When it comes to reporting on issues vital to the African-American community, information can be woefully inadequate. During the past week, the major press and cable network coverage of the Martin Luther King Day celebrations featured exclusively the events attended by the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton – two liberal firebrands who took the opportunity to bash the Bush administration whenever possible.

On CNN’s “Crossfire” program, addressing the legacy of Martin Luther King, Rev. Jackson focused instead on his own debate with the Reverend Jerry Falwell on the war in Iraq and how our soldiers are dying in an unjust war.

On MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country,” when the topic was supposed to be civil rights, Rev. Jackson just had to say, “President Bush got into Yale in part on negative points.”

On Fox News with Greta Van Susteren, Rev. Jackson noted: “The issue of racial justice for African-Americans and social justice for all Americans has not been addressed meaningfully in the last four years.”

In an article that appeared in Newsday on January 14, a filmmaker and author, Norman Kelley, charged that there is a black leadership void since the death of King and used as an example Rev. Sharpton’s continued access to political press. “Despite his meager showing, lack of ideas and vote-getting in the primaries, he was rewarded by the party for one thing and one thing only at the Democratic National Convention: being an entertaining, boisterous court jester.” Ouch!

Perhaps Mr. Kelley is looking for leadership in all the wrong places, because the real black community leaders don’t always have access to the major networks, and, even when they do, the coverage may be misleading and distorted.

The Congress of Racial Equality has never received the public recognition it deserves in its service to the minority community, in large part because it takes seriously its position as a nonpartisan organization. Democrats and Republicans were celebrating its annual Martin Luther King Awards dinner Monday at the New York Hilton.

It’s a pity that the New York Post’s Cindy Adams, who sat on the dais at the black-tie affair, had to note in her column that honoree Karl Rove was a no-show. It was an earlier column of Ms. Adams’s that made it appear that Mr. Rove was the primary guest. He was not, and I’m surprised that she neglected to mention the far more interesting honorees that evening.

In the program we received upon checking in for the event, Mr. Rove’s name is all the way at the bottom of the page, and he was not a scheduled speaker. Ms. Adams, your Wednesday column made it appear that Mr. Rove disappointed the crowd of 1,800 guests, when actually he wasn’t even missed.

The outgoing chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ed Gillespie, stood in for Mr. Rove and graciously told me of his plans to write a book, spend time with his family, and return to the public-affairs firm from which he took a two-year leave. I collected business cards from ambassadors, corporate CEOs, philanthropists, and even a chess champion, and schmoozed with the master of ceremonies, Sean Hannity.

Two of the guests seated at my table were noisily debating the war in Iraq. They should have been paying attention to what was being said by the guest speakers and the chairman of CORE, Roy Innis. Not many Americans seem to care about the problems in Africa, but Mr. Innis believes in activism and in seeking solutions to the age-old problem of hunger and malnutrition within the Dark Continent. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Norman Borlaug, received the International Brotherhood Award at the CORE affair. He has long been a pioneer in biotechnical research and developed a short-strawed, disease-resistant wheat. Imagine an Africa that doesn’t need the actress Sally Struthers to beg for it anymore.

Mr. Innis recruited the Monsanto Company, pioneers in biological technology, to bring those advances to the Africans so that they can feed themselves. CORE sponsored a very successful seminar Tuesday at the United Nations on the subject of using biotechnology to increase food production.

Another message we heard loud and strong was evidence that the South is changing. The age of Jim Crow is over. He was seen walking into the courtroom in Philadelphia, Miss., two weeks ago to be indicted for the murders of three CORE workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. It’s taken 40 years, but when this Klansman, Edgar Ray Killen, is convicted, that will be Jim Crow’s end.

Unlike the negativity spouted by demagogues who need the status quo on race relations to preserve their political clout, at the CORE awards dinner we heard only of progress and visionary solutions. You did not hear about it at CNN.