Did MSNBC Intentionally Cut Out Minority Speakers From Its RNC Coverage to Make Republicans Look Racist?

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There are some troubling allegations surfacing surrounding MSNBC's Republican National Convention coverage on Tuesday night.

Numerous conservative outlets are reporting that the network either cut away from or simply axed out speeches and addresses by many of the minority speakers and politicians in attendance (earlier this week, TheBlaze also reported extensively about race and the RNC). As a result, some journalists and commentators are wondering if the race-based coverage was intentional.

Last night, Red Alert Politics' Francesca Chambers first reported about the wide array of minority voices who were purportedly axed from the left-leaning network's coverage. According to Chambers, when Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz, a Hispanic Republican, began his speech, MSNBC cut away from it.

Also, when Vela Fortuno, wife of Puerto Rican Gov. Luis Fortuno spoke, Chambers claims that Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews simply spoke over and ignored her address.

As for former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, an Alabama politician who served from 2003 to 2011, he, too, allegedly wasn't covered by the network. Davis has gained press in recent days over his shocking switch to the Republican Party. MSNBC was said to be on a commercial break during the African American's speech.

Others who were missing from the media outlet's coverage, critics claim, were Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, who is Mexican, and Mia Love, a black Republican from Utah who is running for Congress. Chambers gave MSNBC some credit for including South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, an Indian American, but she wrote that the politician "is not conventionally considered a minority."

Watch Love's speech, below:

Townhall.com's Katie Pavlich weighed in on the reasoning behind the potential omission of minority figures, writing, "MSNBC doesn't have the evidence to back up their claims that the GOP is racist, so what do they do? They manufacture it based on lies and false coverage." In a piece for The Daily Caller, Jeff Poor added:

One of the left’s favorite attacks on the Republican Party is that it is the party of old white people, devoid of diversity and probably racist.

If you were watching MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Tuesday night, you might believe those assertions, since missing from the coverage was nearly every ethnic minority that spoke during Tuesday’s festivities. [...]

Throughout this convention, Matthews has accused the Republicans of playing dog-whistle racist politics while on scene in Tampa. It isn’t clear, however, if Matthews will hurl accusations of racism at Davis, Love or Cruz for speeches his network failed to broadcast.

Certainly, it's possible that these speakers were purposefully left out to build a greater Democratic case against the GOP's inclusiveness -- but Mediaite's Andrew Kirell claims that may not be the case. Aside from Rep. Davis, Kirell claims that FOX also omitted the same exact speeches. He writes:

Indeed, a purposeful omission of the minority speakers would be “pathetic,” except for one glaring detail that all of these publications themselves omitted:

With the exception of black former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, MSNBC and Fox News covered and omitted the same exact speeches.

Both networks aired the speeches by NH Senator Kelly Ayotte, Ohio Governor John Kasich, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Ann Romney, and NJ Gov. Chris Christie.

Kirell went on to call the omision narrative "outright false" and said that the GOP would have a better argument if party faithful focused upon the Davis issue and not the others (after all, Davis was a Democratic cross-over and, thus, an important figure to cover).