Behind-the-Scenes @MSNBC @MHPshow
Have you ever wondered what is like behind-the-scenes when you are on a national television show? My first visit to MSNBC was in 2012. I had given interviews about various education policy topics on on local and national radio, but I had never participated LIVE on a national TV network. I was really nervous. Live TV is difficult because you have no idea what questions will be asked, although you usually have a general idea which direction the discussion will go— more on this later in the post. Well, suffice to say that my first experience on national TV was an eventful visit. Jonathan Alter, then the editor at Newsweek, head popped off when I started talking about my research published in the Berkeley Review of Education showing that 40% of African American students had left KIPP charter schools before graduating. (See the post Melissa Harris-Perry Show: Demanding accountability from charters)
The behind-the-scenes backstory that most people don’t know is that my disagreements with Jonathan Alter’s “reformer” perspectives had started backstage where I had told him that most of the information that he was providing in his media interviews about education was wrong. It just went forward from there on LIVE TV. During the commercial break we also had a very vigorous discussion Behind-the-Scenes @MSNBC @MHPshow | Cloaking Inequity:
