Tamron Hall Opens Up On Her Responsibilities As A Black Reporter!

TheGrio.com, By DeMicia Inman, Posted June 1st 2020

The TV host talks with theGrio about the task of delivering the news to viewers during a pandemic!

Being a recognizable face and voice in news media comes with an ethically enforced, professionally encouraged, level of personal and public accountability. Tamron Hall, a notable broadcast journalist, and daily talk show host is fully aware of her duties.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Hall hosted a social hour to discuss The Tamron Hall Show with her executive producer Candi Carter. 

 “My Blackness is my life. My journey is humanity,” remarks Hall when asked of her responsibilities in conversation with theGrio’s Natasha S. Alford.

As the pandemic continues to disproportionately ravish through minority communities, emotional tolls may weigh heavily on the Black journalists asked to report the grim news. Hall connects on a personal level to the stories reported, as her elderly mother hesitates to heed her advice to comply with stay-at-home mandates.

“I have a 70-year-old mom that I’ve not seen since March 3. And I adore
my mom, and Candi knows.”

She continues, “My mom has high blood pressure. My mom is borderline diabetic. I lost my dad the first three months that I moved here. So it is very difficult when you start hearing the numbers of Black people dying because of preexisting conditions.

The journalist recently conducted a powerful interview, amplifying the story of a newlywed woman who lost her husband to COVID-19. Her job in creating space for this tragic story and others falls on her connecting on an intimate level to relate stories across society.

“I feel like it’s our job to make sure we are talking to the woman with lupus who happens to be of color, but also this white woman who was working in a nursing home got COVID-19, gave it to her mother and her mother died,” she says.

“And I’m sitting there comforting her because her mind has tricked her into believing it was her fault. She is white, from Seattle, we don’t have anything in common but this, and I wasn’t going to let that woman down.”

The Tamron Hall Show currently shoots remotely from DIY studio space from her home. On the official website, inquiring fans can submit their zip code for the station and air time for the weekday broadcast.