Maynard Institute archives

Journalists Hit All Sides of Super Bowl

by richard0510

Much More to Cover Than Just Sunday’s Game

Chef Defends, Comic Ridicules NBC’s Soul Food Menu

50th Anniversary of Sit-Ins Spawns Commemorations

S. Asian Journalists Elect Jigar Mehta of N.Y. Times

Iraqi Plans Denounced as Licensing Journalists

Iraqi in America: So Many in U.S. Are Overweight

Muslims Influence Portrayals on Fox Television

Auto Writer Says Media Gave Toyota a Pass

TV One’s "Washington Watch" Tapes in China

Short Takes

 

The Miami Herald's Manny Navarro created this video of scenes from Thursday night's Super Bowl celebrations on South Beach. Sunday's game was only part of what journalists were covering. (click image to view)

Much More to Cover Than Just Sunday’s Game

On Thursday, ESPN.com’s Jemele Hill and Laura Lane brought readers "The Super Bowl XLIV party report."¬†

"We’re rating this year’s parties by the fist pump. As always, come Sunday, we’ll rate the No. 1 party of Super Bowl week. Until then, check back here daily as we give you a special behind-the-scenes look at what’s going down in Miami.

"We guarantee it’ll be a lot more interesting than talking about Dwight Freeney’s ankle," they wrote.

Hill was among the hordes of media people in Miami Gardens, Fla., for Sunday’s Super Bowl matchup between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints.

Other journalists of color filing from South Florida this week have included:

Sean Jensen of the Chicago Sun-Times, Mike Freeman of CBSSports.com, Thomas George and Terence Moore of AOL FanHouse, Tim Smith of the New York Daily News, Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star, William C. Rhoden of the New York Times, Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post, Nakia Hogan and John DeShazier of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Steve Wyche of nfl.com, Stephen Holder of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, Calvin Watkins of ESPNDallas.com, Jarrett Bell of USA Today, Monique Walker of the Boston Globe, Omar Kelly of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Allen Wilson of the Buffalo News, D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ohm Youngmisuk of the New York Daily News, Israel Gutierrez and Dan LeBatard of the Miami Herald and Clifton Brown of the Sporting News.

ESPN’s Michael Smith was reported to be participating in the Gridiron Celebrity Hoops XII basketball game on Saturday.

"There are number of African-American sports writers who cover the Super Bowl, NBA All-Star Game, NBA Finals and the NCAA Final Four," Gregory Lee of the Boston Globe, who chairs the Sports Task Force of the National Association of Black Journalists, e-mailed Journal-isms from Miami. "It is usually the time outside of the NABJ Convention where they see a lot of people like themselves and they usually organize a dinner to catch up."

Lee compared the sportswriters’ presence in Miami with "the lack of diversity at such events as the MLB All-Star Game, World Series and other major sporting events. While there is some progress in the NFL and NBA circles, we have a very long way to go in diversifying the press boxes of Major League Baseball, College Football, Golf and Professional Hockey," he said. "I am interested to see who will cover the Olympic Games in Vancouver."

If media figures weren’t covering the parties, they were giving them. "Super Bowl bashes, which were tempered last year by the economic crisis, are gearing back up, albeit slowly," Lucia Moses wrote for Media Week, outlining some of the plans being made by magazines¬†

As for the game, the Associated Press provided a guide to the key players and a handy list of facts and figures:

It will be televised by CBS-TV to more than 200 stations throughout the United States and by Westwood One Radio to 600 stations within the country. "The Armed Forces Television will also provide broadcast to 175 countries.

"The game will be distributed internationally by the NFL and NFL International to more than 185 countries and broadcast in 30 different languages."

Just because CBS has the broadcast rights domestically doesn’t mean other networks aren’t in on the action.

"Admit it," Diane Pucin wrote Friday in the Los Angeles Times. "You had no idea ESPN has 18 platforms. But they do and there is Super Bowl coverage on all of them.

"And this isn’t even the network that is actually televising the game."

Anders Gyllenhaal highlights some of the Miami Herald's coverage of the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl (Click image to view).
As executive editor of the largest newspaper in the host city, the Miami Herald’s Anders Gyllenhaal devoted his weekly "Inside the Newsroom" video to highlights of the Herald’s extensive coverage of both the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl.

The ads shown during the game – the reason many watch – won’t be seen in Canada, but Bill Brioux, a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ontario, helpfully pointed out that just about every Super Bowl spot on the CBS feed can be found on YouTube and other Web sites after the game.

"Perhaps the most controversial spot this Sunday is an ad that CBS approved from a Christian group called Focus on the Family. The ad, featuring 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, has drawn criticism from women’s groups for being anti-abortion," he noted.

"The U.S. census bureau has spent US$2.5 million on a message to get their citizens to fill out the 2010 census which will be mailed in a few weeks. Movie ads for upcoming films like ‘Iron Man 2’ and ‘The Last Airbender’ are also slated to run. A cellphone spot will salute the 25th anniversary of the ‘Super Bowl Shuffle’ (video) featuring a reunion of some of the Chicago Bears."

As for the main event, Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote:

"Peyton Manning, son of the greatest Saint of them all (Archie Manning) and perhaps the smartest quarterback to ever play in the NFL, has made the Colts a 5 1/2-point favorite in this game. The Colts are treating Super Bowl XLIV as a normal business trip."

Terence Moore wrote for AOL FanHouse, "The Saints would like to win on Sunday, but they don’t have to because the historically forgiving Who Dat Nation really isn’t demanding as much.

" ‘If we lose, it will be like your child messing up to our fans in that you’re still going to love your kid, and that goes back to the fact that this team has done so much for this city that they are going to remain proud,’ said strong safety Roman Harper on Wednesday at the Saints’ team hotel, where he described the inspiring yet unfortunate situation – you know, for those who really want the Saints to win."

New Orleans television stations "are committing vast resources in Miami to feed the insatiable desire for news of the Saints’ big Super Bowl adventure," Dave Walker wrote in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. But the stations were also committed to covering Saturday’s New Orleans mayoral election, stretching the stations’ resources.

"Perhaps the biggest logistical challenge of all for the local stations is getting gear and staffers back in time to cover Tuesday evening’s win-or-lose Saints parade in New Orleans," Walker wrote.


"It's just a good meal," chef Leslie Calhoun said of her Black History Month selection at the NBC commissary.

Chef Defends, Comic Ridicules NBC’s Soul Food Menu

"It may have seemed like an innocent tweet. But when you have more than a million followers, it’s never that simple," Maria Schiavocampo wrote on theGrio.com, which is owned by NBC.

"Questlove, the drummer for the Roots ‚Äî now the house band for ‘The Jimmy Fallon Show’ ‚Äî was grabbing a bite at the NBC commissary Thursday, when a certain lunch special caught his eye. He snapped a photo of the sign, and tweeted it.

"Underneath the picture he included the caption ‘Hmm HR?’ ‚Äî signaling that he may have been offended by the idea that Black History Month should be honored with fried chicken and collard greens. Some of his 1.3 million followers agreed, posting comments like ‘They wrong…Somebody get Al Sharpton on the phone ‚Äî while others didn’t see the big deal, writing ‘It is a representation of Black food historically.’

"Within minutes the sign was gone from the commissary ‚Äî though the meal continued to be served ‚Äî and NBC posted a tweet of their own, saying ‘The sign in the NBCU cafeteria has been removed. We apologize for anyone who was offended by it.’

"One person who doesn’t understand how offense could be taken: Chef Leslie Calhoun. It was her decision to select the menu items and create the sign. TheGrio caught up with her minutes after the tweet fiasco erupted and she seemed genuinely upset by the whole thing. Calhoun is an African-American and employee of Flick, a catering service that runs the NBC commissary.

"She said that for the last eight years she’s been seeking approval from Flick management for a special Black History Month menu, and had finally been told that every Thursday for the month of February, she could serve whatever she chose.

"’ I don’t understand at all. It’s not trying to offend anybody and it’s not trying to suggest that that’s all that African-Americans eat. It’s just a good meal,’ she said, adding, ‘I thought it would go over well.’

"As for Questlove, he’s opted to give tweeting a break. About two hours after posting his twitpic, he typed ‘i think I need a twitter break. i done started something. and now I must put out fire.’ Looks like for now, he’ll go back to using his fingers for drumming."

Comedian Wanda Sykes razzed Jay Leno about the Black History Month menu on his show this week, asking whether NBC was going to add watermelon for dessert (Video.)

50th Anniversary of Sit-Ins Spawns Commemorations

"An angry reader e-mailed today that she couldn’t believe how USA Today covered the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins," Allen Johnson, editorial page editor of the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record, wrote Monday on his blog.

"In a front-page story this morning, she fumed, the national daily focused on the Feb. 8 sit-ins, not Feb. 1 … in Nashville, Tenn.

"She didn’t stop there. She wrote to USA Today:

‚Äú ‘In all of my 75 years of life, I have never come across a more inaccurate, insulting piece of journalistic trash than Larry Copeland‚Äôs front-page article today (Feb. 1), regarding Nashville and their civil rights sit-ins, etc.

" ‘The city to be honored on your front page should be Greensboro, NC and their four men who STARTED the entire movement by sitting at Woolworth‚Äôs WHITE ONLY counter and were the real beginning of the movement ‚Äî NOT Nashville."

It’s not that the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins went unnoticed. It was accompanied by the opening of an International Civil Rights Center and Museum in that city. And as noted previously, the News & Record commemorated the occasion with special coverage and a front-page letter from President Obama.

Twenty students from Howard University headed south to chronicle the 50th anniversary for a multimedia special report on the Howard Web site that is to be updated and expanded throughout Black History Month. 

As the USA Today story pointed out, by the end of March 1960, the sit-in movement had spread to more than 55 cities in 13 states.

Veterans of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the civil rights organization born out of the sit-in movement and lasting nine years, plan to commemorate its 50th anniversary with a conference April 15-18 at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C., where SNCC was founded.

The late historian Howard Zinn, author of "A People’s History of the United States" who died Jan. 27 at age 87, was to be one of the speakers.

S. Asian Journalists Elect Jigar Mehta of N.Y. Times

Jigar MehtaJigar Mehta, a video journalist for the New York Times, was elected president of the South Asian Journalists Association by the SAJA board, the group announced on Thursday. Anusha Shrivastava, a credit markets reporter for Dow Jones Newswires and two-term SAJA secretary, was elected vice president.

Prabha Natarajan, also a credit markets reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, was named secretary. John Laxmi, a New Jersey-based freelance writer, continues as treasurer and Sree Sreenivasan, a Columbia University journalism professor and founder of SAJA, continues as the executive committee’s at-large officer.

" ‘SAJA is becoming a truly North American journalism organization and we are planning exciting events and programs to reach more members than ever,’ said Mehta, who attended the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a past SAJA scholarship and reporting fellowship recipient. ‘Our industry is constantly evolving and we need to make sure that SAJA evolves to meet the needs of our members.’¬†

"Before joining the New York Times, Mehta was a documentary filmmaker based in San Francisco where he worked on Jon Else’s film ‘Wonders Are Many,’ a documentary about the making of opera ‘Doctor Atomic.’ More recently, he has produced videos that range in topic from small business in Detroit to Olympic snowboarding."

Iraqi Plans Denounced as Licensing Journalists

"An Iraqi government plan to impose restrictive rules on broadcast news media represents an alarming return to authoritarianism, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today," the committee announced on Thursday. "CPJ denounced the rules and called on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government to abandon their repressive plan.

"CPJ’s review of the plan found rules that fall well short of international standards for freedom of expression and that appear to contravene the Iraqi constitution, which provides for a free press. The new rules would effectively impose government licensing of journalists and media outlets, a tool that authoritarian governments worldwide have long used to censor the news."

Iraqi in America: So Many in U.S. Are Overweight

Mudhafar al-Husseini"It has been almost nine months since I arrived in the United States. I can’t believe how fast life is moving and how different my family‚Äôs days are now are from the old days‚Äîthat was a beautiful time. Everything is changing now. There’s no simplicity for us anymore," Mudhafar al-Husseini wrote last week for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Al-husseini "worked at The New York Times in Baghdad for two years, reporting news stories and writing blog entries as well as acting as a fixer and translator for other reporters. Before that, from 2004 to 2006, he was a translator for the U.S. Army in Iraq," the committee said.

"The first thing I noticed in America ‚Äî and the first thing my mom asked me about after she arrived here four months ago ‚Äî is that so many people here are overweight. The main reason, it seemed to me, is that Americans have no time to cook like Iraqis do everyday. There’s not enough time for thinking about a healthy diet, no time for daily cooking, which is the number one priority for Iraqi women."

Muslims Influence Portrayals on Fox Television

Edina Lekovic, communications director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, says she has found a way to make progress in influencing the American media.

"What 9/11 did was create a crisis and then create an opportunity for greater understanding," she told Sally Steenland of the Center for American Progress. "It created a level of curiosity — particularly in the entertainment and the news industry — about Muslims. They realized that there were some interesting stories out there. What’s happening in the entertainment industry is very interesting. Post-9/11 we expected that portrayals were going to get worse. But by and large, TV production companies and filmmakers stayed silent on terrorism-related stories for a few years, until they found a way to deal with it intelligently and sensitively.

"There are good examples and bad examples. One of the worst examples was a plotline of ’24’ on Fox that focused on a sleeper-cell family who were obviously Muslim. One of the parents ordered their child to get rid of a friend because they knew too much. The billboards for this were ominous and fear mongering. We reached out to the executive producer of ’24,’ Howard Gordon, and to the diversity development department at Fox television. They agreed to meet with us, although they didn‚Äôt fully understand what we were so up in arms about. But in that meeting, we were able to lay out our concerns and share the outrage and the hurt within our community to be portrayed in this way. After that, producers agreed to run a public service announcement with Kiefer Sutherland, the star of the show, making clear the story was fictional and describing contributions of Muslim Americans to society.

"Out of that crisis, the show has evolved to where the producer attended a Brookings Institution-sponsored U.S. Muslim World Relations forum in Qatar. He has engaged policymakers and think tanks about these issues and brought that back into the show. That’s a success story because the relationship today could not be more different than when we started. We’ve also launched a Hollywood bureau where we go to industry functions and let people know that we’re here not to make sure that only positive stories are told but that authentic and multidimensional stories are told."

Auto Writer Says Media Gave Toyota a Pass

Washington Post automobile writer Warren Brown said Friday that Toyota’s quality-control problems, which exploded into public consciousness this week when the company recalled millions of cars to fix sticky gas pedals and loose floor mats, are not new, they have just been ignored by consumers and the news media.

Brown said on National Public Radio’s "Tell Me More," "I am suggesting that in this particular case, as in any other particular cases, the media failed for one thing because the media had anointed Toyota the quality leader because the domestic [automatkers] supposedly messed up so badly. So the media failed. The media, to me, tended not to look at Toyota the same way it would look at General Motors, Ford, Chrysler."

Brown has written about automobiles for the Post since 1982. "There were many reasons, you know, to look at Toyota," he said. "But time and time again, if there was a problem with sludge in tanks, for example, a murmur from the media and it passed. If there were other problems, a murmur from the media, it passed. And there was even a mindset among many Toyota owners and they would call me and say I have problem A, B, and C with my Toyota. What am I doing wrong?

"If someone with a GM or Ford vehicle would call with a similar problem, oh these expletive people, you know, they messed up again. I’m going to sue them, so forth and so on. And so that was, you know, that was the mindset."

TV One’s "Washington Watch" Tapes in China

"A special edition of ‘Washington Watch with Roland Martin‘ taped in China this week features newsmaker guest National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial and is scheduled to air on TV One Sunday, Feb. 7 at 11 AM ET," TV One announced.

"Host Roland Martin traveled to China this week with a group of business, civil rights, academic and political leaders organized by the National Urban League. The trip was designed to build economic and cultural ties between China, the world’s most populous nation with the world‚Äôs second biggest economy, and the African American community.

"The show will feature an announcement that China has committed to establishing a Confucius Institute at its first HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Xavier University in New Orleans, and will establish three more at HBCUs. Confucius Institute is a non-profit public institute which aims at promoting Chinese language and culture and supporting local Chinese teaching. There are 56 Confucius Institutes in the United States now, mainly affiliated with universities.

"Several other panels will be featured, including a panel on clean economy jobs that includes Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, and Patrick Gusman, senior vice president of innovation and strategy and innovation officer at the National Urban League; a panel on educational opportunities in China with Dorothy Gilliam, founder/director of Prime Movers Media at George Washington University; and Frank Gilliam, dean of the UCLA School of Public Affairs and professor of public policy and political science.

"A journalists’ roundtable includes Dorothy Gilliam who is a former reporter, editor and columnist for The Washington Post; Michelle Miller, CBS News correspondent; Danny Bakewell, Sr., publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel and chairman of the National Newspapers Publishers Association."

Short Takes

  • Caesar Andrews, former executive editor of the Detroit Free Press, has been named Paul A. Leonard Distinguished Visiting Chair for Ethics and Writing in Journalism at the Reynolds School of Journalism and Center for Advanced Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, the school announced Thursday. "Andrews will teach undergraduate courses in media ethics and multimedia reporting during spring semester. . . Andrews served last semester as the Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at Washington and Lee University in Virginia."
  • "Candy Crowley’s appointment as anchor of CNN’s "State of the Union" ‚Äî she debuts Sunday ‚Äî has re-ignited that contentious debate. Particularly among women," Gail Shister wrote Friday for Mediabistro. "To wit: Would Crowley have been chosen if she hadn’t dropped major poundage over the past year, or is the fact that she was chosen a sign that networks have moved beyond judging on-air women by their dress size? Crowley, 61, whose credentials and experience are beyond reproach, says she’s not sure."
  • The Minority Writers Seminar, a program of the National Conference of Editorial Writers to increase the pool of skilled opinion writers of color, is accepting applications for its next class until March 8. The sessions take place April 29 to May 2 at the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Lodging and food at the seminar are covered; participants are reimbursed up to $200 for transportation to and from Nashville. Enrollment is limited to 15. More information at: http://www.minoritywritersseminar.org/

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