Articles Feature

Poll: Just 1% of Blacks Back Trump

Republican Favored by 33% of Latinos

Voters With Racist Views Found in Both Parties

KKK Leaders to AP: Politics Are Going Our Way

Obama Defends His Record on Race

Capehart to Lynch: What Were You Thinking?

Obama Signs Bill Boosting Access to Public Records

FBI Rules Allow Access to Journalists’ Phone Logs

NAHJ to Celebrate Latina Journalists at Annual Conference

Student Activists Refusing to Talk to Campus Papers

S. African Broadcast Journalists Decry Censorship

Short Takes

Daily News in New York created this front page for Wednesday.
The Daily News in New York created this front page for Thursday.

Republican Favored by 33% of Latinos

Donald Trump’s support among African-American voters has plunged to a new low — and the New York Daily News wanted to make sure the Republican presidential candidate knew it,” Ed Mazza reported Wednesday for the Huffington Post.

“According to the Quinnipiac University poll, just 1 percent of African-American voters supported Trump. That was well behind the 6 percent of the black vote that went to Mitt Romney in 2012, and the 4 percent that supported John McCain in 2008, the newspaper reported.

“In contrast, his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, received 91 percent support from African-American voters, the poll found.

“Ironically Trump touted the poll on Twitter as it revealed a tightening race overall, with him just 2 points behind Clinton. However, the most recent HuffPollster model — which tracked major polls and included the new Quinnipiac results — showed Clinton with a bigger lead, 45.6 percent to Trump’s 38.8 percent.”

While Trump’s comments about Mexicans and immigration have garnered far more attention than those about African Americans, the Quinnipiac poll showed Hispanics much more likely to vote for Trump. In a head-to-head matchup, Hispanics chose Clinton over Trump, 50 percent to 33 percent, while blacks favored Clinton, 91 percent vs. 1 percent. The remainder picked someone else, said they didn’t know, would not vote or did not answer.

Jackie Jones
Jackie Jones

When Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein were added to the choices, 41 percent of African Americans picked Clinton, with Johnson and Stein receiving 1 percent each and Trump below 1 percent. Among Hispanics, the figures were Clinton, 49 percent; Trump, 28 percent; Johnson, 11 percent; and Stein 2 percent.

Trump’s poor showing among African Americans does not change the need for news outlets targeting African Americans to cover him, Jackie Jones, associate professor and chairman of the Department of Multimedia Journalism in the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University, told Journal-isms.

“For many years now, I have found campaign coverage wanting,” Jones wrote Friday by email. “Too much attention is paid to optics and too many substantive stories get buried.

“That said, Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee and that makes him a legitimate news story. It is still important to document his proposed policies, his record, his statements on a variety of issues and what all that means to the black community. Ignoring him and where and how he resonates with the rest of America would be done at the peril of the black community. I don’t see how we can fail to inform the citizenry, regardless of how they choose to act once armed with the information.”

DeWayne Wickham
DeWayne Wickham

DeWayne Wickham, dean of the school, said Trump’s candidacy represents such a threat that news organizations should work even harder to expose him.

“What surprises me is not that just 1 percent of African Americans back Donald Trump’s White House campaign,” Wickham messaged. “I’m surprised that he has more than a single digit approval rating with people of any race, religion or ethnicity.

“Trump is a cross between Joseph McCarthy, a homegrown terrorist of another era, and Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist who rose to power in 1922 by falsely promising to make Italy great again.

“Like Mussolini and McCarthy, Trump eventually will be seen as the soulless opportunist he is. Until then, news organizations, especially those that target minorities, should work around to clock to expose the very real threat he poses to this nation.”

At the online outlet The Root, Managing Editor Danielle Belton said the polling information “adds an extra layer” to how the website would handle Trump.

“It doesn’t change coverage, but it does add an extra layer to it,” Belton said by email. “As we’ve been covering this election our audience has been very vocal in their feelings about Trump and overwhelmingly those feelings are not good ones, but it is our job to focus on the facts, good and bad, so that our audience stays informed. We’ll continue to write about Trump and his supporters, including his black supporters, but we’re also not going to ignore the more problematic issues surrounding the presumptive GOP nominee.”

Kyra Kyles, incoming editor in chief of Ebony magazine, said her publication would welcome the chance to sit down with Trump.

“As Donald Trump is clearly a presidential contender, despite how he may be polling with African Americans, it’s our journalistic responsibility to cover him fairly but critically,” she said by email.  “After all, he has supporters…rather vocal ones at that. To ignore him is to ignore a very real segment of the population that may believe in, and advocate for, policies detrimental to Blacks.  In my mind, not covering him is a disservice to our community.

“Truth be told, we would welcome the opportunity to have one of our staffers sit down with Trump for a no-holds barred discussion, as we have with Oval Office hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and—during his run—Dr. Ben Carson.”

In January, Trump told Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz, “Look, the African Americans love me because they know I am going to bring back jobs. They are going to like me better than they like [President] Obama. The truth is Obama has done nothing for them.”

In the Quinnipiac University Poll, released Wednesday, 83 percent of blacks and 50 percent of Hispanics said they would “never” vote for Trump, compared with 41 percent of whites. Only 4 percent of blacks and 28 percent of Hispanics said they would “never” vote for Clinton, compared with 53 percent of whites.

Other questions compared black, Hispanic and white responses on several evaluation points, including enthusiasm about voting this year, whether their opinions of Trump and Clinton were favorable, whether they believed Trump and Clinton would be good presidents, which candidate would be better at creating jobs and handling immigration issues, who would be more effective against ISIS and responding to an international crisis, and who would make the right decisions about sending American troops abroad or using nuclear weapons.

Questioners also sought reactions to the prospect of an African American, female, LGBT, Hispanic, Jewish or Muslim vice president, and queried, “Who would do a better job defending freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the U.S.: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?”

Trump has denied credentials to reporters whose news organizations displeased him and declared that as president, he would change libel laws to make it easier to win lawsuits against media outlets.

Still, white respondents said Trump would do a better job defending free speech, 52 percent to 40 percent for Clinton. Blacks chose Clinton, 85 percent to 9 percent for Trump, and Latinos picked Clinton, 60 percent to 35 percent for Trump.

Voters With Racist Views Found in Both Parties

Supporters of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump are more likely to describe African Americans as ‘criminal,’ ‘unintelligent,’ ‘lazy’ and ‘violent’ than voters who backed some Republican rivals in the primaries or who support Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll,” Emily Flitter and Chris Kahn reported Tuesday for Reuters.

“Ahead of the Nov. 8 election to replace Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, the poll also showed significant numbers of Americans in both the Republican and Democratic parties view blacks more negatively than whites, harbor anxiety about living in diverse neighborhoods and are concerned that affirmative action policies discriminate against whites. . . .”

Mentioning the poll in his column for NOLA.com | the Times-Picayune on Thursday, Jarvis DeBerry noted that “even though Trump’s supporters are more likely to harbor awful thoughts about black people, a good chunk of Hillary Clinton’s voters are just as bad.

“Nearly half of Trump’s supporters described black people as more violent and more criminal than white people. About a third of Clinton’s supporters shared those beliefs. As for the belief that black people are lazier? About 40 percent of Trump’s voters say yep and about 25 percent of Clinton’s voters.”

DeBerry concluded, “People who fixate on partisan labels seem to be of the mind that a Republican is the opposite of a Democrat and that everybody in our country fits either one of those labels or the other. But this poll shows us that we’re not nearly as separate and different from one another as our partisan labels might suggest. A greater percentage of Trump’s voters might hold racist views, but according to this breaking poll, a sizable percentage of Clinton’s voters do, too. . . .”

The Reuters reporters wrote, “The poll, conducted between March and June, interviewed 16,000 Americans and included 21 questions on attitudes about race. It sought responses from voters who support Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and her rival U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. It also surveyed supporters of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, the last two Republican candidates to drop out of the race. . . .”

Ku Klux Klan leaders now present a public front that is more virulent than violent. (Credit: Southern Poverty Law Center)
Ku Klux Klan leaders “now present a public front that is more virulent than violent.” (Credit: Southern Poverty Law Center)

KKK Leaders to AP: Politics Are Going Our Way

In a series of interviews with the Associated Press, Ku Klux Klan leaders “said they feel that U.S. politics are going their way, as a nationalist, us-against-them mentality deepens across the nation,” Jay Reeves reported Thursday for the Associated Press.

“Stopping or limiting immigration — a desire of the Klan dating back to the 1920s — is more of a cause than ever. And leaders say membership has gone up at the twilight of President Barack Obama’s second term in office, though few would provide numbers.

“Joining the Klan is as easy as filling out an online form — provided you’re white and Christian. Members can visit an online store to buy one of the Klan’s trademark white cotton robes for $145, though many splurge on the $165 satin version.

“While the Klan has terrorized minorities during much of the last century, its leaders now present a public front that is more virulent than violent. Leaders from several different Klan groups all said they have rules against violence aside from self-defense, and even opponents agree the KKK has toned itself down after a string of members went to prison years after the fact for deadly arson attacks, beatings, bombings and shootings.

” ‘While today’s Klan has still been involved in atrocities, there is no way it is as violent as the Klan of the ’60s,’ said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group that tracks activity by groups it considers extremist. ‘That does not mean it is some benign group that does not engage in political violence,’ he added. . . .”

"After eight years in office, President Obama allowed for the idea that many of his younger supporters had expected more concrete victories than he delivered, especially in policy areas that touched on race," Alicia Montgomery wrote. (Credit: Becky Lettenberger/NPR)
“After eight years in office, President Obama allowed for the idea that many of his younger supporters had expected more concrete victories than he delivered, especially in policy areas that touched on race,” Alicia Montgomery wrote. (Credit: Becky Lettenberger/NPR)

Obama Defends His Record on Race

As President Obama’s administration draws to a close, observers — and the president himself — are taking stock of his legacy on race in America,” Alicia Montgomery wrote Friday for NPR. “In a wide-ranging interview this week with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Obama responded to critics among people of color who say that, despite their overwhelming support at the ballot box, the president hasn’t done enough to deliver results for their communities. . . .”

Montgomery also wrote, “Over the past two months, Inskeep traveled across the country, speaking with Americans about how their lives have changed over the course of Obama’s time in the White House. Many discussed their concerns about race relations, and whether the president was as responsive as he should have been to communities of color.

“One of those people was Kwame Rose, an African-American activist living in Baltimore. He joined street protests last year after the death of Freddie Gray, a young black man who suffered injuries in police custody after an arrest, and died days later. Some of the demonstrations turned violent, leaving businesses damaged, looted or even destroyed. Rose wasn’t a part of that destruction, and he became a national voice of peaceful protesters when a video of him challenging what he considered unfair media coverage went viral.

“But it wasn’t just the media whom Rose saw as stereotyping the demonstrators. He also took issue with President Obama, who joined many commentators in describing some of the protesters as thugs. Rose suggested that it proved Obama didn’t understand the underlying forces — including systemic poverty and police brutality — that drove the demonstrators in Baltimore and other social justice protesters around the country.

” ‘I think he never experienced what it was like to be in Baltimore before the uprising,’ Rose told Inskeep. ‘I also think he was speaking from the power of privilege.’ Rose went on to defend not just the peaceful protesters, but also some of those who were implicated in looting, which Rose blamed in part on the desperation borne of generational poverty.

“In his conversation with Inskeep, Obama embraced the spirit of many young activists in Baltimore, Ferguson and elsewhere. ‘I — what I would say is that the Black Lives Matter movement has been hugely important in getting all of America to — to see the challenges in the criminal justice system differently,’ Obama said. ‘And I could not be prouder of the activism that has been involved. And it’s making a difference.’

“Still, the president held firm to the idea that outrage over injustice doesn’t excuse crime.’ . . .”

Jonathan Capehart and Attorney General Loretta Lynch at Aspen.
Jonathan Capehart and Attorney General Loretta Lynch at Aspen.

Capehart to Lynch: What Were You Thinking?

Bill Clinton is one of the most talented politicians of the past century, but his supposedly infallible skills continue to fail him when put in the service of someone other than himself,” Ryan Grim wrote Friday for the Huffington Post.

“On Monday, Clinton was on a tarmac in Phoenix when he learned that the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, would soon be on the same tarmac. He delayed his flight so he could try to meet with her. He asked for a meeting, boarded her plane and chatted for about 30 minutes.

“On Friday, MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart asked Lynch if there was one important thing she wished former Attorney General Eric Holder had told her. ‘Where the lock on the plane door was,’ Lynch deadpanned.

“She needed refuge from Clinton, of course, because the FBI is nearing the end of what has long seemed like an endless investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of an insecure private server for her official email as secretary of state. . . .”

Capehart interviewed Lynch onstage at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. It was shown live on cable and the web due to the controversy over Lynch’s visit with the former president.

Friends, supporters, backers are saying, ‘What on earth was she thinking talking to Bill Clinton?’ So, what on earth were you thinking?” Capehart asked during an onstage interview, according to Oliver Darcy, writing for Business Insider.

” ‘I think that’s a perfectly reasonable question,’ Lynch said, noting that many had wondered whether she could objectively oversee the investigation into the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s emails.

“She added: ‘Certainly my meeting with him raises questions and concerns. Believe me, I completely get that question.’ . . . ”

Obama Signs Bill Boosting Access to Public Records

President Barack Obama today signed a bill that significantly reforms and improves access to public records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),” Luis Ferre Sadurni reported Thursday for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “The signing marked the culmination of open government advocates’ battle to reform part of FOIA ahead of the law’s 50th anniversary on July 4th.

“One of the most notable provisions is the law’s mandate for agencies to operate from a presumption of openness, ensuring that information is withheld only under one of FOIA’s nine exemptions. The bill codifies Obama’s 2009 memorandum sent on his first day in office — which ordered federal departments to operate under this presumption.

“The law also paves the way for the creation of a single online portal to accept FOIA requests for any agency, similar to FOIAonline, already in use by 12 agencies and offices. The Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) will also be strengthened with the reforms, permitting it to make recommendations for improving FOIA without necessarily seeking input from other agencies.

“A White House fact sheet provides more details about the law and announced new members of the FOIA Advisory Committee. . . .”

FBI Rules Allow Access to Journalists’ Phone Logs

Secret FBI rules allow agents to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials — far less oversight than under normal judicial procedures,” Cora Currier reported Thursday for the Intercept.

“The classified rules, obtained by The Intercept and dating from 2013, govern the FBI’s use of national security letters, which allow the bureau to obtain information about journalists’ calls without going to a judge or informing the news organization being targeted. They have previously been released only in heavily redacted form.

“Media advocates said the documents show that the FBI imposes few constraints on itself when it bypasses the requirement to go to court and obtain subpoenas or search warrants before accessing journalists’ information. . . .”

Monica Rhor, left, and Cynthia Hudson.
Monica Rhor, left, and Cynthia Hudson.

NAHJ to Celebrate Latina Journalists at Annual Conference

Declaring that “Latinas have always played a big role in my life,” Mekahlo Medina, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, announced Friday, “We will celebrate the tremendous efforts of Latinas in journalism and media” on Aug. 5 at NAHJ’s joint conference with the National Association of Black Journalists  in Washington.

Awards are to be presented to:

  • Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, senior vice president of news for CBS News, Presidential Award of Impact. “Ingrid is not only responsible for coordinating all of the network’s day-to-day news coverage — both foreign and domestic — but carries it out with indisputable ethics, leadership and dignity. . . .”
  • Cynthia Hudson, CNN en Español, senior vice president of news, Presidential Award of Impact. “. . . Throughout her entire career, she has defied obstacles and succeeded without question. But she never forgot where she came from and works diligently to bring up more Latinos in news.”
  • Monica Rhor, reporter for the Houston Chronicle, Presidential Award of Impact. Rhor “is nearly single-handedly responsible for hundreds of young, Latino journalists working in the industry today. . . .”
  • Lori Montenegro of Telemundo, Presidential Award of Visibility. Montenegro “is not only a network correspondent covering the White House, she is someone who does a tremendous job covering politics. As an Afro-Latina, she represents diversity that often goes unseen in our industry.”

Student Activists Refusing to Talk to Campus Papers

This February, at a conference attended by the editors of 10 college newspapers along the East Coast — myself among them — student journalists recognized a common obstacle plaguing their publications: Student activists would no longer talk with them,” Kate Talerico, a news editor at Brown Daily Herald, wrote Thursday for the Atlantic.

“As student activists call for the institutions around them to confront issues of diversity and inclusion, campus newspapers have been critiqued as well. But activists are not just calling for reform — editors of campus papers are struggling to improve their papers alongside student bodies that, in some cases, would like to see student newspapers as an institution disappear. . . .”

Talerico also wrote, “And while certain activists acknowledge their student newspaper’s attempts to correct any lapses in coverage, many have still put pressure on student reporters to adapt to their demands. ‘Until we see a willingness to engage journalism in a much more … social justice-oriented way, it’s hard to trust [student newspapers] to protect or be mindful of the issues that we face,’ said Justice Gaines, a trans student activist at Brown whose activism focuses on issues of race, gender, and sexuality.

“But that philosophy creates a catch-22 for editors,” Talerico continued. “I don’t know if it’s fair to demand representation … but then deny the paper that permission by refusing to speak to them,” Rebecca Brill, former editor-in-chief of the Argus at Wesleyan University, is quoted as saying.

S. African Broadcast Journalists Decry Censorship

On Monday morning, Jimi Matthews, acting Chief Executive Officer of South Africa’s public broadcaster, SABC, tweeted a photo of his resignation letter,Tyler McBrien reported Friday for Foreign Policy. “In the text, he described a ‘corrosive atmosphere’ that has weighed on his ‘moral judgment.’ The final line read simply, ‘What is happening at the SABC is wrong and I can no longer be a part of it.’

“Although Matthews didn’t specify exactly what had prompted his departure, there is little doubt that the wording was a not-so-subtle nod to the growing accusations of government interference and censorship at the public broadcaster. After several policy changes and questionable editorial decisions in the last few months, free press activists have harshly criticized the SABC for what they see as an intensifying bias in favor of the governing African National Congress party ahead of the hotly contested local elections in August.”

McBrien also wrote, “The SABC’s chief operating officer, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, has emerged as a central figure in the drama. Since he began his tenure as COO in 2011, he has embarked on an increasingly heavy-handed purge of coverage that’s critical of the government. . . .

“Earlier this week, three SABC journalists were suspended for challenging an order not to cover a protest of the broadcaster’s own censorship practices. In response, three other senior journalists wrote a letter to Motsoeneng and other SABC leaders asking for clarity on the suspensions and lamenting the fact that their ‘journalistic integrity continues to be compromised.’

“Most pernicious of all are the editorial changes. In a country with an unemployment rate of over 26 percent, regular protests over economic hardship, and numerous corruption scandals, Motsoeneng has stood by his 2013 call for all SABC television channels to air a minimum of 70 percent ‘good news.’ . . .”

Short Takes

  • Brent Jones, standards and ethics editor for USA Today, will assume that role for the entire USA Today network, Joanne Lipman, chief content officer for the Gannett Co., Inc., told Gannett employees on Thursday. The USA Today network consists of the Gannett-owned local and national brands. “With the iconic USA TODAY, 107 strong local media organizations in 34 states and Guam, and with more than 160 local news brands online in the U.K., we provide rich content through hundreds of outstanding affiliated digital, mobile and print products,” the company says.
Questlove
Questlove

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