In Campaign Coverage, Media Don’t Always Distinguish
Jay Smooth, founder of what is described as New York’s longest running
hip-hop radio show, "Underground Railroad" on WBAI-FM,
has posted an entry on his video blog that has special relevance to
one of the latest developments in the presidential
contest. In "How To Tell People They Sound Racist," Smooth makes a
distinction between what people say and what they are.
Smooth’s video comes to mind in light of a thread that has continued
in the news media since Sen. Barack Obama and John McCain, the presumptive
Democratic presidential nominee, said on July 30:
"John McCain and the Republicans, they don’t have any new ideas.
That’s why they’re spending all their time talking about me.
"I mean, you haven’t heard a positive thing out of that campaign in a
month. All they do is try to run me down. . . .
They’re going to try to say that I’m a risky guy. They’re going to try
to say, well, you know, he’s got a funny name. And he
doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the $5 bills."
National Public Radio White House correspondent David
Greene said
Wednesday on National Public Radio’s "Tell Me More," "I was actually
with Obama in Missouri when he
made that comment last week. And it didn’t strike me as there being
any racial undertone when I heard it. And you know, among the press
covering Obama, no one said, ‘my God, he just, you know, he might have
played the race card.’
"But as soon as the McCain campaign made the
decision to sort of go after him, you know, you saw the punditry just
buzzing about this immediately. And it’s sort of one of those issues
where if a campaign can sort of find a way to tap into that and bring
it up to the surface, it can make some headlines and become a really
big deal."
In fact, the liberal media-advocacy group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting wrote
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3588
on Tuesday, "Corporate media so accepted the McCain campaign’s spin on
this issue — when an Obama aide acknowledged that the
‘dollar bill’ remark was an allusion to the candidate being
African-American, ABCNews.com (8/1/08) headlined the story ‘Obama
Camp Admits Playing Race Card’ — that it becomes difficult to see the
obvious: that it’s McCain and not Obama who is eager to
see the 2008 campaign become a debate about race."
"He
did play the race card. McCain responded and, I think, responded
fairly," commentator Juan Williams said on "Fox News Sunday," in one
of the many references to the "race card" on the Sunday talk shows.
It was left to such columnists as Eugene Robinson of the Washington
Post to affirm what Smooth’s video does: that
what people say and what they are are not necessarily the same.
Robinson cited Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.:
"Graham said on ‘Fox News Sunday’ that ‘there’s no doubt in my mind
that what Senator Obama is trying to suggest — that he’s a victim of
something.’ Graham later added:
‘We’re not going to run a campaign like he did in the primary. Every
time somebody brings up a challenge to who you are and
what you believe, ‘You’re a racist.’ That’s not going to happen in
this campaign.’
"The key words are ‘victim’ and ‘racist’ — which Obama did not say.
Graham puts them in Obama’s mouth because of their power
to alienate," Robinson wrote
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/04/AR2008080401824.html
.
Former president Bill Clinton also conflated being a racist with
saying something racist, according to an Associated Press
account of an appearance by Clinton on ABC’s "Good Morning America":
"Asked in the interview whether he blames himself for his wife’s loss,
Clinton replied, ‘I’ve heard it from the press and I
will not comment on it. . . . There are things I wished I said. Things
I wished I hadn’t said, but I am not a racist. I never
made a racist comment and I didn’t attack him personally.’"
McCain’s aggressive approach toward Obama is paying off in news
coverage. "For the first time since
this general election campaign began in early June, Republican John
McCain attracted virtually as much media attention as his Democratic
rival last week," the Pew Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reported
http://journalism.org/node/12200
this week.
Much of that was due to McCain’s ad comparing Obama with celebrities
Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
Image: Kenneth J. Cooper
http://www.maynardije.org/columns/dickprince/070307_prince/cooper.jpg
Caption: Kenneth J. Cooper
"Generational" Divide Among Pols Called Overrated
"The question of how strongly race will play out in the
November election — that is, how many whites will prove to be
colorblind — has dominated the discussion of racial politics in the
Obama-McCain race so far. But coming this Sunday, The New York Times
Magazine looks
at what the Obama candidacy ultimately means for
blacks," Editor & Publisher reported
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003835198
on Tuesday.
"The cover story, by frequent contributor Matt Bai, is titled
‘Post-Race’ and the Times, in its preview, asks, ‘Is Obama the end of
black politics?’"
But Kenneth J. Cooper, a veteran journalist and former national editor
of the Boston Globe, wonders why a writer with more
experience in covering black politics wasn’t assigned the piece instead.
"Bai’s fundamental premise, shared by many newspaper reporters who covered
Jesse Jackson’s crude remarks about Obama’s Father’s Day speech, is
wrong," Cooper wrote to the e-mail list of the National
Association of Black Journalists.
"Obama does not represent a new ‘generation’ of black politicians. Born in
1961, he is a Baby Boomer. So too is Deval Patrick, the somewhat older
governor of Massachusetts. But Bai also couples Obama with Newark Mayor
Corey Booker, born 1969; US Rep. Arthur Davis of Alabama, born 1967, and US
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., born 1965. Booker, Davis and Jesse Jr. are not
Boomers and therefore not of the same ‘generation’ as Obama.
"Black Baby Boomers in political office is not new. Since 1992, a bunch have
served in the Congressional Black Caucus, that supposed geriatric society
of civil rights champions: Cynthia McKinney, Wililam Jefferson, Carol
Moseley Braun, Chaka Fattah, Cleo Fields, Sanford Bishop, Albert
Wynn, William Lacy Clay, Harold Ford . . . among others. Nearly all of
Boomers in
the caucus arrived with prior legislative experience. Bai’s casting the CBC
as a redoubt of civil rights-bred spokesmen for black people, not
legislators, is dated.
"Bai says there was significant turnover in the CBC because some members did
not support Jesse Jackson the elder in 1984 and 1988, leading to "a flurry
of primary challenges, the retirement or defeat of several incumbents and
the arrival in Washington of a new class of black congressmen." Wrong. Only
a handful of CBC members have ever been defeated for reelection. The new
class he refers to, the class of 1992, arrived because redistricting created
more black majority districts, leading to a 50 percent increase in caucus
membership.
"Bai also says before the 1990s Edward Brooke, elected to the US Senate from
Massachusetts in 1966, was the only black candidate elected statewide with
white support. Were they alive, this would be news to Lt. Gov. Mervyn
Dymally of California and Lt. Gov. George Brown of Colorado, both elected in
1974.
"More than these errors and omissions, it Bai’s lazy-minded, stock analysis
that a ‘generational’ shift is somehow behind Obama’s success and the
decision of some black elected officials to support Hillary Clinton. Every
time a black politician makes an advance, the mainstream press declares the
arrival of a new generation of black politicians. Black folks do have a
higher birth rate than white folks, but we don’t breed that fast."
-
Eric Easter, ebonyjet.com:
http://www.ebonyjet.com/politics/national/index.aspx?id=8668
What Jesse Jackson Should Do Now
Unity Falls Short in Influencing Election Coverage
Four years ago, Unity: Journalists of Color decided to meet every four
years instead of every five in order to take advantage
of the presidential election years. That way, the reasoning went,
journalists of color would more directly influence the
coverage. The alliance of black, Hispanic, Asian American and Native
American journalist associations adopted as a "strategic
objective" that it would sponsor one of the presidential debates in 2008.
Did Unity meet those objectives? "I’m not sure that it did," Ernest
Sotomayor, who was president of Unity four years ago,
told Journal-isms, "given that we were not able to get the candidates
there and sponsor one of the debates."
While Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential
nominee, eventually decided to speak at the 2008 Unity
convention in Chicago, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Republican
candidate, skipped it. In 2004, both Republican George W.
Bush, the incumbent, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.., the Democrat, had
appeared at Unity’s Washington gathering.
On Tuesday, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced
http://www.debates.org/pages/news_111908.html
the moderators for the fall presidential and vice presidential
debates. Gwen Ifill of PBS will reprise her role moderating
the vice presidential debate on Oct. 2
at Washington University in St. Louis, but she will be the only
journalist of color before the cameras for the events.
The refereee for the first presidential debate, on Sept. 26 at the
University of Mississippi, is Ifill’s PBS colleague Jim
Lehrer; moderator for the second, a town meeting Oct. 7 at Belmont
University in Nashville, is NBC News’ Tom Brokaw; and out
front for the third, Oct. 15 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.,
is Bob Schieffer of CBS. A news release did not
explain why the commission chose a single-moderator format over one
that might have allowed more participation by other
journalists.
Janet Brown, executive director of the Commission on Presidential
Debates, was asked in 2004 about the idea of Unity as a
debate sponsor. She said then that she had not yet heard of the idea,
but "we’re open to just about anything."
She did not return a telephone call on Friday.
-
Esther J. Cepeda blog,
http://www.600words.com/2008/08/the-r–word-are.html
The "R-" word: are you racist, or just skeptical? -
thedailyvoice.com:
http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2008/08/post-5-000981.php
Black columnists accuse McCain of playing race -
Richard Ivory and Lenny Mccalister:
http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2008/08/uncle-toms-for-mccain-not-so-s-000984.php
Uncle Toms for McCain? Not So, Say Black Republicans -
Jose Antonio Vargas, washingtonpost.com:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/08/06/interactivity_and_the_presiden.html#more
Interactivity and the Presidential Debates -
Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=b33a930f01dd7ad25bc95cbf15399924
Bond Between Obama and Hip Hop Being Tested -
DeWayne Wickham, USA Today:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/08/mccains-race-pr.html#more
McCain’s race problem ‚Äî among whites, that is -
Jeff Winbush, theRoot.com:
http://www.theroot.com/id/47548
Can Black Journalists Be Trusted to Cover Obama?
2 Black Journalists Among Latest Chicago Tribune Buyouts
At least two black journalists were among those accepted for buyouts
Friday at the Chicago Tribune, Glenn Jeffers, features
writer, and copy editor John Adkins.
"All told, the Tribune has said it expects to eliminate 80 newsroom
positions in this round of cuts, the paper’s fourth in three years.
Other departments are making cuts, as well," Phil Rosenthal wrote
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-080808tribune-layoffs,0,3134416.story
Friday on the Tribune’s Web site.
Jeffers said he did not feel comfortable talking about his situation,
and Adkins, 59, declined to elaborate.
Rosenthal said, "Among those at the Tribune who requested and received
buyouts are Hanke Gratteau, a one-time assistant to
the late columnist Mike Royko who rose through the ranks to managing
editor for news; Timothy J. McNulty, who covered
everything from the White House to the Tiananmen Square uprising en
route to becoming the paper’s link to readers as its
public editor; and Michael Tackett, the paper’s Washington bureau chief."
Meanwhile, two other journalists at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
confirmed they were taking a buyout there and leaving at
the end of the month. Lisa Brown, 48, a copy editor and a black
journalists, said she planned to take some time off and was
"burned out on the newspaper business."
Maria Saporta, 52, a business columnist who described herself as of
Spanish descent and one-quarter Jewish, said of her
future, "I’m still trying to put that together. She has been at the
newspaper for 27 years and a columnist covering urban
issues since 1991. Brown has been in the newspaper business for 18
years, 13 at the Journal-Constitution.
-
Business Courier of Cincinnati:
http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2008/08/04/daily17.html
Enquirer initiates voluntary severance program -
Arun Venugopal, Salon.com:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/08/07/journalists_go_to_india/#
Journalist seeking paycheck? Try India
Gap Widens in Job Prospects for Graduates of Color
The gap between white journalism and mass communication graduates and
their counterparts of color "widened a little bit" in
the University of Georgia’s annual survey
http://www.grady.uga.edu/annualsurveys/Archive_News/Archive_News_15.php
of the job market, co-author Lee B. Becker told Journal-isms.
"Certainly the movement isn’t in a positive direction," he said.
"In 2007, 2,271 spring graduates from a probability sample of 83
universities around the country participated in the survey," according
to a study released Thursday by
the University of Georgia’s James M. Cox Jr. Center for International
Mass Communication Training and Research. The results were announced
at the annual conference of the
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
conference in Chicago.
"The study found that, as in past years, women had more success in the
job market in 2007 than did men, and minority graduates were less
likely to land a job generally and to find a job in the field of
communication than were non-minority graduates."
Becker said, "over the last two years, the gap has increased. In a
tougher job market, historically it’s been the case that
the minority students suffer more than the nonminority."
What happens next? Becker asked. With employers seeking cheaper
employees, those seeking entry-level positions are finding
work. "But ultimately, they don’t want to stay in entry-level jobs. At
some point, they will want to move up the line," and
cost companies more money. Will the companies be able to pay them? he wondered.
