Short Takes, Oct. 17, 2019

Elijah Cummings Was Friend of Black Journalists

Congressman Spoke at NABJ Regional Conference

Sex Abuse of Enslaved Included Black Men

Book Tackles Subject Media Portray Misleadingly

Fort Worth Case Must Reach Grand Jury ‘ASAP’

Lacey’s Questions Made for Viral Moments

2nd Journalist Dies After Turkish Air Strike

NABJ, NAACP Back Allen in Suit Against Comcast

NPR Promotes 3 One Month After Staff Complaints

New Executive Producer of ‘The Situation Room’

Maria Reeve Named an M.E. at Houston Chronicle

Emilio Nicolás Dies, His Network Became Univision

Native Journalists Praise, Blast Tribes on Free Press

Short Takes

A bad hair day . . .

Our local weather lady got her wig snatched by a lemur on live tv today pic.twitter.com/ibJbnUMQ3T

— ?Shea?Browning? (@SheaBrowning) October 4, 2019

• In New York, “Staff and supporters of 99.5 WBAI FM — the decades-old, listener-supported radio station recently barred from broadcasting local programming by its parent organization, the Pacifica Foundation — took to the steps of City Hall Tuesday. . . . ,” Meaghan McGoldrick reported for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “Hours later, a judge barred Pacifica from impeding on local broadcasting — for the second time — until its next court date. . . .”
• “After a nearly 40-year run, USA Today and its digital sites are about to undergo a major restructuring that will include building up digital marketing while phasing out the print edition,” Rick Edmunds reported Wednesday for the Poynter Institute. “The deal for GateHouse’s parent, New Media Investment Group, to acquire Gannett, which owns USA Today, will not close for at least another month. Nothing much will happen — or legally can happen — until then, and don’t look for this to be the new company’s first order of business. Winding print down could take several years. . . .”
• “As of 2002 (the last time the government collected this data nationally), about 29% of people in local jails were unconvicted — that is, locked up while awaiting trial or another hearing,” Wendy Sawyer wrote Oct. 9 for the Prison Policy Initiative. “Nearly 7 in 10 (69%) of these detainees were people of color, with Black (43%) and Hispanic (19.6%) defendants especially overrepresented compared to their share of the total U.S. population. Since then, pretrial populations have more than doubled in size, and unconvicted defendants now make up about two-thirds (65%) of jail populations nationally. . . . [T]he question of racial justice in the pretrial process is an urgent one — but the lack of national data has made it hard to answer. . . .”
• Ebony announced the launch of the EBONY Foundation, a national nonprofit arm of EBONY Capital Partners, LLC, and a new initiative, “Home by the Holiday,” which “addresses the urgent need for bail reform.” The initiative “will be raising funds for bailouts in advance of the holiday season and has set the goal of bailing out 1,000 people by Dec. 31, 2019, and 10,000 by Dec. 31, 2020. Black and brown people account for more than 50 percent of the pretrial population nationwide and up to 90 percent in some jurisdictions,” the company said on Oct. 7.
• “Due to the current financial standing, Student Life and Activities has proposed that The Hilltop go digital only,“ Jaylin Paschal, editor-in-chief, Donovan Thomas, campus news editor, and Yasha Washington, reporter wrote Oct. 10 for the Hilltop, Howard University’s student newspaper. They also wrote, “This transition to digital is indicative of trends in the journalism industry. Many publications, especially student-led publications, have pivoted to a digital-first strategy. . . .”
• Less than a month after African American entrepreneur DuJuan McCoy’s Circle City Broadcasting assumed control of WISH-TV in Indianapolis, the station announced “a nationwide search to hire the state’s first-ever television reporter dedicated exclusively to covering multicultural issues within the Indiana community.” Monday’s announcement said, “WISH-TV’s multicultural reporter will focus on news and issues of concern to women, millennials, Hispanics and Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, Native Americans, and the LGBTQ community, to name a few. . . .”
• “Attorneys for the husband of our beloved co-worker Nancy Parker filed a lawsuit in Civil District Court seeking damages for the August plane crash that killed Nancy and the pilot Franklin Augustus,” WVUE-TV in New Orleans reported Monday, updated Tuesday. “Nancy was working on a story and had gone up in Augustus’ stunt plane when the bi-plane went down shortly after takeoff in New Orleans East. . . .”
• Bob Butler, reporter for KCBS Radio in San Francisco, board member of the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and former president of the National Association of Black Journalists, was elected vice president, broadcasters at the biennial SAG-AFTRA National Convention Friday in Beverly Hills, Calif., Dave McNary reported for Variety.

• 

  Monday was Joshua Eure’s first day as news director at Scripps-owned KXXV-TV in Waco, Texas, staffers confirmed. Since 2015, Eure had been a hyphenate producer for CBS News in New York, writing, producing and editing packages for CBS News correspondents, among other duties.

• “A meme seen as racially offensive that was sent last month to an African American minister by the white owner of a religious TV station aimed at black audiences has sparked controversy, with the Detroit chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists condemning it Monday and calling for a boycott of the media outlet,” Niraj Warikoo reported Tuesday for the Detroit Free Press. “But the owner, Kevin Adell, told the Free Press that he didn’t create the meme — which depicted him wearing a fur coat like a pimp surrounded by black male pastors, including the pastor he forwarded the meme to, Bishop George Bloomer. . . .”
• “With the death of ESPN The Magazine comes the birth of ESPN’s ‘Cover Story,’ a 21st century version of a magazine cover story that will air monthly across every ESPN platform, from TV to digital,” Sara Fischer reported Tuesday for axios.com. “The first cover story about NFL star DeAndre Hopkins will debut this Wednesday at 6:00 a.m. ET on SportsCenter and online. . . .”
• Organizations focused on diversity, equity and inclusion “receive a very small slice of journalism funding,” Lea Trusty reported Wednesday for the Democracy Fund. “This research confirms what we’ve long suspected: no matter how you slice the data, DEI within journalism is not a high priority for funders. Of the $1.1 billion that went into journalism more generally in the United States from 2013-2017, only 8.1 percent went to DEI-focused efforts. . . .” The fund drew the same conclusion last year. “Now, we are turning to solutions. Our latest report,  ‘Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Journalism: What Funders Can Do,’  . . .  proposes concrete ways that funders can increase their support for this work. . . . “

No. No. No. ? pic.twitter.com/TzuCxPxX8J

— exhoopsprguy (@exhoopsPRguy) October 10, 2019

• KTVU-TV in Oakland, Calif., apologized on Oct. 11 for a Chyron that appeared the previous day. “Wednesday evening, in our 6 p.m. newscast, we had a story about the Atlanta Braves that included a phrase that was racially insensitive toward Native Americans (video). It was not our intention to offend anyone and we want to express our deepest apologies for the use of that phrase,” the station said in a statement read on the air.
• “ABC News has named Kenneth Moton, a former WFTV-Channel 9 reporter, the co-anchor of ‘World News Now’ and ‘America This Morning,’ ” Hal Boedeker reported Oct. 8 for the Orlando Sentinel. “He joins Janai Norman, who also worked at WFTV, at the anchor desk. He will become a familiar presence to overnight viewers. . . .”

• “Whether it’s getting personal about identity or getting up close to the Hong Kong protests, these Asian journalists are using social media to share what matters to them, and why it should matter to us, too,” Tiffany Wong wrote Oct. 9 for charactermedia.com. She named Michelle Ye Hee Lee of the Washington Post, who is president of the Asian American Journalists Association, Phil Yu, who writes the Angry Asian Man blog; Kimmy Yam, who heads the HuffPost Asian Voices section; Frank Shyong, columnist for the Los Angeles Times; and CBS News’ Ramy Inocencio, who has been covering the Hong Kong protests and is senior vice president of AAJA.

• 

  “When I left the newsroom at the end of 2015, I thought being untethered from journalism would be liberating,” columnist Sandy Banks wrote Oct. 10 for the Los Angeles Times. “For years, I’d spent every waking hour scanning the horizon for ideas. I relished the prospect of moving through life free of the responsibility to analyze everything.” However, she said, “Over those four years, I was never able to shed the accoutrements of journalism. I couldn’t silence the voices in my head when I had a story to tell, or stifle the curiosity that had me chatting up strangers for columns I would never write. So I’m back and eager to rejoin the public conversation, exploring the forces that shape our region, inform our policies and animate our private lives. . . .”

• “Russian government-backed online interference in the 2016 election aggressively targeted African-Americans more than any other group, according to a major new report from the Senate Intelligence Committee,” Grace Panetta reported Oct. 8 for Business Insider. She also wrote, “The Senate report confirmed previous findings that the [Internet Research Agency’s] social media operations weren’t just explicitly pro-Trump, but weaponized ‘race, immigration, and Second Amendment rights in an attempt to pit Americans against one another and against their government’. . . .”
• “SAG-AFTRA is honoring producers of ‘It’s Been a Minute With Sam Sanders,’ Hulu’s TV series ‘Ramy’ and the remix of ‘Old Town Road’ with its American Scene Awards,” Dave McNary reported Oct. 8 for Variety. He also wrote, “The awards honor producers who realistically portray the American scene by employing union talent from misrepresented or underrepresented groups. . . .”
• “SAG-AFTRA is calling on the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to rescind the Businessperson of the Year Award it presented Wednesday to Raul Alarcón, chairman and CEO of the Spanish Broadcasting System,” David Robb reported Oct. 4 for Deadline. “The union, which calls SBS ‘an abuser of Hispanic broadcast talent and media workers,’ has been battling the broadcaster since August, 2016, when the on-air talent at two of its LA radio stations – La Raza and MEGA – voted to unionize. The union says that since the vote, SBS has refused to bargain in good faith for a first-time contract. . . .”
• The Sidney Hillman Foundation has announced “a unique training program for reporters aimed at improving the country’s understanding of issues around work and labor. ‘Reporting the U.S. Workplace’ will be hosted at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY,” the foundation said Oct. 7. “Tom Robbins, the J-School’s Investigative Journalist in Residence, will serve as the program’s convener. At a time when few news organizations have full-time reporters on the labor beat, this first-of-its kind initiative will bring print, broadcast and digital journalists to the school in New York City for two days of advanced workshops on how to cover these critical issues. . . .The session are Jan. 9-10, 2020.
• “WNBC New York . . . has added Gilma Avalos to the its weekend news team, joining fellow anchor Adam Kuperstein for the 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts on Saturday and Sunday . . .,”  Mark K. Miller reported Wednesday for TVNewsCheck. “Avalos joins WNBC after five years at the CBS Owned Station in Dallas-Fort Worth, KTVT, where she anchored weekday afternoon newscasts and delivered breaking news coverage. . . .”
• “Tina Tchen, a lawyer and former chief of staff to former First Lady Michelle Obama, was appointed president and CEO of Time’s Up,” Rebecca Rubin reported Oct. 7 for Variety. “Time’s Up, an advocacy group formed as the #MeToo movement roiled Hollywood, aims to advocate for safer and more equitable work conditions for women across multiple industries. . . .”
• A rare occurrence: The weekly reporters roundup at NPR’s “1A” on Oct. 11 was all-African American as domestic issues took the spotlight. Substitute host Kimberly Adams of public radio’s “Marketplace” led the session with Astead Herndon, national politics reporter at the New York Times; Abby Phillip, White House correspondent at CNN, and Toluse Olorunnipa, White House reporter at the Washington Post. The show originates at WAMU-FM in Washington.
• “Morocco’s king pardoned Hajar Raissouni, a journalist for an independent newspaper who was sentenced to a year in prison for an abortion that she denied having, the country’s ministry of justice said on Wednesday,” Aida Alami reported for the New York Times.
• “Reporters Without Borders said Oct. 11 that it “hails everything that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, this year’s Nobel peace laureate, has done for press freedom in his country and urges him to pursue these efforts in order to prevent any future backtracking. He should also encourage his neighbours to take the same road,” RSF said. It added, “Within weeks of his becoming prime minister, Ethiopia’s prisons had ceased to hold any journalists, a situation with no precedent in more than ten years. Hundreds of radio and TV stations and news websites that were banned under the previous government are now permitted. . . . ”

  

• Reporters Without Borders called on the Liberian authorities Monday “to guarantee the safety of journalists and their work tools after police shut down an opposition radio station in Monrovia last week and its listeners reacted by attacking a rival, pro-government radio station. . . .”
• In Haiti, “[n]o one has been arrested in the death of reporter Néhémie Joseph of Radio Méga,” who had been covering anti-government protests and was found dead in his car late Thursday in the town of Mirebalais, northeast of Port-au-Prince, according to Radio Vision 2000,” Danica Coto reported Oct. 11 for the Associated Press. “In a Facebook post in late September, Joseph said that a couple of politicians had threatened him after one of his shows and accused him of inciting protests. It was unclear, however, if this was the motive for his killing. . . .”
• “Over the past decade, some of Bolivia’s most prominent independent journalists have been forced from their jobs at major newspapers and broadcasters amid a government campaign to control the news media,” John Otis reported Oct. 10 for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “Many of these journalists are still reporting and commenting on the news, but they now do so from fledgling websites and online TV and radio stations that reach a far smaller audience. They’re also earning a lot less money. . . .”
• In a corner of Brazil, “I believe that it was a [well-succeeded] strategy of somehow capturing the main professionals from the newspapers, in their respective fields of work, and thus [reducing] the tensions of being disturbed by the journalists every single day,” according to Micheline Batista, 47, who left Diário de Pernambuco to work for the government of Pernambuco state. Batista was quoted by Joshua Benton of Nieman Lab on Oct. 11. She continued, “So then, they took just the most critical reporters, who have been doing the tougher criticism. It is obvious that this [exhausts] the newsrooms. . . .”

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View previous columns (after Feb. 13, 2016).

• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2018 (Jan. 4, 2019)
• Book Notes: Is Taking a Knee Really All That? (Dec. 20, 2018)
• Book Notes: Challenging ’45’ and Proudly Telling the Story (Dec. 18, 2018)
• Book Notes: Get Down With the Legends! (Dec. 11, 2018)
• Journalist Richard Prince w/Joe Madison (Sirius XM, April 18, 2018) (podcast)
• Richard Prince (journalist) (Wikipedia entry)
• February 2018 Podcast: Richard “Dick” Prince on the need for newsroom diversity (Gabriel Greschler, Student Press Law Center, Feb. 26, 2018)
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2017 — Where Will They Take Us in the Year Ahead?
• Book Notes: Best Sellers, Uncovered Treasures, Overlooked History (Dec. 19, 2017)
• An advocate for diversity in the media is still pressing for representation, (Courtland Milloy, Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2017)
• Morgan Global Journalism Review: Journal-isms Journeys On (Aug. 31, 2017)
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2016
• Book Notes: 16 Writers Dish About ‘Chelle,’ the First Lady
• Book Notes: From Coretta to Barack, and in Search of the Godfather
• Journal-isms’ Richard Prince Wants Your Ideas (FishbowlDC, Feb. 26, 2016)
• “JOURNAL-ISMS” IS LATEST TO BEAR BRUNT OF INDUSTRY’S ECONOMIC WOES (Feb. 19, 2016)
• Richard Prince with Charlayne Hunter-Gault,“PBS NewsHour,” “What stagnant diversity means for America’s newsrooms” (Dec. 15, 2015)
• Book Notes: Journalists Follow Their Passions
• Book Notes: Journalists Who Rocked Their World
• Book Notes: Hands Up! Read This!
• Book Notes: New Cosby Bio Looks Like a Best-Seller
• Journo-diversity advocate turns attention to Ezra Klein project (Erik Wemple, Washington Post, March 5, 2014)

Columns below from the Maynard Institute are not currently available but are scheduled to be restored soon on journal-isms.com.

• Book Notes: “Love, Peace and Soul!” And More
• Book Notes: Book Notes: Soothing the Senses, Shocking the Conscience
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2015
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2014
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2013
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2012
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2011
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2010
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2009
• Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2008
• Book Notes: Books to Ring In the New Year
• Book Notes: In-Your-Face Holiday Reads
• Fishbowl Interview With the Fresh Prince of D.C. (Oct. 26, 2012)
• NABJ to Honor Columnist Richard Prince With Ida B. Wells Award (Oct. 11, 2012)
• So What Do You Do, Richard Prince, Columnist for the Maynard Institute? (Richard Horgan, FishbowlLA, Aug. 22, 2012)
• Book Notes: Who Am I? What’s Race Got to Do With It?: Journalists Explore Identity
• Book Notes: Catching Up With Books for the Fall
• Richard Prince Helps Journalists Set High Bar (Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb.com, 2011)
• Book Notes: 10 Ways to Turn Pages This Summer
• Book Notes: 7 for Serious Spring Reading
• Book Notes: 7 Candidates for the Journalist’s Library
• Book Notes: 9 That Add Heft to the Bookshelf
• Five Minutes With Richard Prince (Newspaper Association of America, 2005)
• ‘Journal-isms’ That Engage and Inform Diverse Audiences (Q&A with Mallary Jean Tenore, Poynter Institute, 2008)