A coalition of Black churches is urging MSNBC to suspend and investigate Rev. Al Sharpton after his nonprofit received $500,000 in donations from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.
The National Black Church Initiative stated on Tuesday that “This type of action puts a moral stain on the integrity of the Black Church,” urging MSNBC to look into the Harris campaign’s payment.
The coalition represents 150,000 churches and 27.7 million members nationwide and expressed concern over the perceived selling of voting to Kamala Harris’s campaign by one of their leaders.
MSNBC expressed being “unaware” that Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign had paid $500,000 to Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network nonprofit.
(MSNBC screenshot)
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“We will support Rev. Sharpton’s suspension until the investigation is complete,” the coalition continued in a Facebook post first reported by The Washington Free Beacon. “In all the talk about the threat to our democracy, someone forgot to articulate that free, open, objective, and transparent press is an essential component of the building blocks to preserve our democracy’s integrity.”
The Washington Free Beacon discovered that the Harris campaign had made two donations of $250,000 each to Sharpton’s National Action Network. The donations were made on Sept. 5 and Oct. 1, preceding a favorable interview with Sharpton on Oct. 20.
MSNBC previously mentioned to the Free Beacon that they were “unaware of the donations” to Sharpton’s nonprofit but did not specify any action taken against the host. The network had suspended Joe Scarborough and Keith Olbermann in 2010 over political donations.
Sharpton has not publicly addressed the issue.
The Harris campaign made two donations totaling $500,000 to Rev. Al Sharpton’s nonprofit National Action Network ahead of a friendly, sit-down interview with the MSNBC host.
(Johnny Nunez/WireImage)
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“Rev. Sharpton is loved and admired by many in our coalition, but that does [not] take away from the fact he is facing significant moral and journalism ethics [concerns] regarding this payment or donation to the National Action Network,” Rev. Anthony Evans, president of the National Black Church Initiative, said in the group’s statement. “We will continue to pray for him.”
A spokesperson for MSNBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Society of Professional Journalists also criticized Sharpton and MSNBC over the apparent conflict of interest, telling the Free Beacon it “builds distrust among their audiences and places a black eye on both their network and the profession.”
“This kind of entanglement harms the credibility of the journalist, the news organization, and journalism overall, and credibility is difficult to restore,” the media ethics group said in its statement. “While Sharpton may not consider himself a journalist, many viewers do.”
Sharpton wasn’t the only media figure to accept payments ahead of or after an interview with the Democratic presidential nominee in the weeks before Election Day.
Oprah Winfrey holds up Vice President Kamala Harris’ hand as she arrives onstage during a campaign rally Nov. 4, 2024. Harris’ campaign paid Winfrey’s Harpo Productions a combined $1 million after Winfrey’s town hall with the presidential hopeful.
(Photo by Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
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The Harris campaign paid Nu Vision Media $350,000 in September, according to FEC filings first reported by The New York Times. Nu Vision Media CEO Roland Martin, a Harris supporter, interviewed her on his streaming program in October.
Martin, a former CNN contributor, told the Times the money was for advertising.
Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions received two $500,000 payments from the campaign on Oct. 15, a month after Winfrey’s town hall with Harris. Harpo Productions told Variety the payment was for production costs.
