Fox Host Glenn Beck Unrepentant

Freed Journalist Can’t Earn Money Legally in U.S.

[Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI_0Kt_e3Go&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmije%2Eorg%2Frichardprince%2Fglenn%2Dbeck%2Dunrepentent&feature=player_embedded">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI_0Kt_e3Go&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmije%2Eorg%2Frichardprince%2Fglenn%2Dbeck%2Dunrepentent&feature=player_embedded]

Glenn Beck’s calling President Obama ‘a racist’ prompted a move to boycott his advertisers.

Boycotters Claim 16 More Firms Have Pulled Out

"Glenn Beck used his popular Fox News show this afternoon to attack the background of Van Jones, a White House environmental advisor who co-founded an African American political advocacy group that organized an advertising boycott of his program," Matea Gold reported Monday for the Los Angeles Times.

Meanwhile, the Oakland, Calif.-based group, Color of Change, claimed that 16 new companies have pledged not to run additional ads on the Beck program since it launched its campaign three weeks ago, bringing the total to 36.

"The defections come as ColorOfChange.org members mobilized last week against corporations who still refused to pull their ads from Glenn Beck by placing thousands of phone calls to company executives. By the end of the week, three of these companies – Clorox, Lowe’s and Sprint – had pledged not to run additional ads; Red Lobster and Vonage have not yet responded," the Bay Area group said.

"The new companies distancing themselves from Beck include Airware Inc. (makers of Brez anti-snoring aids), Ancestry.com, AT&T, Blaine Labs Inc., Campbell Soup Company, Clorox, Ditech, The Elations Company, Experian (creator of FreeCreditReport.com), Farmers Insurance Group, Johnson & Johnson (makers of Tylenol), Lowe’s, NutriSystem, Sprint, The UPS Store and Verizon Wireless."

Beck returned from a week’s vacation that some speculated Fox urged him to take after the controversy. But, Gold’s story continued, "During his 2 p.m. PDT show, Beck did not address the boycott spearheaded by Color of Change to protest the talk show host’s remark last month that he believes President Obama is ‘a racist.’"

"Instead, he spent a large share of his program suggesting that Jones, who co-founded Color of Change in 2005, is a radical. Jones now serves as a special advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

"During a six-minute biographical profile, set to ominous music, Beck said Jones was twice arrested for political protests and has described himself as a ‘rowdy black nationalist.’ The talk show host cast the piece as part of a broader examination of Obama’s ‘czars,’ special advisers to the president who ‘don’t answer to anybody.’"

"Why is it that such a committed revolutionary has made it so high into the Obama administration as one of his chief advisers?" Beck asked.

"A White House spokesman did not immediately return a call for comment.

”Glenn Beck is trying to change the subject,’ said James Rucker, executive director of Color of Change, who noted that Jones has not been active with the group in almost two years. ‘The issue is his baseless fear mongering.’

"Beck’s assault on Jones came as Color of Change announced that it has secured commitments from 36 companies who have pledged not to advertise on Beck’s popular program, including Wal-Mart and Sprint. However, some of the companies never had a presence on ‘Glenn Beck.’ Representatives of Procter & Gamble and AT&T – listed by Color of Change as companies that had signed onto the boycott – told The Times that their companies did not run spots on Beck’s program to begin with."

• David Bauder, Associated Press:¬†Attack on Obama riles Beck’s advertisers
  
• James Rucker with Bob Garfield, "On the Media," National Public Radio:¬†Color Me Offended

TMZ reported Monday that according to a search warrant affidavit filed in Houston, Michael Jackson had lethal levels of Propofol in his system when he died on June 25. 

Black Press Uneven in Reporting Jackson Ruling

“Just when it looked like the cottage industry known as The Michael Jackson Media Circus started to slide, along came news reports on Monday that the fabled singer’s death was being ruled a homicide by the Los Angeles County Coroner,” Jon Friedman wrote¬†for MarketWatch.

But if the circus began, the black press appeared to be ambivalent about climbing aboard. BET.com sent out a bulletin and quickly posted an account. AOL Black Voices quoted the Web site TMZ and dispatched a story. But in the hour after the Associated Press¬†and Los Angeles Times¬†moved their stories about the coroner’s ruling, ebonyjet.com and a slew of black newspapers still had stale Jackson news on their Web sites: “Michael Jackson, Woodstock Spark Surge In Music Memorabilia,” “Michael Jackson’s Children Spend Weekend in Vegas,” “Michael Jackson’s mother praises Vienna tribute.”

Some of the same news organizations had been loath to print anything that didn’t show Jackson in a positive light ‚Äî and the story of a superstar driven to drug injections that eventually took his life was not in the narrative.

“As we talked about how to honor this cultural icon‚Äôs memory, the news media had already started beating the drum of controversy,” Ebony’s Harriette Cole wrote¬†in describing plans for Ebony’s commemorative edition, now on newsstands. “The man had only been dead for a few minutes when the rumor and innuendo, the oddity and absurdity of the MJ story took over the airwaves.

“We wanted to tell the triumphant story of MJ‚Äôs life and career. And we had the ammo to do so.”

To be fair, for some of these outlets, Web sites are not a priority. But the Web sites of two black weeklies did have the news and deserve recognition: The St. Louis American and the L.A. Wave newspapers.

“We’ve made an effort in the last six months of getting up stuff on the Web site as fast as possible,” Don Wanlass, managing editor of the Wave papers, told Journal-isms. He said the Web editor used material from L.A.’s City News Service.

“I don’t think we made a conscious decision to go one way or the other . . . to emphasize the legal part or de-emphasize it,” he said of the Wave’s coverage. “We’re just covering the subject as news dictates,” he said. “It would be real hard to cover the autopsy without getting” into the drug aspect.

It wasn’t only the black newspapers that eschewed the latest Jackson news on their sites. The lurid MediaTakeout.com, which calls itself “the most-visited urban Website in the world,” had something it must have thought trumped Jackson.

“NUH UHHHHHHHH!!! IN HIS NEW SONG … JAY Z CALLS BEYONCE A HO!!!! (EXPLOSIVE LYRICS INSIDE),” it proclaimed.

• Kyle Anderson, MTV: Michael Jackson Homicide Ruling Surprises Fans
• Gregory Clay, McClatchy-Tribune News Service: Step inside the media game regarding MJ¬†
• Barry Cooper, blackweb20.com: Amid A Crisis, Ebony, Jet Look To Web For Help
• Chris Morran, OK magazine: Jackson Family Issues Statement Regarding Coroner‚Äôs Finding

Journalists of Color to Be Invited to Hearings on News

When Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., held a Senate committee hearing in May on “the future of journalism,” diversity advocates complained that the “D-word,” which they argue is central to the success of journalism, hardly came up.

Now the Federal Trade Commission is planning at least two days of workshops on that future, on Dec. 1 and 2 . The project is titled ‚ÄúFrom Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?‚Äù and “we’re very interested in having journalists of color participate,” an FTC official told Journal-isms.

“More often, the F.T.C. tends to organize workshops related to consumer protection issues like mortgage fraud,” Pradnya Joshi reported¬†Sunday in the New York Times. “But Jon Leibowitz, the F.T.C. chairman, says the agency has taken a look at other industries, through workshops on hospital competition, food marketing and the patent system. Journalism‚Äôs future falls in the agency‚Äôs purview, he said.

‚Äú’Competition among news organizations involves more than just price,’ Mr. Leibowitz said in an interview.”

Susan DeSanti, director of policy planning at the agency, told Journal-isms, “I think you all would bring a particular perspective” the commission should hear, speaking of journalists of color. She said she is just beginning to draw up invitation lists, which might include journalists, bloggers and representatives of online news start-ups such as the Voice of San Diego.

The journalists of color organizations have generally not testified before Congress or government agencies. An exception was the Federal Communication Commission’s hearings on media consolidation in 2003.

 

WTKR-TV in Norfolk, Va., posted this video clip last week on its Web site.

After Ruckus, 2 File Countercharges Against Ciara

“Two people charged with assaulting local TV news anchor Barbara Ciara have filed similar charges against Ciara, as well,” Mike Holtzclaw and David Macaulay reported Monday for the Daily Press of Newport News, Va.

Ciara ended a two-year term this month as president of the National Association of Black Journalists.

“James O’Leary and Crystal Harrison, of Virginia Employment Services, had been scheduled to appear in Norfolk General District Court on Monday morning, but they had their cases continued to Sept. 30.

“Both are charged with assault and battery, while O’Leary faces an additional count of disorderly conduct, all stemming from a complaint Ciara filed with the magistrate’s office after a confrontation outside a Norfolk courthouse Wednesday.

Now, Ciara has a court date for Sept. 18 to face two misdemeanor assault and battery charges — one claiming she assaulted.

At the heart of all the charges is a confrontation ‚Äî caught on video and broadcast by WTKR last week ‚Äî as O’Leary left a Norfolk courthouse after unrelated charges against him were dismissed.

O’Leary is co-owner of Virginia Employment Services, a Norfolk business that is the subject of a state lawsuit following allegations it took clients’ money without giving them a job.

The video shows Ciara and two cameramen confronting O’Leary and another man as they leave the courthouse. Each side claims to have been assaulted, but most online comments posted after people viewed the video at dailypress.com chided how the TV crew handled the situation.

• Barbara Ciara, WTKR-TV: Barbara Ciara’s view on the VES video
• Tamara Dietrich, Daily Press, Newport News, Va.: Wolf pack journalist

Health Debate Said to Show Journalists’ Impotence

“They tried to perform last rites on the ludicrous claim about President Obama’s death panels, telling Sarah Palin, in effect, you’ve got to quit making things up,” Howard Kurtz wrote¬†Monday in the Washington Post.

“But it didn’t matter. The story refused to die.

“The crackling, often angry debate over health-care reform has severely tested the media’s ability to untangle a story of immense complexity. In many ways, news organizations have risen to the occasion; in others they have become agents of distortion. But even when they report the facts, they have had trouble influencing public opinion.

“In the 10 days after Palin warned on Facebook of an America ‘in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel,” ‘ The Washington Post mentioned the phrase 18 times, the New York Times 16 times, and network and cable news at least 154 times (many daytime news shows are not transcribed).

“While there is legitimate debate about the legislation’s funding for voluntary end-of-life counseling sessions, the former Alaska governor’s claim that government panels would make euthanasia decisions was clearly debunked. Yet an NBC poll last week found that 45 percent of those surveyed believe the measure would allow the government to make decisions about cutting off care to the elderly ‚Äî a figure that rose to 75 percent among Fox News viewers.

“. . . Perhaps journalists are no more trusted than politicians these days, or many folks never saw the knockdown stories. But this was a stunning illustration of the traditional media’s impotence.”

Meanwhile, “Fox News Sunday” went beyond “death panels” to discuss “what critics are calling the ‘death book.’

“It’s a 52-page pamphlet the Department of Veterans Affairs is using right now in end-of-life counseling for the nation’s 24 million veterans,” host Chris Wallace said.

Although the pamphlet has nothing to do with any health care plan, the discussion prompted Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., to declare that “consideration ought to be given right now to suspending it, pending hearings before the Veterans Affairs Committee in the Senate, where I serve.”

• Associated Press:¬†Vacationing Obamas to News Photogs: No Shots of Kids Without the President
• Ted Diadiun, Cleveland Plain Dealer:¬†Solid facts are hard to come by in health care debate
• Sam Fulwood III, Center for American Progress: Atta Boy, Barney
• Ken Wheaton, Advertising Age: Whatever the Merits of Obama’s Reform, the Marketing Is a Mess
• Jack White, Jon Cowan and Anna Greenberg with Neal Conan on “Talk of the Nation,” National Public Radio:¬†Re-Evaluating Obama’s Strategy

Reporters Unearth Church’s “Potentially Dirty Money”

A reporting team in Costa Rica who “unearthed illegal financial dealings with potentially dirty money, carried out by officials of the Catholic Church in Costa Rica” shared first-prize for the Best Journalistic Investigation of a Case of Corruption in Latin America, awarded by the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (Press and Society Institute of Peru) and the Berlin-based Transparency International, ?Ångel P?°ez reported¬†Monday from Lima, Peru, for the Inter-Press Service.

“It never crossed our minds that Church authorities could be involved in illegal financial operations with dirty money, until we saw the cheques and accounts involving millions of dollars,” Giannina Segnini of the Costa Rican newspaper La Naci??n told IPS.

“We have investigated corruption in government circles and also in the private sphere, but no one wakes up one morning thinking: let’s investigate the Church today. What was most surprising was the involvement of the top authorities of the Costa Rican Bishops’ Conference,” she said.

Segnini said that “at first, the president of the Bishops’ Conference, Monsignor Francisco Ulloa, said he was not aware of the illegal financial dealings, but after La Naci??n published the stories, the General Superintendence of Financial Entities (SUGEF, a regulatory authority) brought a complaint and the prosecutor’s office raided its premises looking for evidence of wrong-doing.

“We realised the impact of what we had discovered when, without warning, all the members of the Bishops’ Conference, led by its president, turned up at the La Naci??n editorial offices to offer explanations,” Segnini said. She shared the prize with reporter Ernesto Rivera.

Freed Journalist Can’t Earn Money Legally in U.S.

A Mexican journalist released¬†in January from a U.S. immigration jail after seven months’ detention is awaiting approval of his application for a work visa, and until then cannot earn money legally in the United States.

“Emilio Guti?©rrez Soto was processed like many others who cross the U.S./Mexico border seeking refuge. He was brought under the jurisdiction of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), separated from his fifteen-year-old son, denied bond, and incarcerated for seven months,” Marissa Col??n-Margolies wrote¬†Friday for Columbia Journalism Review.

“Guti?©rrez Soto, a journalist, came to the United States in 2008 seeking political asylum because he wrote a handful of articles criticizing the Mexican military in 2005. His reports chronicled harassment and threats of citizens in Juarez, a city notorious for its ghoulish murder rate, rampant corruption, and drug cartel violence.

“As Charles Bowden reports¬†in the July/August issue of Mother Jones, fifty soldiers raided Guti?©rrez Soto‚Äôs home, threatened and harassed him. Then, a friend with ties to the military told him he would be murdered if he did not leave immediately. A single father, Guti?©rrez Soto is now staying with his son in New Mexico, awaiting his immigration hearing. Because his application for a work visa has yet to be processed, he cannot earn money legally in the United States.”

Guti?©rrez Soto was last in this column in January, when he was released from a U.S. immigration jail. His lawyer said then the release came as a result of the change in presidents from George W. Bush to Barack Obama. “The bureaucrats in charge of his freedom saw the political winds,” Carlos Spector told Journal-isms.

Bowden and other advocates were hosting a fundraiser for Guti?©rrez Soto and his son in Las Cruces, N.M.

• ijnet.org: New service aims to inform and protect Mexican journalists

Short Takes

• “Gannett has directed its daily newspapers that cover the Southeastern Conference not to sign on to a controversial new credential policy, while the Associated Press has also declared it will not agree to the new rules that have sparked opposition for limits on Web video and audio use, photo displays, and blogging,” Joe Strupp reported¬†Monday for Editor & Publisher. As reported last week, Marty Kaiser, president of the American Society of News Editors, David Bailey of the Associated Press Managing Editors First Amendment Committee and Garry D. Howard, president of the Associated Press Sports Editors, have protested the conference rules.
• “Reporters Without Borders is shocked and saddened to learn that Janullah Hashimzada, an Afghan journalist based in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, was killed today in an armed attack on the minibus in which he was travelling near the town of Jamrud in the northwestern Khyber Agency,” the press freedom organization said¬†on Monday. “Friends said he covered sensitive issues and had been subjected to threats and pressure during the past three weeks to abandon his journalistic work and leave Peshawar.”
• In an unusual collaboration, Gina McCauley, founder of the blog What About Our Daughters, has raised contributions to pay a mainstream media veteran, C.B. Hanif, former ombudsman of the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, to cover a gang-rape case McCauley felt was undercovered. “Police say up to 10 teenagers raped the woman repeatedly and forced her and the boy to perform sex acts with each other, then doused them with chemicals to clean the crime scene in their public housing complex apartment just a few miles from downtown West Palm Beach,” the Associated Press said of the 2007 incident in Dunbar Village. Hanif is covering the trial for McCauley’s Web site and on Twitter.
• The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is awarding $91,000 in new scholarships this fall to 31 students pursuing a career in journalism. An additional $19,000 has been paid out this year from continuing scholarships to six students, the association announced on Monday.
• The Center for Investigative Reporting has recruited a diverse team of 11 reporters, multimedia producers and editors to produce “investigative, high impact reporting” for its new California Watch initiative, saying 700 people applied for the positions. Among the 11 are Agustin Armendariz, data analyst and reporter, who worked at the San Diego Union-Tribune; Corey G. Johnson, K-12 education reporter, who worked at the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer; Mark S. Luckie, multimedia producer, formerly at the Los Angeles Times; and Erica Perez, higher education reporter, formerly with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
• “A Leon County judge ordered today that NCAA documents related to an academic-fraud investigation at Florida State University are public records, a major victory for press groups that pushed for the release of the information,” Josh Hafenbrack reported¬†Thursday in the Orlando Sentinel. “Stemming from the academic-fraud investigation, the NCAA Committee on Infractions ruled in March that FSU would have to vacate as many as 14 football victories from the 2006 and 2007 seasons as well as a national championship in men’s track and field and records in eight other school sports. The football victories are crucial to legendary coach Bobby Bowden, who, with 382 victories, stands one behind Penn State’s Joe Paterno for the major-college record.”
• Jorge Ramos, anchor at Noticiero Univision; Johnathan Rodgers, CEO of the TV One cable channel and Tony Vinciquerra, Fox Networks Group chairman, are among 11 to be inducted Oct. 20 into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria, Broadcasting & Cable said¬†on Monday.
• “Why would Derek Beasley quit as WLWT-TV chief meteorologist in Cincinnati, market No. 34, for the same job in Mobile, Ala., market No. 60?” the Cincinnati Enquirer asked on Sunday. “Because he wants the challenge of forecasting hurricanes. ‘Market size means nothing to me. Happiness does, and this is a great opportunity for me,’ says Beasley, who started at NBC affiliate WPMI-TV last week after four years” in Cincinnati.
• Jack Chang has been named chief staff writer at the Sacramento Bee, where he will cover politics and state government, according to Media Life Magazine. Chang was an associate editor at the San Francisco Daily Journal and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.
• “One of the TV news crews should have paid more attention when the Clark County School District held its annual back-to-school news conference at Adcock Elementary to warn drivers to slow down around campuses,” Emily Richmond wrote¬†Saturday for the Las Vegas Sun. “After the news conference, the driver of Telemundo‚Äôs TV van gave a jaunty wave to a trio of motorcycle cops waiting outside the school on Hyde Avenue and drove off. And then they flipped on their lights and sirens and nailed him for speeding, doing 25 mph in a school zone where 15 mph is the limit.”
• Sunday marked the first anniversary of the kidnapping in Mogadishu, Somalia, of Canadian Amanda Lindhout¬†and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan. The Committee to Protect Journalists transmitted a statement¬†from their families. “With little outside support, the families, who have been united as one throughout this horrendous ordeal, continue to do everything and anything to gain the earliest possible release for their loved ones Amanda and Nigel,” it said.