CBS News Is So Sorry for Confusing Ailing John Lewis with the Late Elijah Cummings During Broadcast

Gayle King is on vacation celebrating her 65^th birthday and the folks at CBS News have lost their minds.

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CBS figures out John Lewis and Elijah Cummings are two different Black men; issues mea culpa

CBS News admitted Tuesday that it made what seems to be a common media mistake: reporters and producers confusing Rep. John Lewis and the late Rep. Elijah Cummings.

About an hour after airing a report on the health of Lewis, the civil rights icon and Georgia congressman, who revealed that he is battling stage IV pancreatic cancer, using a photo of Cummings, the Maryland congressman who died in October at age 68. CBS issued an apology for the mistake saying:  “We deeply regret the error,’’ the apology statement read, in part.

READ MORE: Leaders react with support, expressions of love after John Lewis cancer announcement

The hour in between broadcasting the mistake on the CBS Evening News and making their apologies, social media roasted the network nonstop, spreading the error far and wide.

Both Lewis and Cummings are legendary for their work in the area of civil rights and both men have played significant roles in progressive politics for more than half a century. While both are African American men from the Civil Rights generation (and do bear a similar physical appearance), they represent different districts and have served different purposes in Congress. Lewis chairs the Oversight subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. Cummings was chair of the House Oversight Committee.

CBS is at least the second network this year to mix Cummings and Lewis up.

Back in June, Fox News aired a clip of Lewis in a committee hearing — with his nameplate in the camera shot — and identified him as Cummings. The network was criticized apologized soon after. Also, in 2017, CNN tweeted out a link to an interview with Cummings using Lewis’ picture.

READ MORE: Rep. Elijah Cummings: Politicians and celebrities react to sudden death of Baltimore congressman

Several social media posts surfaced with either condolences about the passing of Lewis, or condolences for Cummings with photos of Lewis, or both. For a while the day of Cummings’ passing, John Lewis was trending on Twitter, enraging many.

Confusing Black people in the media is not a new phenomenon, as singer Patti LaBelle discovered last year after Aretha Franklin died and this surfaced on, again, Fox News. And also as Angela Bassett and Omarosa found out after an item from last year’s Emmy Awards was published in The New York Times.

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Booked, Busy and Black: The Root's Favorite Reads of 2019

With all the writing we do here at The Root, it’s a wonder we find time to read. But for many members of our staff, books remain our first love, so while we reflect on the highlights of 2019, we’re also reminded of some of the great reads we encountered this year.

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Rev. Al Sharpton Denounces Anti-Semitism in New York Attacks

Rev. Al Sharpton denounced anti-Semitism Monday after 37-year-old Grafton Thomas from Orange County, New York, was charged with a federal hate crime in the Dec. 28 stabbing of five Jewish people during a Hanukkah celebration.

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Philadelphia police, roiled by harassment scandal, brings in Black woman to turn it around

Philadelphia, in a response to a dilemma in which the city was facing turmoil and scandal in law enforcement has hired an African American woman — the first ever — to lead its police department in hopes she will help the city turn a corner.

Danielle Outlaw, 43, who has served chief of police in Portland, Ore., since 2017, was announced as Philadelphia’s new police commissioner on Monday by Mayor Jim Kenney, four months after her full-time predecessor was forced to resign amidst a sexual harassment scandal, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

READ MORE: Philadelphia, St. Louis police departments remove cops from the street after investigation into racist social media posts

Outlaw, a native of Oakland, is the first Black woman ever to run the Philadelphia police, and the second woman overall, following the acting commissioner brought on in August, Christine Coulter. Outlaw is also the youngest commissioner in at least two decades, according to the Inquirer.

But the new top cop is walking into a minefield, starting with but not limited to the way the job opened. Former commissioner Richard Ross resigned in August when a lawsuit surfaced accusing him of ignoring sexual harassment claims of an officer against a fellow officer. Ross, also an African-American, had been with the department for 30 years and had held the position since January 2016.

READ MORE: Philly police chief resigns as sexual harassment and discrimination claims roil department

Multiple cases of harassment, and of gender and racial discrimination in the department, surfaced after that. In addition, the crime rate in the city has continued to soar, as has the poverty level.

“I am very qualified to make the jump,” Outlaw said in her introductory press conference. “The issues remain the same. I am very experienced in each of them.”

Outlaw came out on top of a search of 31 candidates, 18 of which were from the Philadelphia force, the Inquirer said. Several factions pushed for a woman of color to get the job, and although many had favored one already in the force, they are glad the city was willing to take the leap to reward a previously-under-represented group.

“Most of us are very encouraged,” Philadelphia city councilwoman Jannie L. Blackwell told the Inquirer about her fellow council members. “They’re especially happy that she’s a woman — and happy of course that it’s an African American woman — but especially happy that she’s a woman.”

READ MORE: 13 Philadelphia cops to be terminated after offensive Facebook posts

Outlaw also came with the endorsement of the head of the police union in her former home of Portland, Daryl Turner: “You’re getting a damn good chief. We hate to lose her.”

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