Hazel Trice Edney Quits as Editor of Black Press News Service
Media Pounce on Bishop Eddie Long Sex-Coercion Charges
GOP Stalls Bill on Children of Illegal Immigrants
Calder??n Backs Federalization of Crimes Against Journalists
NATO-Led Force Arrests Afghan Reporters as Taliban Supporters
Newly Minted Journalist Earns Fatwa After Showing Cartoon
Hazel Trice Edney Quits as Editor of Black Press News Service
Hazel Trice Edney, who provided news stories for the nation’s black press 
as editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service, has resigned with a letter that asserts, “it is clear that my vision for the ethical running of the NNPA News Service is incompatible with that which has been outlined by the board’s leadership, which is made up of people whom I highly respect. The differences in principles are irreconcilable.”
Dorothy R. Leavell, chair of the NNPA Foundation, told Journal-isms on Wednesday that “We are working to have a smooth separation with Hazel” and planned to reorganize the operation to upgrade it with newer technology.
In the meantime, veteran journalist Askia Muhammad of the Final Call, the Washington Informer and WPFW-FM in Washington has been functioning as assignment editor with assistance from Richette Haywood, a former staff writer at Johnson Publishing Co., publishers of Ebony and Jet magazines.
Edney was named editor-in-chief of the news service in 2007, succeeding George E. Curry. She had been a 20-year veteran reporter for the black press and NNPA’s Washington correspondent for seven years, working under Curry. In addition to being editor-in-chief, she was also interim executive director of the NNPA Foundation.
She was a Wasserman Fellow on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she earned a master’s in public administration in 1999
Edney resigned Sept. 8. She could not be reached for comment on Wednesday, but in a letter obtained by Journal-isms, Edney challenged a rebuke she received from board members charging the news service was not acting in concert with NNPA, which had undertaken a “strong direction to assert the power of the NNPA.” That drive had netted more than $150,000 Edney wrote that she was told.
“I cannot believe that board members have confessed in writing that you are requiring professional journalists to support an ‘editorial direction’ that is based on a ‘drive’ for money for the Foundation, NNPA papers or otherwise. Perhaps a public relations arm could resolve this issue. But, our publishers must know that the stories that they are printing are based purely on the quest for justice; not on attempts to extort or curry favors,” Edney wrote.
Danny J. Bakewell, Sr. publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel and chair of the NNPA board of directors, was traveling and could not be reached for comment.
Leavell said the organization would begin seeking applicants for the editor-in-chief job.
CNN said it broke the story of the lawsuits against Bishop Eddie Long on Tuesday’s edition of “The Situation Room.”
Media Pounce on Bishop Eddie Long Sex-Coercion Charges
“Reaction to the lawsuits alleging sexual coercion against Bishop Eddie Long reverberated both locally and nationally Wednesday morning ‚Äî and that was before a third suit was filed Wednesday afternoon,” Larry Hartstein and Mike Morris wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Long, who has spoken out against gay marriage, heads a 25,000-member megachurch that hosted the funeral for Coretta Scott King.
“President George W. Bush and three former presidents visited the sprawling New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in the Atlanta suburb of Lithonia for the 2006 funeral of Coretta Scott King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Errin Haines and Greg Bluestein wrote Wednesday for the Associated Press. “Long introduced the speakers and the Rev. Bernice King, the Kings’ younger daughter, delivered the eulogy. She is also a pastor there.”
“Long was not immediately available Wednesday, but is holding a news conference Thursday morning,” the Journal-Constitution story continued.
“CNN and Good Morning America both ran pieces on the lawsuits, as did the local TV news shows.
“It was a major topic on local urban-themed radio stations. On the ‘Frank and Wanda Morning Show’ on V-103, host Frank Ski held off on discussing the lawsuits until after 8 o’clock because, he said, ‘we’re going to get the kids off to school’ first. . . .
“Across the radio dial on Kiss 104.1, Roland Martin interviewed the plaintiff‚Äôs attorney, B.J. Bernstein, on the nationally syndicated ‘Tom Joyner Morning Show.’ “
The Joyner show announced that Joyner “will talk exclusively” with Long at 7:15 am ET.
CNN said it broke the story Tuesday when CNN correspondent Ed Lavandera reported on the lawsuits on the “Situation Room.”
- Larry Hartstein, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Megachurch had modest beginning
GOP Stalls Bill on Children of Illegal Immigrants
“Republican lawmakers on Tuesday stalled a Senate measure to allow children of undocumented immigrants to get on a path to citizenship, and accused the Obama administration of seeking amnesty for illegal immigrants through administrative changes within the Department of Homeland Security,” Shankar Vedantam reported Wednesday for the Washington Post.
“The Dream Act, which would grant permanent residency to immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and who have completed some time in college or in the armed forces has been a sought-after goal for Democrats, who attached the measure to an important defense spending bill. Republicans used a procedural vote to block the bill. Immigration advocates accused Republicans of sacrificing the well-being of thousands of young people to cater to nativist sentiment.”
- Bruce A. Dixon, Black Agenda Report: DREAM ACT Will Extend Poverty Draft to Immigrant Youth. Such A Deal.
- Alan Gomez, USA Today: Alien Minors Act could boost U.S. military ranks
- Marisa Trevi?±o, Latina Lista blog: It wasn’t DADT that derailed Senate Reauthorization vote. It was the other “D” bill
Calder??n Backs Federalization of Crimes Against Journalists
“Calling the right to free expression a priority of his government, Mexican President Felipe Calder??n Hinojosa pledged today to push for legislation that would make attacks on journalists a federal crime, ” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported Wednesday from Mexico City. “In a lengthy meeting with a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Inter American Press Association, the president also said federal authorities will soon implement a program to provide security to at-risk journalists, one modeled after a successful effort in Colombia.
” ‘We categorically reject any attack against journalists because this is an assault against democratic society,’ Calderon said. “It pains me that Mexico is seen as one of the most dangerous places for the profession.”
NATO-Led Force Arrests Afghan Reporters as Taliban Supporters
“Two Afghan journalists were arrested during raids on their homes in the early hours of Monday and Wednesday on suspicion of collaborating with the Taliban, according to the United States military,” Rod Nordland reported for the New York Times.
“The journalists included a staff correspondent for Al Jazeera, Mohammed Nader, arrested about 4 a.m. Wednesday in Kandahar, and a freelancer who worked both for Al Jazeera and The Associated Press,
“. . . The international forces initially did not announce its arrests of the journalists, saying only that Taliban ‘facilitators’ had been detained.
“The American military has frequently arrested journalists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, holding them for long periods of time before releasing them without charges. So far as is known, no journalists have been convicted by a court on charges of working for insurgents either in Afghanistan or in Iraq.
“Family members and colleagues complained the journalists had been accused of having contacted the Taliban, something both foreign and local journalists do regularly in Afghanistan.
A spokeswoman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, Maj. Sunset Belinsky, disputed that assertion in a telephone interview.
‚Äú ‘They were apprehended because we had good information they were associated with Taliban activity,’ she said. ‘Doing due journalistic diligence would not be enough to get arrested. But being with the insurgents while they were planning or instigating operations would be.’ ‚Äù
The Jazeera bureau chief in Kabul, Samer Allawi, said, “They are both journalists who were just gathering news as any other journalist would do,” the Times reported.
New Republic Editor’s Remarks on Muslims Spur Protests
A provocative blog post by New Republic Editor Martin Peretz has set off a controversy at Harvard over whether the university should allow the longtime Harvard instructor to be honored at a ceremony on Saturday, Tracy Jan reported in the Boston Globe last week.
“Distinguished alumni, professors, and other fans of Peretz have spent the past six months raising more than half a million dollars to establish an undergraduate research fund named after Peretz, who taught at Harvard for more than 40 years, until about five years ago. They plan to honor Peretz as part of a daylong celebration Sept. 25 marking the 50th anniversary of Harvard‚Äôs social studies major.
“But the honor has become controversial following a blog post Peretz authored on Sept. 4. He wrote, ‘Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims,‚Äô and asserted that Muslims have hardly ‘raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood.‚Äô “
- Chris McGreal, the Guardian, London: Harvard faces protests over honour for Islamophobic editor
- Jim Naureckas, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: Martin Peretz on the ‘Cultural Deficiencies’ of Blacks
- Zachary Roth, Columbia Journalism Review: Kurtz Stays Silent on Peretz
Newly Minted Journalist Earns Fatwa After Showing Cartoon
“Very little knowledge of English and difficulty clicking the South African isiXhosa language did not stop 28-year-old Abdulahi Ibrahim Dasar, a Somali refugee in South Africa, from venturing into small-scale kiosk work selling groceries, Clifford Derrick wrote from Johannesburg Wednesday for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Business was picking up until the streets suddenly erupted in deadly xenophobic violence in May 2008, Derrick continued. So Dasar teamed up in late 2008 with a friends to launch a bimonthly magazine called Qurba-joog (Somali for “diaspora”).
“Even though Dasar had no journalism training or experience in the profession, the six-page publication did well among the Somali nationals in Cape Town, where it mainly circulated. As a credit to his success, Dasar was asked to become a reporter for Universal TV, a U.K.-based Somali-language satellite network with correspondents and offices in Cape Town. Reporting on local Somali community affairs, he was growing as a journalist.
“However, as if caught in d?©j?† vu, Dasar’s life was turned upside down again in May, two years after his business was destroyed. During a report on the public controversy surrounding South Africa’s Mail & Guardian’s publication of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, Dasar displayed on the air a copy of the newspaper page with the cartoon. . . .
“For showing the Mail & Guardian’s cartoon while reporting on the controversy, Dasar also became a target of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab insurgents, particularly the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab, which have in the past claimed responsibility for killings of journalists in Somalia. The group first banned Universal TV in its strongholds in Somalia and issued a fatwa calling for Dasar’s assassination.”
” . . . Currently without a job or income and uncertain of what his future holds, Dasar told me he remains a committed Muslim and a member of the independent press and nothing will force him from either. His immediate concern, however, is protecting his life.”
Short Takes
“In case you didn’t remember that new Philadelphia Eagles starting quarterback Michael Vick(notes) was once imprisoned for running a dogfighting ring, the city’s tabloid newspaper would like to remind you. Here’s the front page of Wednesday’s edition of the Philadelphia Daily News,” Chris Chase wrote Wednesday for Yahoo Sports. - “It is the ‘strongest wish’ of the siblings and father of slain journalist Chauncey Bailey that two men charged in his killing be tried in Alameda County, they wrote in a letter to the judge deciding a change of venue motion,” Thomas Peele wrote Tuesday for the Chauncey Bailey Project.
- “The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by Iran’s continued persecution of independent journalists. Reporters Shiva Nazar Ahari and Emadeddin Baghi have each been sentenced to six years in prison, while authorities are said to be considering the death penalty for blogger Hossein Derakhshan, according to news reports,” the committee said on Tuesday.
- “The FAMU-Shantou student South Africa reporting project lives, as The Famuan this week published Clarece Polke’s excellent piece on the fight against HIV/AIDS in South Africa,” Joe Ritchie, professor at Florida A&M University, posted on his Facebook page on Wednesday. “The Famuan Online also has her audio slideshow of related photos for a complete multimedia package, which we also should be adding soon to the project’s home site at http://www.famustu.net/worldcup. Ritchie took six FAMU students to South Africa, meeting six journalism students from Shantou University in China. The two groups collaborated on multimedia coverage of the World Cup and of life in South Africa in general.
At a time when news organizations have scaled back on business news, Betty Liu, a TV anchor for Bloomberg has managed to carve out a niche, Susan Anderson wrote Tuesday for the Star-Ledger in Newark. ‚Äú’I didn‚Äôt break into TV the way one usually does,’ she says. ‘I developed an expertise first, which was business news &mdasb; in particular, being an expert in all things China.’ She is not the only female business news anchor, but has the distinction of being, at 37, one of the youngest to head her own network financial news show. There are only two other female Asian-American business anchors, both on CNBC: Carmen Wong Ulrich of ‚ÄúOn The Money‚Äù and Melissa Lee of ‚ÄúFast Money.‚Äù (Christine Tan, who anchors ‚ÄúWorldwide Exchange‚Äù for CNBC, is from Singapore.)” - “Ambrose I. Lane Sr., an anti-poverty activist who became a political and religious commentator as host of the talk show ‘We Ourselves’ on Pacifica Radio’s Washington station, WPFW, died Sept. 14 of complications from congestive heart failure at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. He was 75,” Emma Brown reported Tuesday in the Washington Post.
- “The Los Angeles Times Media Group‚Äôs Hoy Fin de Semanais set to increase distribution from 500,000 to more than 700,000 households in Hispanic-dominant ZIP codes across the Los Angeles DMA beginning Saturday October 2nd. The 40% increase in the Spanish-language weekend publication‚Äôs footprint targets the nation‚Äôs largest Hispanic market,” the Times announced last week.
Follow Richard Prince on Twitter
Facebook users: Sign up for the “Richard Prince’s Journal-isms” fan page.
