Byron Allen: Media has 'blind spot' in covering race

Byron Allen the founder and CEO of the Allen Media Group talks about the way media is covering racial tensions and injustice within the United States.

Video Transcript

BYRON ALLEN: I think there's a big blind spot. And I think that's because, at the end of the day, 99.9% of the media is going through the lens of white owners and white managers. I wrote an op ed called "Black America Speaks, America Should Listen, What We Need to Do to Never Come Back Here Again." And I offered it to a number of newspapers to run it as an op ed. And it was consistently rejected.

And I knew that they would reject it. And that's why I went and bought 16 pages. Because it was two pages to print it out, 16 pages in eight different newspapers around the country, the "Wall Street Journal," the "New York Post," the "Washington Post"-- I'm sorry, the "New York Times," the "Washington Post," and on and on.

And I really wanted to talk to America, in a way, so that we can go to the next step and really take what we've learned from Martin Luther King, who taught us that there are two Americas. One America has access to education, and opportunity, and jobs, and mentorship, and capital that's not predatory. And the other America does not. And two Americas will not survive.

Well, Dr. Martin Luther King shared these thoughts, these brilliant thoughts, with us over half a century ago. And now, we're watching it unfold. And what's happening is that we now have to become one America. We have to make sure that every American is positioned to succeed; that every American has access to an education that's free; every American has access to health care, you don't have to worry about health care because that's your God-given right; every American has an opportunity for success, whether it's jobs, or business, or capital to buy a business or start a business.

We have to position each and every American to succeed to its fullest. Because we have to compete as one nation, as one tribe, the American tribe. Because we have a lot of emerging nations around the world who are doing a much better job of educating their citizens--