Broadcast News Execs Explain Strategy Going Forward
. . . 101 Direct Attacks on Journalists, News Facilities
. . . Was It Worth Sending High-Profile Reporters, Anchors?
. . . Obama Seeks Help for Journalists Trying to Get Out
People of Color 85% of Census Growth in Last Decade
Angela Burt-Murray Out at HuffPost’s Black Project
Look Magazine’s Ernest Dunbar, 83, Mainstream Pioneer
2 Black Journalists Among Cuts at Charlotte Observer
Vanity Fair Features “Diverse Cast” on Hollywood Cover
“It is stupefying that the government continues to send out thugs and plainclothes police to attack journalists and to ransack media bureaus,” said an investigator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. (Video) (Credit: CNN)
Broadcast News Execs Explain Strategy Going Forward
“What started out as standard civil disobedience in Egypt last week took a turn so quickly that it caught virtually every single American television news organization off guard,” Ben Grossman, Andrea Morabito and Melissa Grego wrote Friday for Broadcasting & Cable. “But it wasn’t the quick escalation in violence that sent execs scrambling: the turning point was when journalists themselves became the targets of the combat.
“As reports spread of groups of people searching through offices and hotels on the hunt to capture or bring harm to journalists, the list of injured media members began to grow.
“While many were foreign names that didn’t resonate in America, there were plenty of high profile journalists that came under siege. Some incidents were caught on tape — from CNN’s Anderson Cooper getting punched to ABC’s Christiane Amanpour getting harassed to the point where she bailed on a situation in what seemed like not a moment too soon.
“But many others came via reports, from a Fox News duo getting badly beaten to CBS’s Lara Logan reportedly being detained. [She and her crew were released a day later.]
“As locals began to target journalists, the battle plan quickly changed for TV news execs. From Iraq to Afghanistan many of these same execs had dealt with managing journalists in high-risk situations. But in Egypt it swiftly became a question of how to try to get the story out while evading violence that was aimed at their own people on the front lines.
” ‘This one caught us by surprise because it went from a demonstration to a riot to roving gangs targeting journalists in 24 hours,’ said NBC vice president of worldwide newsgathering David Verdi. ‘The mood changed when journalists started to become targets.’ “
Alex Weprin summarized in TV Newser: “Broadcasting & Cable spoke to a number of network and cable news executives . . . Each had their own perspective on the coverage, and how they will handle it going forward.
“CNN’s Tony Maddox said that it is up to CNN’s journalists [if] they want to stay in Egypt to cover the story. . . .
“CBS News & Sports chief Sean McManus said that the coverage showed that there is still a commitment to international newsgathering . . .”
Verdi “said his network was lowering its public profile, in the wake of the attacks on foreign journalists. . .
“ABC News senior VP Kate O’Brian talked about Christiane Amanpour‘s first encounter with violent protesters:
” ‘But if you watch the interview you can see, I could see Christiane sort of calculating how many questions can I ask and when is it wise to walk away? And she walked away exactly when she realized that this group was potentially getting unruly, which they did. . . .’ “
Egyptian journalist Shaheera Amin explains to BBC reporter Lyse Doucet Thursday why she resigned from the state-run news channel, Nile TV, to protest what she said was one-sided reporting. (Video) (Credit: BBC)
. . . 101 Direct Attacks on Journalists, News Facilities
“Journalists in Cairo faced assaults, detentions, and threats again today as supporters of President Hosni Mubarak continued their efforts to obstruct news coverage of protests demanding the Egyptian leader’s ouster,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported Friday, rounding up incidents involving journalists.
“While the extent of attacks lessened after a peak on Thursday, ongoing anti-press activities remain at an alarming level that must be halted . . . In addition, a journalist shot a week ago while filming a demonstration died today, a state newspaper reported.
” ‘It is stupefying that the government continues to send out thugs and plainclothes police to attack journalists and to ransack media bureaus,’ said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. ‘This is doubly outrageous after the embattled president, vice president, and prime minister all expressed various degrees of regret for the unprecedented attacks on the media on Wednesday and Thursday. They vowed to the Egyptian people in public statements and to the press in interviews that such assaults would not be allowed to take place again.’
“Ahmad Mohamed Mahmoud, a journalist working for the newspaper Al-Ta’awun, published by the state-owned Al-Ahram Foundation, died today from gunshot wounds sustained on January 28, Al-Jazeera and the semi-official Al-Ahram reported today. Mahmoud was shot by what the newspaper described as sniper fire while filming confrontations between security forces and demonstrators in central Cairo’s Qasr al-Aini area, which is adjacent to Tahrir Square. The death is the first reported media fatality during the uprising.
“In the last 24 hours, CPJ documented another 10 anti-press assaults, eight detentions, two attacks on newsrooms, and the hacking of a major news website. In all, CPJ has documented at least 101 direct attacks on journalists and news facilities this week, and it’s investigating numerous other reports.”
. . . Was It Worth Sending High-Profile Reporters, Anchors?
“While the happenings in Egypt are an incredible story and worthy of lots of coverage by the broadcast and cable networks, a debate could be had about how much is gained by dispatching high-profile reporters who usually spend the bulk of their time behind a desk to hot zones,” Joe Flint wrote Friday for the Los Angeles Times. “No one questions their courage, of course, but is this the best way for TV news divisions to utilize their resources?
“By sending [CBS’ Katie] Couric and Brian Williams, the anchor of NBC’s ‘Nightly News’ who is also in the region, the networks are sending a signal to their viewers that what’s happening in Egypt is important. It is their belief that unless a star anchor is there a story won’t be noticed. There may be some truth to that, but perhaps the answer is to do more foreign reporting and less fluff rather than shipping a big name overseas every time a major story surfaces.”
. . . Obama Seeks Help for Journalists Trying to Get Out
“President Obama condemned the attacks on journalists in Egypt Friday amid mounting criticism that the assaults were being orchestrated by President Hosni Mubarak to suppress international coverage of bloodshed by pro-government operatives against peaceful protesters,” Michael Martinez reported Friday for CNN.
” ‘We continue to be crystal clear that we oppose violence as a response to this crisis,’ Obama said. ‘We are sending a strong, unequivocal message: Attacks on reporters are unacceptable. Attacks on human rights activists are unacceptable. Attacks on peaceful protesters are unacceptable.’ “
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday that Obama had “dealt with our embassy on trying to get assistance for journalists to get out of the country, some of whom have been held, many of whom have been beaten,” according to John Eggerton, reporting for Broadcasting & Cable.
- ABC News: We’ve compiled a list of all the [journalists] who have been in some way threatened, attacked or detained while reporting in Egypt.
- Bryan Alexander, Hollywood Reporter: Anderson Cooper: Egypt Attack Propels Ratings
- Betty Winston Bayé, Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal: Egypt’s trauma made vivid by personal memories
- Andrew Burton blog: Account of an Attack
- Michael Calderone, Yahoo News: Egyptian VP criticizes ‘unfriendly TV stations’ (Feb. 3)
- Adrian Crewe, Pambazuka News: Egypt: Ideology in a Time of Crisis — Washington and the TV Networks
- John Eggerton, Multichannel News: Egyptian Officials Paint Foreign Journalists As Revolutionaries: CPJ (Feb. 3)
- Cynthia Gordy, theRoot.com: Rep. Keith Ellison: We Should Support the Egyptian People
- Peter Hart, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: Error-Prone NYT Reporter Lectures Al Jazeera English on Accuracy
- International Federation of Journalists: Crisis in Cairo: End Violence against Media Now demands IFJ
- International Press Institute/International News Safety Institute: Are You A Journalist Wondering How to Protect Yourself During Conflict Coverage?
- Ashraf Khalil, Foreign Policy: The Day of Hunting Journalists (Feb. 3)
- Nicholas Kusnetz, ProPublica: What Role Have Multinationals Played in Egypt’s Communication Shutdown?
- Laura Murphy with Michele Norris on NPR’s “All Things Considered”: Getting Out Of Egypt: 1 Woman’s Evacuation Story
- Jim Naureckas, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: USA Today Shows How Not to Report on Egypt Protests
- Jeremy W. Peters and J. David Goodman, New York Times: Gangs Hunt Journalists and Rights Workers (Feb. 3)
- Pew Research Center: Limited Public Interest in Egyptian Protests (Feb. 1)
- Pew Research Center: Historically, Public Has Given Low Priority to Promoting Democracy Overseas
- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: For Egypt’s Mubarak, push has come to shove
- Mark Robichaux, Multichannel News: Can Al-Jazeera’s CNN Moment Last?
- Michael Scherer, Time: The Official Egyptian Crackdown On Journalists, And The Challenge For Obama
- Brian Stelter, New York Times: Network Anchors Leave Egypt Amid Crackdown (Feb. 3)
- Mark Sweney, the Guardian, Britain: Al-Jazeera office attacked in Egypt protests
- Alex Weprin, TVNewser: Christiane Amanpour On Her Interview With Egyptian President Mubarak: ‘I call this the accidental interview borne of 20 years of experience in that region’
- George Winslow, Broadcasting & Cable: Egyptian Coverage Boosts Streaming Media Sites; Al Jazeera and CNN see big jumps in traffic (Feb. 3)
A new online tool lets reporters explore the racial makeup of their communities almost block by block. (Credit: Remappingdebate.org)
People of Color 85% of Census Growth in Last Decade
“Racial and ethnic minorities accounted for roughly 85 percent of the nation’s population growth over the last decade — one of the largest shares ever — with Hispanics accounting for much of the gain in many of the states picking up new House seats,” Hope Yen reported Thursday for the Associated Press.
“Preliminary census estimates also suggest the number of multiracial Americans jumped roughly 20 percent since 2000, to over 5 million.”
Meanwhile, the general secretary of the Association of Spanish Language Academies said Monday that By 2050, 10 percent of the world population will speak Spanish and the United States will be the biggest Spanish-speaking country, EFE / El País reported on Thursday from Spain.
“Cuban writer and academic Humberto López Morales made this prediction during his speech when he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Valencia at a ceremony presided over by Spanish Education Minister Angel Gabilondo.
“. . . According to another study cited by López Morales, ‘every minute that goes by, 2.5 Hispanics enter the stream of immigrants to the country, that is to say, 3,700 per day.’ “
“And now, a new, web-based tool offers journalists a visually dramatic, incredibly granular look at the racial composition of their communities, almost at the block by block level.
“The tool is a creation of Remapping Debate, a relatively new online journal, and the research site Social Explorer. The data comes from the latest 5-year American Community Survey, and allows users to zoom down to the census ‘block groups’ level, a smaller geographic unit than a census tract.”
- David Cazares, Minnesota Public Radio: A world that’s no longer in black and white
- Susan Saulny, New York Times: Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above
- Greg Thomas, theRoot.com: The Root Interview: Michael Fosberg on Being the Incog-Negro
Angela Burt-Murray Out at HuffPost’s Black Project
Former Essence magazine editor Angela Burt-Murray, who was point person for the Huffington Post’s new project targeting African Americans, has left the project, Derek J. Murphy, chief operating officer of the venture, told Journal-isms on Thursday.
“I’m currently managing staff recruiting and site development with our partnership team. Angela Burt Murray is no longer part of these efforts or this partnership,” Murphy said via e-mail.
Before the GlobalBlack project, Murphy was Huffington Post’s senior vice president, business development, joining the organization in 2009 from CNN, where he headed strategic partnerships for the CNN Interactive Group, forging alliances with companies that included Google, CareerBuilder and LG Electronics.
Burt-Murray left Essence magazine in November after editing it for five years and surfaced at the Huffington Post project in January. She did not respond to a request for comment and Murphy did not explain Burt-Murray’s departure.
The GlobalBlack concept was developed with Sheila Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television. It has its detractors.
Columnist Ruben Navarrette of the Washington Post Writers Group wrote last week:
“There’s the hitch. Shouldn’t this be the goal of every media company in the country? If you want to cover the United States, then you should cover it in all its color and complexity. Otherwise, your product — newspaper, magazine, website, radio or television network, etc. — will soon become outdated and irrelevant.
“Besides, the ‘black community’ is an inseparable part of the American community. . . .”
Look Magazine’s Ernest Dunbar, 83, Mainstream Pioneer
Ernest Dunbar, a writer and editor for the old Look magazine and one of the first black reporters at any mainstream national publication, died Thursday after a long illness, his son, Dean Dunbar, said on Friday.
Ernest Dunbar was 83 and lived in Manhattan.
He was president of Black Perspectives, a New York group of black journalists, which in the late 1960s predated the National Association of Black Journalists. In addition to his work at Look, a coffee-table sized magazine that emphasized photographs as did its competitor, Life, Dunbar authored books that included “The Black Expatriates: A Study of American Negroes in Exile,” a 1968 book for which he is listed as editor.
Some of his Look pieces evoke the era: “Inside Negro Africa: Crisis in the Congo: The Rude Awakening” (1959); “The Audacious World of Adam Powell” (1962); “Yugoslavia: Karl Marx in a Mercedes” (1968) and “Black on White TV” (1971), which featured photographs of Dunbar with half his face painted white, posed behind a television screen.
According to the family obituary, “A native of Philadelphia, he received a B.A. in Journalism from Temple University in 1954, where he also served as editor of the university newspaper. He did graduate work in journalism at Northwestern University, and was later awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Journalism from Temple in 1971. He joined Look Magazine as a reporter in 1954, was promoted to Assistant Editor in 1958, and was Senior Editor from 1959 until Look ceased publication in 1971. He was the first black reporter hired by Look and one of the first black journalists at any national publication. He wrote articles for Look covering a wide range of assignments that included prominent news developments and personalities on the American scene as well as abroad including articles on Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Indira Gandhi, and the Jackson 5.
“Mr. Dunbar served as an advisor to [New York] Gov. Averell Harriman on a 9-nation African factfinding tour for presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in 1960 [while on a leave of absence from Look]. He was also the moderator of a show called ‘The World at 10’ when Channel 13 first went on the air in 1962. From 1971 until 1975 he was a freelance writer, contributing articles to magazines such as Redbook, Saturday Review, Reader’s Digest, and the New York Times Magazine.
“From 1975 until 1990 he was the Chief Editor of Publications for the Exxon Corporation, where he managed the publication of ‘The Lamp’, their shareholder quarterly magazine, as well as the Exxon Corporation Annual Report.”
He also won several awards. A memorial service is to be announced at a later date.
2 Black Journalists Among Cuts at Charlotte Observer
Two of five newsroom employees laid off at the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer this week were black journalists Phillip Hoffman, a videographer, and Jerome Johnson, a graphic designer, the two confirmed for Journal-isms on Friday.
Johnson, 49, is a 22-year veteran of the paper who had worked in sales, pre-press and magazine design at the paper, he said. Asked what he’d like to do next, he said, “I really don’t know at this point” but that he might go back to school.
Hoffman, 45, had been at the Observer for seven years. “I kind of look at this as an opportunity, a way of getting my own thing going,” he said. “I shoot video. I’m working on my editing reel.” However, he said he realized that “I’m still a father of three with a mortgage.”
The Observer reported Monday that it was laying off 20 employees as “part of an effort to cut costs as the shaky economy continues to plague advertisers and revenues remain short of the company’s goals. . . The Observer is also implementing weeklong furloughs for salaried employees beginning this quarter.”
- Erik Sass, MediaPost: McClatchy: Staff Layoffs At ‘Sacramento Bee,’ ‘Charlotte Observer’
Vanity Fair Features “Diverse Cast” on Hollywood Cover
Last year, Vanity Fair published its annual Hollywood issue, and its cover featured an all-white bevy of starlets.
This year, Rashida Jones and Anthony Mackie, both African Americans, join the other men and women on the cover. Mackie starred in “The Hurt Locker,” which won last year’s Academy Award for best picture. Jones is the daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton and stars in NBC-TV’s “Parks and Recreation.”
“For this year’s Hollywood cover, we put together a group of some of the busiest actors working in Hollywood. The fact that those who fit the bill turned out to be a diverse cast of men and women pleases us tremendously,” spokeswoman Beth Kseniak told Journal-isms.”
- Wilson Morales, AOL Black Voices: Anthony Mackie, Rashida Jones Among Blacks Chosen For Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue
Short Takes
“When alumna Jacki Wells Cisneros and her husband, Gilbert Cisneros, won the Mega Millions lottery in 2010, they vowed to give back to their church and alma maters,” the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism announced this week. “They have followed through with that pledge by establishing the $1 million Wells Cisneros Scholarship at USC Annenberg, which will be given to promising students who have been admitted to one of the School’s undergraduate programs.” Richard Horgan added for FishbowlLA: “Other beneficiaries include the California Chicano News Media Association, George Washington University (the Alma Mater of Gilbert Cisneros) and the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.” Jacki Wells Cisneros works on the overnight assignment desk at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.
- “The second-half circulation numbers for 2010 were better for a few players, but most magazines saw their readership continue to slide on newsstands,” Amy Wicks of Women’s Wear Daily wrote Friday, previewing figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations to be released on Monday. An Essence magazine spokeswoman confirmed a newsstand decline of 8.1 percent for the second half of 2010.
ImpreMedia announced Thursday that Erica Gonzalez will become executive editor and Carmen Villavicencio managing editor of El Diario-La Prensa in New York. Gonzalez joined El Diario in 2006 as opinion page editor; Villavicencio has been news editor.
- New York-area McDonald’s restaurants honored “Black Media Legends” at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on Tuesday. They included WCBS-TV sports anchor Otis Livingston, WNBC-TV meteorologist Janice Huff, WABC-TV anchor Sade Baderinwa and veteran NY1 anchor Lewis Dodley, Jerry Barmash reported for FishbowlNY. Others were Audrey J. Bernard of the New York Beacon; Fred “Bugsy” Buggs of WRKS FM; Imhotep Gary Byrd of WBLS/WLIB; Brian Custer of SNY-TV; Tim Daughtry of Fox TV; Funkmaster Flex of WQHT-FM; Ed Gordon of BET; Scott Pierce of WWOR-TV; James Shipley, WNBC-TV; Craig Treadway, WPIX-TV; Charles Williams, WCBS-TV; Malachy Williams, WNYW/WWOR-TV; and Kelly Wright, Fox News.
- “Less than two years into a reported $3 million, multi-year deal, shock jock Don Imus and Fox Business Network appear to be going their separate ways,” Paul Bedard reported Wednesday for U.S. News & World Report. Radio Ink followed up: “Commenting on the U.S. News story on his program this morning, Imus said he wasn’t amused by the comments by the Fox business boss. He called the boss at the network and indicated he didn’t get a straight answer.”
- Marcus Chan, who became the business and technology editor of the San Francisco Chronicle a year ago, has been in charge of an interesting experiment,” Talking Biz News reported on Wednesday, publishing a Q&A with Chan. “The Chronicle announced in March that it would launch an expanded business news section with the help of Bloomberg News called Business Report.”
- Two more cases of people conjuring black men as their victimizers: In New York, Brooklyn nun Mary Turcotte, member of what the New York Daily News termed a fringe Christian sect, “confessed to an unholy lie: telling cops she was sexually attacked and left unconscious in a snowbank, sources said Monday,” Alison Gendar and James Fanelli reported Tuesday in the Daily News. In Minnesota, “A Duluth man who police believe shot himself with a long gun falsely reported to a 911 operator that a black male was among the people he claimed shot him,” Mark Stodghill wrote Thursday in the Duluth News Tribune. “People assume that if you implicate a black person the story is more legitimate, again, because of the racial stereotypes we see every day about blacks and crime,” Claudie Washington, president of the Duluth chapter of the NAACP, said in the story.
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