Black mayoral candidate Tishaura Jones’ rebuke of St. Louis Post goes viral

On Friday, February 10, The American posted a letter that Tishaura O. Jones, a candidate for mayor in the March 7 Democratic primary, had sent to Tod Robberson, Editorial Page editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In the letter, which is published this week in the Political EYE column, she explained her reasons for not meeting with the Post editorial board.
READ ORIGINAL LETTER HERE:
https://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/tishaura-jones-slams-post-editorial-board-while-declining-interview/article_bf690c28-eee9-11e6-a351-1f4dd2a2e28d.html
“What the editorial board and certain other reporters have done is nothing short of thinly veiled racism and preference for the status quo past,” Jones wrote. “Something this city has had enough of.”

Many people outside of the city also have had enough of “thinly veiled racism” posing as journalism, it became clear as Jones’ letter on The American site went viral. At press time, more than a quarter-million people had read Jones’ letter posted on stlamerican.com and it had been the subject of at least four national news stories.
Her rebuke of the Post editorial board went viral thanks to prominent people sharing a link on Twitter. Legendary actor LeVar Burton tweeted it to his nearly 2 million followers, as did former Vermont governor and U.S. presidential candidate Howard Dean and Adam Savage, former co-host of “Mythbusters” (with 1.3 million Twitter followers).
“This is the kind of civic leader this nation needs,” Burton commented when tweeting the link.

This is the kind of civic leader this nation needs!!! #TishauraJoneshttps://t.co/cD91Z5xiNM

— LeVar Burton (@levarburton) February 11, 2017

“She tells it like it is,” Dean commented when posting the link.

Tishaura Jones slams Post editorial board while declining interview https://t.co/xHNB5Kgdan via @stlouisamerican She tells it like it is!!

— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) February 10, 2017

“St. Louis’ Tishaura Jones is today’s silver lining and MY NEW HERO,” Savage commented above the link. “I wish all politicians had vision like this.”

St Louis’ Tishaura Jones is today’s silver lining and MY NEW HERO. I wish all politicians had vision like this. https://t.co/7Srr4MY5Jl

— Adam Savage (@donttrythis) February 10, 2017

A link to her letter was tweeted by Khalil G. Muhammad (Harvard University professor and director emeritus of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture), Ms. Foundation for Women (which was founded by Gloria Steinem and Marlo Thomas), Jamelle Bouie (chief political correspondent for Slate and CBS News political analyst), actress Patricia Arquette and John Roman, a staffer in the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice in New York City.
National journalist Joy-Ann Reid and Stefanie Cargill, her producer at MSNBC, tweeted a link, as did local activists and journalists with a wide social media reach, including Brittany Packnett, Johnetta Elzie and Sarah Kendzior, and hundreds of other people from all over the country and world.
“This made me get out of bed, and stand up, here in California,” an African-American U.S. Navy veteran from California commented above the link. “Can she run for Congress already?”
Most of the quarter-million people who read the letter will not be able to vote in St. Louis on March 7, though many said they would contribute to her campaign – which received more than $30,000 from 513 donors in the first 24 hours after the letter was posted, according to Jones.
Jezebel posted the first national news report as the letter went viral, giving The American proper credit and linking to the paper’s site, followed by Daily Kos, which embedded a link to Jones’ letter on stlamerican.com before reprinting it in full (without naming the original source), and The Root, which gave the paper proper credit.
The most impressive and detailed report came from Brentin Mock on CityLab (www.citylab.com), which is published by The Atlantic. Mock illustrated and annotated Jones’ letter, substantiating her harsh claims about the decline of St. Louis under Mayor Francis G. Slay, whom the Post has supported uncritically, and the decline of the Post itself. Its print circulation dropped to 98,104 for weekday newspaper sales and 157,543 for Sunday in the third quarter of 2016.
Mock substantiated Jones’ closing dig at the Post for its paucity of diversity by sourcing a piece written by former Post staffer Richard Weiss and published in The American, citing the Post’s own audit that the percentage of blacks on its staff is just eight percent – 10 people among 118 in the newsroom at that time – in a city that is 49 percent black.
None of those black staffers serves on the Post’s editorial board that interviews and endorses candidates. Jones pointed that out in a closing zinger, that also pokes fun at Robberson, a recent transplant to St. Louis who actually published a column stating he lives in one of the city’s safest neighbors yet is still afraid when he walks his dog here.
“I think there might be enough city voters who are with me and are ready to vote for that change in March and April,” Jones wrote. “After we do that, you and your dog will be safer. And maybe you will consider hiring an African-American editorial writer.”