Media Said to Misinterpret Voters on “Moral Values”
The news media have been misinterpreting exit polling data in saying that voters who checked “moral values” as the reason they supported President Bush were singling out the gay marriage issue, according to Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program.
“I think most people who write about it never saw the issue on the [exit poll] ballot before,” Blendon told the Trotter Group of African American columnists Tuesday at Harvard University.
Actually, he said, those voters were saying, “I like how he applies it [the moral values] to his job.”
As evidence, Blendon cited the Los Angeles Times Poll, which has allowed voters to check “moral and ethical values” as a concern since 1992. The number who named that as an issue that “matters most to you” was 24 percent in 1992, 40 percent in 1996, 35 percent in 2000 and 40 percent in 2004.
“Gay marriage,” of course, wasn’t an issue in 1996. In the L.A. Times exit poll this year, voters could choose two issues that mattered most to them. “Social issues such as abortion and gay marriage” garnered only 15 percent.
Los Angeles Times polling director Susan Pinkus indicated today that a different stance on gay marriage or abortion would not have helped the Democrats much, contrary to much of the post-election commentary.
“I think it’s the whole package” of “moral values” that voters liked, Pinkus told Journal-isms. “Abortion, gay marriage, his belief in God, what he stood for.” The Democrats “were pigeonholed” as liberal, she said, and their stance on issues such as embryonic stem-cell research added to the perception.
She agreed that the 11 state ballot initiatives on gay marriage boosted the turnout of Bush supporters. But overall, Pinkus said, candidate John Kerry did not make the case for changing presidents during wartime.
Racial Divide a “Chasm” Between Blacks, Whites
“What has been termed by many scholars and pundits ‘the racial divide’ has become a chasm with cataclysmic potential for racial strife,” Michael Dawson, Harvard government professor, told the 29 Trotter Group members.
As examples, Dawson cited polling done from Oct. 1 to Oct. 18 by the Knowledge Networks, which interviewed 1,079 people ages 18 and over; 549 blacks and 530 whites.
- “Some people in 2000 have reported that there were attempts to prevent African Americans from voting. Do you think this was a very important problem?”
Blacks, 87 percent; whites 41 percent.
- “Do you think blacks have achieved racial equality?”
“Have achieved”: blacks, 10 percent; whites, 45 percent.
“Not in my lifetime”: blacks, 47 percent, whites, 30 percent.
- “Is protest against the war unpatriotic or is it important to protest?”
“Important to protest”: blacks, 77 percent; whites, 42 percent.
“Unpatriotic”: blacks, 23 percent, whites, 58 percent.
The importance of government action on health care is another source of disagreement between African Americans and whites, with blacks consistently favoring more action to protect the uninsured, according to Harvard’s Robert Blendon, who is also professor of health policy and political analysis at the School of Public Health.
But, Blendon noted, the states with the highest rates of uninsured people “vote for people who will do nothing about it.” They vote against their own interests, he said, because they adhere to a political ideology formed while growing up. They “interpret issues based on that, and they don’t often see their self-interest,” he said. For many, self-interest comes into play only when they become senior citizens, Blendon said.
And Now Some Words From John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith, the 96-year-old economist who was President John F. Kennedy’s ambassador to India and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s deputy administrator in the Office of Price Administration, as well as the author of 48 books and 1,200 articles, spoke to the Trotter Group from a wheelchair.
He reestablished his “liberal” bona fides. Asked his reaction to re-election of President Bush, he said, “I never thought I’d yearn for the Reagan administration.” John Kerry should have been “more aggressively liberal, particularly on economic issues,” he said, “I hold all my blame for the American people.”
And in a version of the journalistic credo of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, Galbraith instructed, “we should take a certain satisfaction in causing annoyance for those who have it too good.”
Galbraith was accompanied by Richard Parker, author of an “intellectual biography” of Galbraith due in February.
Democrats ceded morality issue to Bush (Wayne Dawkins, BlackAmericaWeb)
Black homeownership up, black wealth down (Wayne Dawkins, BlackAmericaWeb)
Optional testing produces achieving black graduates (Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb)
Ousted Editor Was to Meet With Black Caucus
The resignation Tuesday of Newsday editor Howard Schneider and his replacement by John Mancini of the paper’s New York City edition came eight days before the newspaper’s black caucus was scheduled to hold its second meeting with Schneider.
A member of the caucus who did not want to be identified, citing talk of possible layoffs, told Journal-isms that concerns ranged from the low numbers of black managers to a scarcity in key departments, such as Sports and the desk that handles the Web site. “We were also going to push for sensitivity training for managers out of concern that middle managers often overlook blacks when major stories are assigned,” the member said.
Newsday has had one of the best diversity records among daily newspapers, according to the annual census by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
But Schneider, who was named editor in July 2003 and spent 35 years at Newsday, was accused of having “a history of favoring his cronies, most of whom happen to be white, middle-aged, Jewish men,” Cynthia Cotts wrote in the Village Voice when he was named to the top job.
Much of the dissatisfaction then focused on the case of foreign editor Dele Olojede, who was offered the job of assistant managing editor for Long Island, “a promotion that would have put him in line to take over the paper one day,” as Cotts wrote. “But the decision seemed to already have been made without consulting Olojede, who felt utterly disrespected.”
Some 14 African American reporters and photographers at Newsday met Dec. 15 with Schneider and expressed, “forcefully,” one said, their concerns that progress on diversity at the newspaper continue. Schneider told Journal-isms at the time that he was committed to continuing the paper’s diversity initiatives.
In a farewell note Tuesday, Schneider attributed his departure to a broader issue: “fundamental differences between Tim and myself about the direction of the paper,” a reference to Newsday publisher Tim Knight.
The black caucus is expected to seek to continue discussions with Mancini.
Spouse’s Job Kept Norris Off Campaign Stories
Michele Norris, a co-host of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” did no political stories during the election campaign because her husband, Broderick Johnson, was a senior adviser to the John Kerry campaign, NPR ombudsman Jeffrey A. Dvorkin writes.
“For that reason, NPR management decided that Norris should not do any political interviews.
“With the campaign over, Norris has begun to express doubts” that she made the right decision in going along, Dvorkin said.
The ombudsman says she has a point:
“I worry that news organizations will in effect censor their own journalists because of what their partners and spouses do. It is dangerous because it infers that journalists are incapable of good journalism because of what their spouses and partners believe.
“In my opinion, the final product should be the evidence. If there is a failure of journalism, it will soon be obvious. If there is no evidence of bias on the radio, the journalists should be allowed to get on with their jobs.
“Let management — and the ombudsman — worry if a listener thinks that all journalists must share the same opinions as their spouses.”
Can Fox Top This Analysis From CNN?
“The political genius of George W. Bush” is the headline atop a column by CNN’s “political analyst” Carlos Watson, the only person of color who regularly offered instant analysis on the tube after the presidential debates.
“Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican or an independent, it is hard not to look at President Bush’s re-election victory last week and conclude that he is probably one of the three or four most talented politicians of the last half of a century.
“Why do I write that? Think about it. In 10 short years, George Walker Bush has won not just one but three high-profile political races that most able politicians would have lost.”
And they call Fox the Republican cable network, and say that CNN skews Democratic.
Michael Powell Plans to Stay at FCC
“U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell said on Tuesday he planned to stay at the agency, possibly through 2007 when his term expires, now that President Bush has been re-elected,” Reuters reports.
“It’s been one of my great privileges to serve under his leadership and right now that’s what I plan to continue to do,” Powell told reporters. “I’m happy where I am for the moment,” the story quoted him as saying.
CNN’s Gupta Called “a Human PowerBar”
CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta is “a human PowerBar whose burgeoning celebrity is both unmistakable and intriguingly uncategorizable (Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton gave him a shout-out in her recent autobiography; In Style Weddings covered the Guptas’ nuptials four months ago in Charleston),” writes Jill Vejnoska in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Gupta is where he is thanks to a potent combination of brains, ambition, boundless curiosity and a seemingly hard-wired-in-the-DNA zeal for testing the limits of whatever’s possible.”
Meet Your Favorite (White) Columnist
“Here’s your chance to meet one of your favorite Chicago Tribune columnists. And contribute to a great cause,” reads the promotional announcement on the Chicago Tribune’s Web site.
“Make a minimum $30 per person donation (which will go in its entirety to United Way) and get a tour of the Chicago Tribune’s printing plant — Freedom Center. There you’ll enjoy a reception featuring Starbucks coffee and Kerrygold cheese & wine tasting and meet your favorite columnists.”
The six columnists pictured, however, include no African Americans or Latinos, despite a roster that includes such notables as Clarence Page, Dawn Turner Trice and Don Wycliff — and that’s just of the columnists defined as “news.”
An inquirer was referred today to Joyce Winnecke, associate managing editor for national news and co-chair of the United Way effort, who did not respond.
Talker Suspended Over “Wetback” Comment
“Talk radio host Mark Belling, one of the most powerful voices in Milwaukee radio, was suspended Monday 12 days after he made an ethnic slur on his program,” Tim Cuprisin reports in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
” . . . On Belling’s Oct. 27 show, in a discussion about voter fraud, he used the word ‘wetback,’ a derogatory term used to describe illegal Mexican immigrants. He apologized on the air numerous times last week, but those apologies were couched in sarcasm and attempts at humor.
“. . . Some 50 demonstrators gathered Monday afternoon at WDJT-TV (Channel 58), 809 S. 60th St. Latino leaders met with Channel 58 general manager Jim Hall and said they asked him to cancel the ‘Belling & Company’ Sunday TV panel show.”
Belling was wrong, but he shouldn’t be silenced (Eugene Kane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Oakland Schools Fight to Save Newspapers
“High school journalism programs across the city are scraping together money to publish papers after State Administrator Randolph Ward decided last year that the deeply-in-debt school district could no longer afford newsprint,” reports Alex Katz in California’s Oakland Tribune. “An outside grant that paid for school papers last year is running out.”
“. . . Under the district’s new funding system, known as ‘results-based budgeting,’ individual principals have control over their entire school budgets.
“That means the district’s central office no longer doles out money for programs such as newspapers, so schools have to pay for printing — if they have the money in their budgets.”
Friends to Honor Late Jazz Writer Clarence Atkins
Friends of jazz journalist and historian Clarence Atkins are gathering Saturday at Bethel A.M.E. Church in Harlem for “A little church, a little jazz and a lot of love.”
Atkins, 83, died Oct. 18 of pancreatic cancer.
“As a jazz writer and historian, Atkins was the leading elder,” wrote Herb Boyd on The Black World Today.
“The musicians of whom he knew intimately is a virtual Who?s Who in Jazz . . . Writing mainly for the Daily Challenge and the Jazz Spotlight in the beginning but later submitting his articles to the Amsterdam News, The Beacon and several national publications, including Jazz Times and Jazziz, Atkins was widely respected, and he also authored a slew of liner notes (Jimmy Witherspoon), obits (Etta Jones, Ray Brown, and Lionel Hampton) and profiles (Barney Kessel).”
Contributions in his memory can be made to Jazz Journalists Association (note on the check: Clarence Atkins Scholarship Fund), 436 State Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217, or to: Jazz Foundation of America, Jazz Musicians Emergency Fund, 322 West 48th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10036.
Dayton Urban League Paying Tribute to Derek Ali
The Dayton, Ohio, Urban League plans to honor Derek Ali, the slain Dayton Daily News reporter, as one of eight community members celebrated Friday at its eighth annual Holiday Gala, according to the News’ Mohammad Hussain.
Ali will presented a Lifetime Achievement Award, Hussain wrote.
“Ali helped with the gala since its 1997 inception and chaired the entertainment committee.
“He was killed in September.
“Ali also was active in the Dayton Association of Black Journalists and various church, school and youth organizations.
“As a gesture of their appreciation for Ali’s support, the league will donate the night’s proceeds to a college fund set up for Ali’s daughters, Leah and Zuri.”
