Sen. Trent Lott tried last night to salvage his political career by appearing on a media outlet that the 61-year-old conservative white lawmaker is unlikely to watch much at home: Black Entertainment Television on cable.
BET is the country's sole channel aimed squarely at African-American viewers; its music and entertainment offerings draw significant audiences every day, especially among younger viewers. But it is those entertainment shows, not its shrinking news programming, that represent BET's current strength - and in the minds of some critics, its weakness, as well.
"BET doesn't have any intellectual credibility in the black community," says Chuck Stone, a longtime editor and newspaper columnist who was the first president of the National Association of Black Journalists. "They're entertainment - a 'shake your booty' kind of thing.'"
On an average day, stand-up comedy routines and music videos featuring R&B;, hip-hop and rap are on the schedule. Both formats frequently offer strong overtones of sexuality, drug use and violence. Similar fare also can be found on channels such as MTV that are geared for largely white audiences.
But initial expectations that the 33-year-old channel would provide serious coverage of cultural and current events from an African-American standpoint - often marginalized by the major television networks - have met with disappointment, according to some critics.
"All you see is music videos, comedy and infomercials," says Maxie Jackson, a former producer for Video Soul, a BET music program.
"What's disappointing for most African-Americans is that BET for a long time was the largest black-owned media outlet," says Jackson, now general manager of WEAA-FM, the public radio station based at Morgan State University. "The hopes and desires of the black community have met with disappointment."
Earlier this month, while attending a birthday party for Sen. Strom Thurmond, Lott appeared to endorse the 100-year-old senator's 1948 segregationist presidential platform.
Last week, during a news conference televised from his hometown of Pascagoula, Miss., Lott mentioned that BET CEO Robert Johnson had proposed an interview on his channel to address the ensuing furor.
During last night's interview, anchor Ed Gordon questioned Lott sharply but respectfully. Yet he telegraphed his skepticism about the lawmaker's sincerity as Lott apologized for the fifth time for his remarks.
Asked about his 1983 vote against creating a federal holiday in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Lott said he would act differently today: "I'm not sure we in America - certainly not white America, and the people in the South - fully understood who that man was." A flabbergasted Gordon replied: "You certainly understood it by the time this vote came up, senator. You knew who Dr. King was by that point."
Johnson founded BET in 1979, but he sold the company in January 2001 to Viacom, the parent company of the CBS and UPN networks. Several well-regarded news programs had inoculated the channel, to an extent, from criticisms targeting the tenor of its entertainment shows.
But since the sale, Johnson, who remains in charge at the black-oriented cable channel, has significantly cut back on news programs. In March 2001, Johnson fired popular talk show host Tavis Smiley, with whom he tangled over a story Smiley executed for ABC News on a free-lance basis.
Then, earlier this month, Johnson and his top officers announced that they were canceling three of the channel's four public affairs programs: BET Tonight With Ed Gordon, the Sunday round-table Lead Story and Teen Summit.
The only news show left will be BET Nightly News, which airs at 11 p.m. and has Jacque Reid as its anchor. Corporate sibling CBS News has taken an active interest in the program, aiding its overhaul last spring and making its reporters and anchors available for the BET broadcasts.
Since the changes, viewing levels have grown considerably. The show's total audience has increased by more than half; among the highly coveted (and equally elusive) 18-to-34 year-old set, it has grown by 118 percent.
Company officials did not respond to several calls seeking comment.
As a cable station, BET does not offer the largest audience for Lott's show of contrition, even among African-Americans. For the week starting Dec. 2, for example, the top-rated program among blacks was a special edition of ABC News' Primetime Live that featured singer Whitney Houston's tearful interview with Diane Sawyer.
That show drew more than one-third of all blacks watching television at the time - about 4.77 million African-American households, according to Nielsen Media Research.
But the channel claims a reach of more than 70 million households. "It began more as a niche market, just like most of these cable channels did, that is in the process of finding a larger audience," says Stuart Stevens, a Republican media consultant who is also a writer for network television dramas. "It's a success story."
And Lott last night was seeking an audience beyond the black viewers of BET - white voters who are concerned about his stance on race, and his 50 fellow Republican senators who are likely to meet soon to decide his political fate.
"Trent Lott is a very decent, good guy," says Stevens, a fellow Mississippian who has never had the senator as a client. "I think the more you see him in a longer format, relaxed and with exchanges, the more you like him."
Stone has a more dour view of the interview. "They're using each other," Stone said. "He feels, 'This will authenticate me - see, I'm willing to go on a black channel.' And [BET] needs the imprimatur of an exclusive interview."