Newspaper Industry Targets Young Adults of Color
The Newspaper Association of America board of directors and the leadership of the American Society of Newspaper Editors plan to focus on “younger adults” in the Hispanic, African American and Asian American communities in a new readership study.
?The New Readers study will help identify the drivers of readership for younger adults, especially Hispanics, African Americans and Asians. They are newspapers’ future and we?re excited about helping newspapers better understand their needs,? said John Lavine, director of the Readership Institute, in a news release from NAA, the trade association representing newspaper publishers.
“The first stage will include research involving 52 newspapers of various sizes, chosen for their demographic makeup, location and other market characteristics. Among the areas examined will be consumer reactions to selected local dailies, the editorial and advertising content of those newspapers, and the characteristics and internal culture at the newspapers. Initial results are slated to be presented at joint sessions of the 2004 NAA and ASNE annual conventions and the NAA Readership Conference, all in Washington, next April,” the release says.
“The second phase of the project involves working with the newspapers to develop and test innovations with target populations.
“The study, expected to take a little more than two years, will include examinations of newspaper content, as well as the workforce and culture that produce the paper.”
NABJ Rejects Detroit Appeal on Convention
“After considering an appeal from its Detroit chapter and new information from the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), the largest organization of journalists of color, will now turn its sights to Indianapolis for its 31st annual convention and career fair in 2006, passing on Detroit as the event?s host city that year,” the national organization announced late today.
“The NABJ Board of Directors, citing space limitations, logistical challenges and an inevitable negative financial impact, stands by its recent decision to consider another city for its 2006 convention, NABJ President Herbert Lowe said today. This re-affirmation comes after a review of an extensive and thorough appeal from Detroit Chapter-NABJ, together with the convention and visitors bureau.”
Ex-Columnist Disgusted by Today’s Race Dialogue
After being inspired by the late Robert C. Maynard to “believe that we were caught up in something much bigger than our individual careers, part of a continuum of journalistic freedom fighters that went back to Frederick Douglass, William Monroe Trotter and Ida B. Wells,” says longtime Time magazine columnist Jack E. White, he has become so turned off by what has happened to “the struggle of black Americans to liberate themselves from centuries of slavery and degradation” that he has had to opt out.
“The debate has gotten so fractious I can’t hear myself think,” he writes in Nieman Reports. “I wanted to write about the quest for justice, not a sterile shouting match between the bankrupt remains of the civil rights movement and its equally unprincipled and grasping opponents. I’m so angry about the way the debate about race has degenerated that I can only write about it with disgust, not the dispassion that we need for a productive conversation about a touchy subject. . . . This is not what I signed on for when I decided to become a journalist.”
White’s piece is part of a special issue of Nieman Reports, produced by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, with the cover line, “Journalism and Black America: Then and Now.”
The Wall Street Journal this week chose to run an article from the issue by William McGowan, author of “Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism,” but there are also pieces by Jack Nelson, Jack Bass, Dori J. Maynard, Larry Muhammad, Whitney Now and Marco Williams, Tim Simmons, Neil Henry, Errin Haines, Bryan Monroe, Condace L. Pressley, Craig Franklin, Tom Witosky, Jan Schaffer and Phil Latham.
The 108-page issue is available for downloading in PDF format from the magazine’s Web site.
AAJA Philadelphia, DJ Clash on “Ghettopoly”
“One of the first acts of newly elected Asian American Journalists Association of Philadelphia president Murali Balaji was to send a letter to 103.9 The Beat demanding an on-air apology for slurs against Asians made on the ‘Jonesy in the A.M.’ show Oct. 7, regarding controversial board game Ghettopoly,” writes Stu Bykofsky in the Philadelphia Daily News.
“The Wilmington [Del.] News Journal reporter may have been too late. Jonesy claimed yesterday she apologized Oct. 8.
“Balaji’s letter asserts Jonesy had encouraged creation of an anti-Asian game and also urged listeners to phone in Asian impressions.
“Jonesy denies she did that.
“She says the AAJA ‘need to stop attacking me and fuel their efforts to where it counts. Against the game. . .,'” Bykofsky writes.
An Ugly Game (Bob Herbert column, New York Times)
Ghettopoly’s Missing Characters (Gregory Kane, Black America Web)
Showtime Greenlights Jayson Blair Movie . . .
Showtime has given the green light to a movie about disgraced former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, reports Editor and Publisher.
“The Showtime production, labeled a ‘dark comedy’ in a press release and tentatively titled ‘The Jayson Blair Project,’ is being written by Jon Maas, who served as writer/producer of the Showtime film The Last Debate, which dealt with the power of the media and journalism ethics, according to Robert Greenblatt, president of entertainment for Showtime Networks Inc. Maas will also serve as executive producer, Greenblatt said,” reports E&P.
“The production is based in part on articles by former Newsweek media reporter Seth Mnookin, who recently left the magazine to write a book about The New York Times for Random House. The film will explore how Jayson Blair, once considered to be a rising star in the field of journalism, brought shame upon himself and simultaneously the Times, producers said.
“No word yet on who will star in the film or when it will air.”
Blair will have no part creatively or financially in the film, Maas said, according to Variety.
. . . and Blair Reportedly Gets $60,000 Book Payment
“New Millennium, the controversial Los Angeles-based publisher that is operating under chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, still has enough cash to pay Jayson Blair, the disgraced ex-New York Times reporter,” writes columnist Keith J. Kelly in the New York Post.
“Sources tell Media Ink that Blair received the first of four payments on his $250,000 advance. The money was said to be about $60,000, and our sources say the check cleared the bank.
“In the book, ‘Burning Down My Masters House,’ Blair is going to tell his side of his plagiarism and fabrication scheme that went undetected for two years and ultimately triggered the scandal that forced the resignation of The New York Times’ two top editors, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd,” Kelly writes.
Boyd Tells Editors of Need for Transparency
“In one of the most anticipated seminars at this year’s APME convention, former New York Times managing editor Gerald Boyd told editors Thursday that they need to be transparent to readers to maintain credibility,” writes Joy Hepp of Boyd’s appearance at the Associated Press Managing Editors convention in Phoenix.
“Boyd referred to a step taken by the Los Angeles Times after it came under fire for delaying publication of negative stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger until days before the election.
“The Times ran an extensive analysis of editors’ thinking in delaying the articles, explaining its actions to readers.
“‘We need to pull the curtain back and talk about how decisions are made,’ Boyd said,” the story continued.
George K. Childs, Writer for El Herald, Dies at 78
“Poking fun at his own life experiences made columnist George K. Childs an instant hit among El Herald readers,” begins an obituary by Jennifer Mooney in the Miami Herald.
“Childs, a Cuban exile who began his Miami Herald career delivering newspapers and who became a popular columnist at its Spanish-language sister, died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on Tuesday at Riverside Care Center in Miami. He was 78.
“For 17 years, Childs wrote comedic accounts about life as a Cuban exile and everyday experiences in the United States, including buying a new car and speaking with a thick accent.”
“A compilation of his columns is available in three books: Esto es Miami, Chaguito, Como les Iba Diciendo and En Tren, Que Caben Tres,” she notes.
Berkeley Bans Theft of Free Newspapers
“The Berkeley City Council unanimously approved an ordinance Tuesday that prohibits the theft of free newspapers, making it one of only a handful of cities nationwide with such a statute,” reports the Student Press Law Center.
“The push for the ordinance began last year when Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, then a candidate for the office, trashed 1,000 copies of the University of California at Berkeley student newspaper, The Daily Californian, because it endorsed his opponent.”
New Republic Editor Sorry for Jewish Reference
A senior editor at The New Republic has apologized for an Internet column deploring the violence in the film “Kill Bill” “and criticizes Harvey Weinstein, the co-chairman of Miramax, which released the film, and Michael Eisner, chairman of the Walt Disney Company, as ‘Jewish executives’ who ‘worship money above all else,'” as the New York Times put it.
“Looking back I did a terrible job through poor wording,” Gregg Easterbrook writes in his apology. “It was terrible that I implied that the Jewishness of studio executives has anything whatsoever to do with awful movies like Kill Bill. Nothing about Eisner or Weinstein causes any movie to be bad or awful; they’re just supervisors. For all I know neither of them even focused on the adoration-of-violence aspect until the reviews came out. My attempt to connect my perfectly justified horror at an ugly and corrupting movie to the religious faith and ethnic identity of certain executives was hopelessly clumsy.”
AAJA Names Janice Lee Deputy Executive Director
Janice Lee, community outreach coordinator at San Francisco’s Compass Community Services, where she is responsible for increasing the visibility of a $3.7 million agency serving more than 3,000 homeless and low-income family members, has been named deputy executive director of the Asian American Journalists Association, effective Nov. 1, AAJA announces.
“With 20 years of professional experience working for non-profit organizations and in journalism and public relations, Lee will help lead the national staff in facilitating program development and allow executive director, Rene Astudillo, to direct his expertise in fund development,” AAJA says.
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