BET Under Fire

Re “Furor Over BET and Its Programming Isn’t Going Away” (by Paul Farhi, Nov. 29):

Robert Johnson’s view of BET as just another music video forum, featuring primarily videos performed by black artists, is implicit in his statement that there will be no radical changes any time soon in its 60% schedule of videos.

That being the case, he misleads the public with the name Black Entertainment Television. Why not be real and call it Black Video Network? Johnson justifies all BET’s unethical practices with regards to those people providing labor and professional services to the network as being practical economics.

BET is the only network where a DGA or WGA member can provide services only to be paid 30 to 60 days after submitting a bill to them for those services. Color does not matter. Johnson is just plain cheap.

JADE WELLS

Woodland Hills

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Bob Johnson’s comments further infuriated me. For 20 years, we blacks have kept our negative feelings about BET out of the media because it was important to be supportive of a “brother” supposedly trying to do something good for the larger black community.

For 20 years, blacks have sucked it up while working under what, in a white organization, would be characterized as blatantly discriminatory practices. I’ve never had the displeasure of working for BET, but after 10 years of working in entertainment and media, I’m fully acquainted with his offensive hiring practices.

Certainly Earl Graves, publisher of Black Enterprise, has fought on an unequal playing field and consistently published a magazine equal to, if not better than, any national business magazine. With the breaks Johnson gets, both from the business community and the black community, he should have been able to do the same in a 20-year period. So, he boasts, “I know that Bill Gates will return my phone calls. I know that John Malone will do business with me. I’m not bothered.”

Well, those men are doing business with him only because they believe he represents a loyal constituent. It’s now pretty clear to this constituent that Bob Johnson’s loyalty is only to himself.

PHILLIS DENT

Los Angeles