Percentage of Minorities in TV News Dips;
Women News Directors Rise
There are more women news directors than ever, the Radio-Television News Directors Association reported today. The percentage of news directors of color also is up slightly, but there is a slight decrease in the percentage of minorities overall.
Among the RTNDA’s survey highlights:
- Minorities now hold 20.6 percent of all jobs in television news, including those at Spanish-language stations. That’s down from 246 percent last year but slightly above 2000 results. In radio, minorities hold 8 percent of all news jobs, down from 10.7 percent in 2001.
- Minorities hold 19 percent of all jobs in English-language television newsrooms, down from 21.8 percent last year.
- The percentage of minority news directors at television stations rose to 9.2 percent, up from 8 percent last year. In radio, minorities make up 5.1 percent of news directors, up from 4.4 percent in 2001.
- Minorities hold 5.2 percent of general manager jobs in television and 3.8 percent in radio.
Columnist: Sun-Times Twisted Facts In R. Kelly Case
Ethics Corner columnist Allan Wolper of Editor & Publisher says the Chicago Sun-Times twisted facts in its reporting on the 26-minute video that allegedly shows singer R. Kelly having sex with a young girl.
The paper turned the video over to police, and then in reporting the story, Wolper writes, “used ‘a cheap journalistic trick as its lede: ‘Chicago police are investigating whether R&B superstar R. Kelly . . . had sex with an underage girl and videotaped the illegal act.’ But the paper didn’t tell its readers that it gave the video to the cops.
“Reporters don’t decide what is evidence. Judges do. Still, it’s hard to blame them. They were caught up in the emotion of what they had seen on the tape. They had forgotten for a moment that newspapers report to the public — not to the police department,” the columnist says.
In addition, “the paper never reported that it was the second time that editors had told (music critic Jim) DeRogatis to secretly give police a video sent to his home of Kelly allegedly having sex with a young woman,” Wolper writes.
Jackie Thomas to Be “Fellow” at New York Times
Jacqueline Thomas, who left the editorship of the Baltimore Sun’s editorial page last December, will spend three months as a “fellow” on the New York Times editorial board, editorial page editor Gail Collins told Journal-isms.
Thomas is one of two people who will start in September, Collins said. The idea of having “fellows” rotate in and out of the board was one she implemented shortly after becoming editorial page editor last year, Collins said, as a way of gathering more viewpoints, she said. She said Thomas will likely work on local government issues.
Thomas was editorial page editor at the Sun for 4 1/2 years. She began her 27-year career as a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, and worked at the Louisville Times and Courier-Journal, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, where she was Washington bureau chief.
Newsday’s Mae Cheng is Sole Candidate to Lead AAJA
Newsday reporter Mae Cheng is the sole candidate for the presidency of the Asian American Journalists Association as members prepare to assemble for their annual convention in Dallas Aug. 7-10.
“The next term is a crucial one because whoever is at the helms will take us into Unity in 2004,” Cheng told Journal-isms. “I am a believer in the concept of strength in numbers, and i think that AAJA’s partnerships with its sister Unity organizations are more important now than ever before.
“There are still too many instances of starting journalists who find themselves the lone person of color in the newsroom. If I win the presidency, I look forward to working with the other journalist groups of color in pushing forward our agenda and to raise our voices in asking the industry to take their commitment to us seriously and to work harder alongside us to make sure that every newsroom in America becomes more diverse,” she said. Uncontested elections are not unusual at AAJA. Cheng is currently vice president for print.
Scholarship Funds Named for Bonner, Fitzpatrick
Howard University Journalism Professor Lawrence Kaggwa has created scholarship funds in the names of veteran journalists Alice Bonner and Al Fitzpatrick that will provide stipends for student staffers at the District Chronicles, a Howard-based community newspaper where Kaggwa serves as executive director. Kaggwa said that his target for September is $12,000 to staff two positions.
Bonner is a Howard graduate and journalist for more than 30 years who teaches at the University of Maryland. Fitzpatrick, retired editor of the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, served until last month as year-long interim chairman of Howard’s journalism department.
The students will receive stipends only if they work on the newspaper, Kaggwa said. “We are treating it like the athletic scholarship. You don’t give [athletes] a scholarship and say, ‘you don’t have to play football,’ ” he told Journal-isms. The District Chronicles started publication last year as a way to increase the number of Howard students going into news careers.
Contributions may be made to Howard University/Alice Bonner or Al Fitzpatrick Fund and sent to:
Lawrence Kaggwa, Executive Director
District Chronicles
Howard University
525 Bryant Street, NW
Washington, DC 20059
Inglewood Incident Tops McKinney’s Talk in Atlanta
When Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., saw videotape last week of a handcuffed 16-year-old being slugged by a police officer in Inglewood, Calif., it hit close to home, reports the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.
McKinney’s son, Coy, is 16, and she was preparing to address the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists on problems facing the African-American community. It brought back memories of police brutality cases like those involving Rodney King and Abner Louima, she said.
Holly Springs, Miss., Celebrates Ida B. Wells-Barnett
The Rev. Leona Harris, owner of an art gallery in Holly Springs, Miss., named in honor of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, wants to make sure that the legacy of the famed journalist and human rights activist is not forgotten, reports the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
The Commercial Appeal wrote an advance story on the weekend’s celebration commemorating the birthday of the anti-lynching crusader.
Remembering a Fellow Journalist and Best Friend
Mary C. Curtis, executive features editor and columnist at the Charlotte Observer, remembers her friend Gail Westry, an editor at the Oregonian in Portland who died in 1994.
“I didn’t realize what being — and having — a best friend meant until I lost mine,” she writes.
The two met at the Maynard Institute’s Editing Program for Minority Journalists in Tucson, Ariz., in the summer of 1981. They worked together at the Baltimore Sun. They remained friends when Westry moved on to Orange County, Calif., and then to Portland. They roomed together at the National Association of Black Journalists convention each year. “We were both private people, but there were no secrets between us,” Curtis writes.
Agents Pitching Patti LaBelle Talk Show
Creative Artists Agency is shopping singer Patti LaBelle as a syndicated talk-show host, sources close to the project said. Media Week reports that the Los Angeles-based talent agency, along with LaBelle’s manager, Irving Azoff, has set up meetings with most major distributors for the week of July 15.
LaBelle is said to have wanted a shot at a talk show for several years. She already has three books to her name, and a cosmetics and perfume line. LaBelle’s appeal among African American viewers, who comprise approximately 16.3 percent of the daytime audience, is expected to make her a strong choice for the talk genre.
Summer Reading on the Hawaii Known By Natives
Phyllis Kober, owner of 12-year-old Paperbacks Plus bookstore, in Wailuku, Hawaii, last week told Publishers Weekly about two books set in the Hawaii that Native Hawaiians know. Here’s what she said, as reported by PW Daily:
— Middle Son by Deborah Iida (Berkley, $12.95):
“There are only a few novels about the settling of Hawaii and most are not very good. This one is an exception. It gives you a good idea of what life was like for a family living on a plantation in Hawaii. It’s a multi-generational novel that’s well-written, respectful to the native Hawaiians and filled with history. Native Hawaiians don’t like James Michener‘s Hawaii; they consider it a slanted history of the islands.”
— The Shoal of Times: History of the Hawaiian Islands by Gavan Daws (University of Hawaii Press; $13.95):
“Well written and very empathetic history of Hawaii. Unlike so many books, this is not written from a white missionary point of view. Hawaii was its own kingdom before becoming a state–that is, before the U.S. stole Hawaii after disposing its king and queen. The indigenous population’s history is not like most U.S. history. Hawaii did quite well on its own before the U.S. took it over. Hawaii has a much different history than other states.”
