known figures like Roland Martin and April Ryan – who Trump criticized when he was president – spoke out; Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah quit her post as convention co-chair amid the controversy.
There are also tough questions about why the group couldn’t work out an arrangement to have Harris appear at the convention virtually, given that she was flying to Houston for the funeral of friend and sorority sister Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
Considering the intense emotions at hand over the coming election and widespread skepticism about coverage decisions by journalists, there’s lots of criticism and bruising assumptions about what happened here.
This is the kind of division that can hobble NABJ in the future as people cancel memberships, decline to volunteer, hold back donations and continue to criticize the group’s direction. I expect the group’s membership meeting, scheduled for Saturday morning, will draw lots of pointed feedback from those who still question the wisdom of welcoming the former president here.
As someone who can attribute almost every major job I’ve gotten to connections made at an NABJ convention, this heightened squabbling is what I fear most – a distraction at a time when job losses and cutbacks in media have made times even more challenging for journalists of color.
In a way, NABJ played Trump’s game – and may have had some success
Another friend noted that Trump – who commands loyalty from GOP voters — has always valued dominating the news cycle, regardless of whether the stories are complimentary. His NABJ appearance ensured everything from the network evening news programs to The Daily Show focused on his comments here rather than Harris’ increasingly energized campaign.
As I saw criticism build over Trump’s visit, I wondered if NABJ wasn’t like a scrappy dog who finally caught a passing car – after years of GOP candidates declining invitations, finally one of the most divisive Republicans in modern politics was accepted. And the consequences of hosting him – particularly when Harris would not appear at the convention – loomed large.
But in the end, NABJ also landed at the top of the news cycle at a time when – as announced by the group during its opening ceremony – the convention drew the largest number of attendees in its history, over 4,000.
Yes, many supporters felt, as I did initially, that the appearance was a train wreck. But NABJ also showed the world three Black female journalists questioning Trump on some of his most provocative statements on race, with telling answers.
In a world where any publicity can be good publicity, that just might be enough.
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On-air challenge
Every answer is a familiar three-word phrase, in which the first and last words are the same, and the middle word is “to.”
Ex. Like a lease that has no expiration date –> MONTH TO MONTH
1. Consecutive, as wins
2. Like carpet that fully covers a room
3. Clear across the United States
4. [Fill in the blank:] ___ resuscitation
5. Deeply personal, as a conversation between two people
6. Like heavy traffic
7. How a traveling salesman may go around a neighborhood
8. The time 9:50
9. Like two people directly in front of each other
10. When making a comparison, things you should compare because they’re alike
11. Kind of defense in basketball
12. [Double:] Line from a burial service suggesting the transience of physical life
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge comes from James Ellison, of Jefferson City, Mo. Think of a popular movie of the past decade. Change the last letter in its title. The result will suggest a lawsuit between two politicians of the late 20th century — one Republican and one Democrat. What’s the movie and who are the people?
Answer: “Ford v Ferrari” –> (Gerald) Ford vs. (Geraldine) Ferraro
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from Gordon Legge, of South Minneapolis, Minn. Name an animal whose first five letters in order spell a religious figure. And if you change the animal’s next-to-last letter, its last five letters in order will spell another religious figure. What animal is this?
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it here by Thursday, April 30 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: include a phone number where we can reach you.
I stir in the dark. So do the others. There are around 30 of us, maybe more — all experiencing the soundscape of the quartz bowls; a tech-free hour designed for us to commune with memory, creativity and emotion. A chime brings the sound bath to its formal end, signaling us to reacquaint ourselves with the physical present, to officially “wake up.” Slipping out of blankets and off of tall, puffy mattresses, we give thanks, take a crystal, a mantra card … and leave the giant mattress warehouse for the bright lights of Glendale Boulevard.
While not affiliated with any specific modality, the sound bath inside the Atwater Village branch of Mattress Central has a cult-like following. The brainchild of practitioner Alice Moon, the event (which often sells out) is one of many nontraditional wellness offerings from her company Moon Soul Sound Baths. At the monthly event, her patrons gather at the store, select a mattress (alone or with a friend), get cozy and swap the static of the world for the soothing harmonics of Moon’s quartz bowls.
As you might imagine, Moon is fairly nontraditional herself. She grew up in New Orleans and after Hurricane Katrina she felt compelled to make a change. She came to L.A. for a long vacation and ended up staying.
“I just wanted to take a month-long trip,” Moon said. “But when I got here I was like, this is the missing puzzle piece that my life needed.”
In Los Angeles, Moon embraced cannabis culture. She became a self-taught cannabis industry PR professional and even created a tech start-up for locating edibles based on dietary needs (a kind of Yelp for cannabis, she explained). But after being diagnosed with cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a condition in which long-term cannabis users can suffer from symptoms like severe nausea, she again felt a need for change.
Alice Moon plays an ocean drum while walking around participants; her sessions are 50 minutes long.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
“That kind of flipped my world upside down,” Moon said. “I went on this journey of trying to find things that brought me joy, the same way that cannabis did.”
Sound baths were the answer, helping Moon feel calm, positive and connected to herself. After years of practicing, Moon felt inspired to share her love of sound baths with others. “One day I woke up and I said, you know what? I feel like it is my time to bring that type of peace to other people.”
With her social media savvy and PR sensibilities at play, Moon wanted to create an experience that would be extra comfortable … and, of course, memorable. Inspired by other wellness practitioners, Moon reached out to Mattress Central to create her own version of the trend. A couple million views on Threads and hundreds of fans later, her baths book well in advance and to rave reviews. While Moon’s frequently sold-out mattress store offering has clearly made a splash on the L.A. wellness scene — it’s not the only one.
Heather Fink, left, and Nubia Jimenez, right, recline and wear sleep masks during a relaxing sound bath.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
In West Hollywood, Barry Raccio is also host to a highly coveted mattress store sound bath. With a background in Kundalini yoga, breath work, meditation and sound healing, Raccio is a 20-year veteran of the wellness space. In Hästens mattress showroom on Beverly Boulevard, he hosts a small but sought-after sound bath happening called the “Deep Reset Luxury Sound Bath Experience.”
At the event, Raccio — who’s facilitated baths for companies including Chanel, BMW and the Parker Hotel — pours tea, plays instruments (including the traditional quartz bowls) and holds court among ultra-premium Hästens beds, including the $720,000 Grand Vividus mattress, called “the most expensive mattress in the world.”
On these ultra-luxury mattresses, a small group of 10, maybe 12 people experience the crystal bowls and “heal their nervous systems” much deeper than a normal bath — one profound, restful hour away from the chaos of the modern world. It’s a more intimate, more opulent version of Moon’s baths, but with a similar healing effect (and yes — you can book the Grand Vividus for the occasion).
Alice Moon performs with crystal singing bowls.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
“Rest is a luxury,” Raccio says. “Because [the mattresses] are so comfortable, they conform to bodies without needing anything under your knees or even a pillow. You’re just so supported that the nervous system drops in much quicker and the relaxation process is even more profound. The effects of the sound healing even go deeper.”
In their own ways, Raccio and Moon’s mattress store sound baths are tapping into a collective need for rest, but beyond that — a gentle pause from technology for one’s own well-being. The chakra-balancing work of a sound bath coupled with the uniquely relaxing context of a mattress store gets guests there and beyond (deep sleep and snoring are commonplace at these events).
“At the mattress store, it’s like, you can really, really relax. And I just want people to feel comfortable and safe and, you know, just a moment for them,” Moon said. “That’s what it really is. It’s a moment for everyone to just, like, be there for themselves.”
In 1995, when Madonna held herself a lavish 37th birthday party, she chose a suitably trendy location: the Delano, the Art Deco Miami Beach hotel that the impresario Ian Schrager had transformed into a magnet for the glamorati and guests that aspired to be like them.
With its tastemaker clientele and discreet yet indulgent atmosphere, the hotel felt like a mix of a St. Tropez resort crossed with a fashion week after party.
“There were the cool rock star people, there were the Hollywood billionaire types, the downtown fashion New York people, people swimming naked in the pool at 1 a.m.,” said David Barton, the popular trainer whose gym had a branch in the hotel for several years. “You were just in this other world.”
A couple of decades before celebrities’ every move was documented on social media, the Delano was a safe space for revelry without consequences, perhaps with some selfie-free relaxation thrown in. The ambience stretched throughout the property, which included poolside bungalows and Blue Door restaurant, of which Madonna was an owner.
“It was really the Miami equivalent of Studio 54,” said Paul Wilmot, a former fashion publicist and Delano regular in its mid-90s heyday.
Next month, after closing in 2020, cycling through several ownership changes and undergoing a redesign that cost about $100 million, the hotel, in its latest incarnation, Delano Miami Beach, is scheduled to reopen. The reconstituted version is decidedly different than Schrager’s, focusing on pranayama breathing instead of partying and matcha lattes over martinis, with a bit of the atmosphere you might expect at a Soho House thrown in.
The aim, said Ben Pundole, the chief brand officer for Delano Hotels, is “to capture the current zeitgeist of wellness and experience and community.”
These days, getting the in crowd to South Beach may be a challenge. In the past decade or so, other neighborhoods — the Miami Design District, Downtown Miami, Little River, Coconut Grove and Wynwood — have stolen its alluring thunder.
“It’s been a nonfactor for so many years,” Ingrid Casares, a Miami native and an owner of Liquid, the defunct nightclub that opened in South Beach the same week as Schrager’s iteration of the Delano, said of the neighborhood.
“Back in the 1990s, it was like a small village, like Ibiza almost,” she said. “It was a very quaint town where we all knew each other.”
Pundole added that, with the new Delano, “we really have a responsibility to bring some of that back.”
Today’s Delano includes 171 guest rooms, with rates starting at $395. The décor is still imbued with some of the grandeur that guests of a certain age will remember, like extra-high ceilings and grand columns on the ground floor. The new design is sleeker and less imposing, without most of the quirky details — a giant outdoor chess set, diaphanous curtains wafting inside the lobby — dreamed up by the architect and interior designer Philippe Starck.
Where a giant Starck-designed white chair once sat, there’s now a cafe to grab a decaf oat cappuccino; at the renovated Rose Bar, the menu includes mocktails built on ginger ale or soda water alongside Negronis and old-fashioneds. In the basement spa, guests can order CBD shots or mushroom “coffee” and sit in a 22-seat communal sauna designed for what Pundole called “social wellness.”
Miami Beach itself is aiming to rebrand itself around wellness, too. In February, the city introduced its spring break campaign, this year called “Break a Sweat.” On its website, an image of a yoga class on the beach with participants in the downward dog position is captioned “Bottoms Up.” Under a photo of a muscle-clad man inverted over a workout bar, the caption reads, “This is our kind of hang over.”
“That’s an evolution also of what’s happening in our society,” said Steven Meiner, the mayor of Miami Beach. “Drinking is down, especially in the younger generation, and that is being felt and impacted in Miami Beach, as well.”
Miami Beach — a different city than Miami, strictly speaking — is seemingly trying to shift away from its image as a hotbed of partying, especially during spring break. Beyond late-night cacophony, the revelry on South Beach streets like Ocean Drive had a reputation for being potentially dangerous. Sometimes, it lived up to that image: In March 2023, shootings caused two deaths.
“We saw a level of chaos and, unfortunately, violence in the past that we’ve cleaned up the last couple years,” Meiner said. Through measures like increased police visibility, Miami Beach reduced its crime rate by about 20 percent last year compared with 2024.
“South Beach is maturing,” said Lara Koslow, a Miami-based managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, a global management firm. “It’s moving from a party-first identity toward a more curated, luxury-lifestyle positioning.”
As for its history of debauchery, she said, “that’s both an opportunity and a challenge.”
Perhaps with that in mind, some hotels close to the Delano that were once its chic competitors — the Raleigh, the Sagamore and the Shore Club — are also being reconceived. Nearby, the Fasano Group and Aman Resorts have properties in the works, too.
The opening of hotels like a Miami Beach Aman “could be just enough to have another resurgence down there,” Schrager said.
As for the new Delano, he said: “I don’t really know much about the reopening. I only really know about what we did and the pivotal impact it had on Miami Beach.”
The Delano’s footprint is poised to go well beyond South Beach. It is now a chain with Delano-branded hotels planned in a handful of cities, including New York, over the next few years. There are already Delanos in Paris and Dubai. A Delano-ifed apartment building intends to break ground in Downtown Miami next year.
With the reinvented Delano now set to open in South Beach next month, the question is: Can it survive as a wellness destination?
“Maybe that time has come and gone,” Barton said. “I don’t know that you can recreate what happened at the Delano.”
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