Contact:
Lorie Acio
NBCUniversal News Group
Lorie.Acio@nbcuni.com
Neil Sroka
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Neil.sroka@wkkf.org
MSNBC and Noticias Telemundo to Air Bilingual Cross-Platform Town Hall on the National Day of Racial Healing on Jan. 17, 2023
NBCU News Group to Produce 14-Part Digital Series
Yearlong Initiative Kicks Off at Aspen Ideas Festival with Conversations on Racial Equity
ASPEN (June 30, 2022) – NBCUniversal News Group and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) have entered into an editorial collaboration to promote the dialogue around racial equity issues and help to advance racial healing.
Relying on WKKF’s expansive experience and expertise, the yearlong initiative will introduce racial healing to a broader audience, illustrate how racial healing is already yielding transformative results across the U.S. and inspire everyday people to work towards racial healing and racial equity in their community. It will also rely on the News Group’s extensive collection of news outlets and premier journalists to elevate stories focused on racial healing.
Throughout the year, the News Group will engage the nation’s leading voices through coverage to promote racial healing, develop yearlong digital content and produce an English and Spanish-language town hall on the National Day of Racial Healing on January 17, 2023.
The annual observance of the “National Day of Racial Healing” was created with and builds on the work and learnings of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) community partners. TRHT was established in 2017 to promote racial healing as a critical path for ending racial bias and creating a society in which all children can thrive. It is a national and community-based process designed to bring transformational and sustainable change to communities, while addressing the historic and contemporary effects of racism. The National Day of Racial Healing is held each year on the Tuesday following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“We are pleased to collaborate with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in the effort to recognize the racism that plagues our society and help to build solidarity,” said Yvette Miley, SVP, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, NBCUniversal News Group. “It’s a journalistic responsibility to not only inform our audiences but also elevate the resources and tools available to help solve these issues.”
“Racial healing is a process that restores individuals and communities to wholeness, repairs the damage caused by racism and transforms societal structures into ones that affirm the value of all people,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, President and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “We must reckon with the unignorable and longstanding realities of racial injustice, forged over generations. The collective outcry to change a long-broken status quo, the ongoing racialized violence across the country and the continued disproportionate struggle with the impact of the COVID crisis – highlight the need for racial healing and renewing our commitment to racial equity, together.”
Beginning next month, NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC and Noticias Telemundo journalists will explore and report on the subject of racial equity through the lens of racial healing. This will include profiles and investigations through an ongoing 14-part digital series on NBCNews.com. The digital series will explore central themes of racial healing, including the progress individuals and communities make to recognize racism in our history, acknowledge everyday biases, and repair our society by building inclusive relationships and transforming systems and structures.
On the National Day of Racial Healing on January 17, 2023, the News Group will present a town hall featuring a diverse group of community leaders and experts in race relations, public policy, and law. The event will air across MSNBC and Noticias Telemundo platforms in English and in Spanish. CNBC will feature excerpts from the town hall that focus on economic inequality.
The yearlong initiative kicked off today at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where the News Group and WKKF hosted special sessions that examine America’s history of individual and systemic racism–as evidenced by the killing of George Floyd and anti-Semitic, anti-AAPI and anti-Latino hate crimes–and explore a path toward bridging communities.
About NBCUniversal News Group
More Americans watch NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC than any news organization in the world. NBC News’ leading and award-winning television news broadcasts include TODAY, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Meet the Press with Chuck Todd and Dateline NBC. MSNBC is the #2 network across all of cable and is the premiere destination for breaking news, award-winning content, in-depth analysis and informed perspectives. CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage, business and general news content, and primetime reality programming, consumed by more than 557 million people per month across all platforms. The rapidly-growing NBC News Digital Group – including its streaming news services NBC News NOW and TODAY All Day – and the network’s award-winning original podcast and audio unit provide continuous content to consumers wherever they are, whenever they want it.
NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC are part of the NBCUniversal News Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast Corporation. For more information about NBCUniversal, please visit NBCUniversal.com.
About W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal innovator and entrepreneur Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, the Kellogg Foundation works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.
Based in Battle Creek, Michigan, the Kellogg Foundation works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special attention is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti.
