By: Alfred C. Liggins III | Radio One
 

Rev. Al Sharpton is under attack

Earlier this week, the New York Daily News shined a spotlight on Reverend Al Sharpton’s non-profit organization The National Action Network. Highlighting Sharpton’s executive salary, the story attempts to portray activist Sharpton as someone more committed to building his personal fortune than advancing his mission of social justice.

Instead, articles like these points to a growing pattern of unfair and exaggerated scrutiny of Black leaders.

What seems most newsworthy to the Daily News is that NAN paid Sharpton a salary of $250,000 last year, even as the organization was still paying off its tax debt. Despite their acknowledgment that Sharpton has been more generous than most, often donating his sizable speaking fees, and has forgone a salary for the past two years, the paper still led with the headline: “Tax Debt Doesn’t Stop Sharpton’s Salary.”

So while the Daily News touted that Sharpton paid himself $250k while NAN is in the red, the undisputed facts are that Rev. Sharpton only received a net of $50k because the NY Daily News intentionally left out the fact that Rev. Sharpton had recently loaned almost his entire salary to NAN. Similar to what was done to Shirley Sherrod who became a sacrificial lamb when reckless charges were made against her by a blogger who posted a misleading and highly edited video of her and recklessly charged her with racism, Rev. Sharpton was disparaged by the Daily News who printed distorted and misleading information about his finances even after Rev. Sharpton went to meticulous extents to make sure the writer had all the facts.

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