N.Y. Times Reporter, 27, in Plagiarism Flap
“The Jayson Blair story opens by describing the nostalgia that would overcome Juanita [Angulano] as she looked around the house at all the things her son had given her,” begins a story on the Web site of the weekly Washington City Paper: “Juanita Anguiano points proudly to the pinstriped couches, the tennis bracelet in its red case and the Martha Stewart furniture out on the patio. She proudly points up to the ceiling fan, the lamp for Mother’s Day, the entertainment center that arrived last Christmas and all the other gifts from her only son. . . .”
“It’s powerful prose that resonates with readers. But it had another kind of resonance to readers in southern Texas, where the San Antonio Express-News had published a similar account one week earlier.”
Writing in the Washington Post, media reporter Howard Kurtz quoted Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News:
“‘It’s pretty damning, I think,’ Rivard said. ‘It’s not quite plagiarism, nor is it as simple as an error of non-attribution. It’s definitely a problem of presenting previously published material without an appropriate acknowledgement.’
In the hot seat is Blair, 27, a New York Times Metro reporter who has covered media and technology and has been at the Times since 1999. While at the University of Maryland in 1996, he had a university internship that put him for six months in the Howard County, Md., bureau of the Washington Post. Before and after that, he was a summer intern at the Boston Globe.
“Times staffers say Blair was tired and has admitted making mistakes, including mixing up a quote that Anguiano gave the Express-News and a paragraph from the Texas paper’s story with his own notes. Anguiano could not be reached,” Kurtz wrote.
The author of the San Antonio piece, Express-News reporter Macarena Hernandez, “said she and Blair were interns together at the Times in 1998. When she saw Blair’s story, ‘I was shocked. I thought, “Oh my God, this sounds like me,”‘ according to Kurtz’ story.
Blair told Journal-isms that the Times had asked him not to discuss the developments.
Foster Joins 1% of News Directors Who Are Black
Jamie Foster, an executive producer at WFAA-TV in Dallas, has been named news director of WJLA-TV in Washington, becoming one of the 9/10 of 1 percent of news directors nationally who are African American, according to the Radio-Television News Directors Association.
According to the “newest” RTNDA figures, 4.4 percent of news directors are Hispanic, 9/10 of 1 percent are Asian American and 4/10 of 1 percent are Native American, a spokeswoman said.
Foster, 34, told Journal-isms that too many African Americans think only about being in front of the camera when they start television careers. “I was a little different,” he said. When he was at Richmond, Va.’s WWBT-TV, producer Alicia George Alli, who went on to producer and management jobs at KYW-TV Philadelphia and WUSA-TV in Washington, told him that “management is the place where you can make a difference in how we are viewed on TV.” In Dallas, Foster said, he can see that “the better of a racial mix you have at the morning [planning] meetings, the better the coverage.”
WJLA News Vice President Bill Lord told the Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes that Foster “understands graphics, pacing, presentation, and he understands a good story. He brings a really good, down-to-earth perspective to the coverage and operation of a newsroom,” Lord continued. “I think people [at Channel 7] are going to like him — he’s young, he’s hip, he’s a good guy.” Both WFAA and WJLA are ABC affiliates.
Anchor’s Name on $2,000 Check to Sharpton
Detroit TV news anchor Carolyn Clifford’s name is on a $2,000 check to Al Sharpton’s presidential campaign and radio show host Tom Joyner contributed $1,000, the New York Daily News reports.
According to Detroit’s WXYZ-TV Web site, Clifford was named co-anchor of “Action News This Morning” in May 2002. In addition to anchoring, Clifford is a “Healthy Living” reporter and host of “Healthy Living Sunday,” the site says.
WXYZ News Director Bill Carey told Journal-isms that he finds no fault with Clifford. He said her husband, Frank Taylor, is managing partner of Sweet Georgia Brown’s restaurant in Detroit, which hosted a fund-raiser for Sharpton. He wrote a check to the campaign, and there is only one checking account in the family — with Clifford’s name on it.
“Carolyn was not there. We have no policy on whether spouses can or can’t make campaign contributions,” Carey said.
“Project Parity” Under Way With Denver Community
“Where was the coverage of Cesar Chavez Day?, we were asked,” writes John Temple, publisher, president and editor of the Denver Rocky Mountain News.
“It was a year we flubbed the story in the midst of the war. We didn’t have a good answer.”
Other questions:
“Why do you focus on cruising on Cinco de Mayo when there are so many other aspects to the holiday?’
“‘Why do you focus on the negative, on crime and crime victims, rather than people who are staying away from trouble?’
“What’s the diversity of the board of the E.W. Scripps Co. (which owns the News and is partnering with the [National Association of Hispanic Journalists] in Denver and five other communities in this effort)?”
“How can we do business with you? We want to do business with you.”
Temple was discussing in his Sunday column the first meeting with members of the Hispanic community as part of Project Parity, a collaboration between the E.W. Scripps Co. and NAHJ.
“Our goal: to improve coverage of the region’s rapidly growing Hispanic community and to increase the number of Hispanic journalists on our staff,” Temple said. “It’s clear there’s more we can do. One next step will be the creation of a community advisory board to make sure the dialogue continues,” Temple wrote.
FCC Believed Ready to Relax Ownership Cap
“Despite the vehement opposition of key affiliates, a Federal Communications Commission majority is expected to substantially relax the regulatory cap on how many TV stations a single company may own, sources said last week,” reports TV Week.
“As it stands, the rule bars broadcasters from owning TV stations reaching more than 35 percent of the nation’s TV homes. The affiliates and the National Association of Broadcasters have been lobbying to keep the cap in place in the interests of limiting network power.
“But industry and FCC sources said top GOP agency officials have been signaling that they want to raise the cap to 45 percent on June 2, when the agency is tentatively slated to vote on new media ownership restrictions.”
Meanwhile, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps slammed the major TV networks for allegedly refusing to cover Federal Communications Commission proceedings that are expected to serve the networks’ financial interest by relaxing the agency’s media ownership rules, according to TV Week.
And, FCC Chairman Michael Powell told newspaper publishers convening in Seattle that newspapers are “likely to fare well” under changes in media ownership anticipated later this year, according to Editor & Publisher.
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Veteran Chicano Journalist to Lead Cal-Poly J-Dept.
George Ramos, a Pulitzer Prize winner who helped establish the California Chicano News Media Association and is a founding member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, has been named head of the journalism department at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.
“As department chair at Cal Poly, he’ll lead 10 faculty and staff and about 220 students. He succeeds Nishan Havandjian, who chaired the department for 15 years and will return to full-time teaching.” the San Luis Obispo Tribune reported.
“I think I have something to say and I want to give back to the area that gave me my start,” said Ramos, 55, who’s been with the Los Angeles Times for the past 25 years as a reporter and editor.
According to his biography, “Ramos was part of the Times’ Pulitzer-winning coverage of the Jan. 17, 1994, Northridge earthquake.
“In 1983, Ramos and Frank Sotomayor, a Times assistant metropolitan editor, led a team of 17 Chicano reporters and photographers that produced a series about the roots, lives and aspirations of the 3 million Latinos who live in California’s 13 southern counties. The series, which began with a nearly 200-inch story chronicling four generations of one Los Angeles family, appeared over a three-week period during the summer.
“In addition to editing the series, Ramos wrote one of the installments, about returning to his childhood home in East Los Angeles.
“In 1984, the series was awarded the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Meritorious Public Service – print journalism’s highest award. The Pulitzer was the first ever won by Chicano journalists in the history of the prestigious prize.”
3 Blacks Among Stanford, Michigan Fellows
Lynne Varner, Seattle Times editorial writer and board member of the National Association of Black Journalists, and Bonnie Winston, public safety team editor at the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot in Virginia, are among those chosen as Stanford University Knight Fellows. Winston plans to study the impact of race, culture and religion on conflict and conflict resolution; Varner, evolving political dynamics between African Americans and Hispanics.
In the Knight-Wallace Fellowship program at the University of Michigan, L’Tanya Joyner, business writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, plans to study “9/11 and the sense of loss.” Salwa Kanaana, correspondent/Web editor, Al-Quds Al-Arabi Newspaper, who is Arab American, according to director Charles Eisendrath, plans to study “press freedom and political stability in the Arab world.” Neither program selected Latino, Asian American or Native American fellows for next year.
People of Color Missing From AP Board, Officers
Two incumbents and four new members were elected to the board of directors of the Associated Press in results announced at the annual meeting of the news cooperative, AP reports.
James A. Moss, president and publisher of the Times Herald-Record, Middletown, N.Y., and a board member of the National Association of Minority Media Executives, lost his bid for a board seat, and Orage Quarles III, publisher of the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., left after having served the maximum of three three-year terms. That apparently leaves the AP board with no people of color.
Burl Osborne, publisher emeritus of the Dallas Morning News and chairman of the Belo Foundation, was re-elected AP chairman, among other officer selections, AP reported. AP spokesman Jack Stokes did not return a call asking whether any people of color were among them.
Andre Jackson on Board of Business Editors Group
Andre Jackson, assistant managing editor for news, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was elected Monday to a three-year term on the board of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, meeting this week in Cambridge, Mass., the Associated Press reports.
Kyung Lah Leaving Chicago for L.A.’s KNBC-TV
Kyung Lah, WBBM-TV Chicago’s only Asian-American reporter, has left to join KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, Robert Feder reports in the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Lah, whose previous contract expired in January, reportedly turned down a half-hearted renewal offer from the CBS-owned station here,” Feder writes.
Lah, 31, was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Her husband, Curtis Vogel, continues as executive producer of morning and midday newscasts at WMAQ-TV, the Sun-Times said.
