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King’s Death Lets Front-Page Designers Shine

The death of Coretta Scott King, competing for prime space with President Bush’s State of the Union address, the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, and even the Academy Award nominations, was prominently displayed in most newspapers today, earning centerpiece space on the front page in many and topping news of Bush’s speech in others.

Editorial pages wrote evaluations of King’s life, and some columnists weighed in quickly so their columns would accompany the news of her passing. Many papers sought to relate King’s death to their own communities.

Greg Morrison, news director of cable’s Atlanta-based Black Family Channel, and Johnathan Rodgers, CEO of TV One, both told Journal-isms their networks would try to broadcast King’s funeral live, in contrast to the death of civil rights matriarch Rosa Parks, whose November services were carried by the mainstream cable networks but not by those catering to African Americans. Funeral services for King have not yet been announced.

[Added Feb. 3: They were announced Thursday.]

King died Tuesday of cancer in Mexico at age 78. Among some of the more interesting displays, according to a review of front pages on the Newseum’s Web site, the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal (PDF) used a staff drawing of King with the headline, “A Graceful, Beautiful Life.” The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times (PDF), which made King the dominant story on the front page, ran a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: “I wish I could say, to satisfy my masculine ego, that I led her down this path. But I must say we went down together because she was as much as actively involved and concerned when we met as she is now.” The Norfolk Virginian Pilot quoted the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, over the nameplate of the paper: “She wore her grief with grace. She exerted her leadership with dignity.”

An image by John Bazemore transmitted by the Associated Press appeared to be a favorite, used in many centerpieces: It showed Mrs. King in profile in front of a larger photo of her husband, also in profile.

Tabloids, such as the New York Daily News (PDF), Newsday (PDF), Philadelphia Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times (PDF) and Rocky Mountain News in Denver produced striking front-page images. However, King did not make the front page of the New York Post.

Perhaps the most unusual display was in a broadsheet, the News Herald in Panama City, Fla., that showed (PDF) separate head shots of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta King set against a backdrop of clouds.

Many headline writers managed to avoid “dream” references: “The keeper of the flame is gone,” wrote the Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram. “King’s Widow Created Own Legacy of Justice,” said the Santa Rosa (Calif.) News-Press. “Leadership With Dignity,” wrote the Connecticut Post in Bridgeport. “‘We Have Lost an Extraordinary Woman’,” read the Miami Herald. “The ‘Graceful Life’ of Coretta Scott King,” said the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News. Others were, “His Legacy Is Her Legacy,” in the Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; “‘A Model for the Country’ Dies at 78,” in the New Orleans Times-Picayune; “‘The Matriarch’ of the Civil Rights Movement” in the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post (PDF); “Civil Rights Loses Shining Example,” in the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News (PDF) and “Glue behind King legacy dies” in the Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel.

The Journal News of Hamilton, Ohio, headlined, “Sad Start to Black History Month.”

Some went for the local angle. For two papers in New Hampshire, the story was that “In 1968, King family found refuge in Granite State,” as the front-page headline in the Concord Monitor said.

The Monitor story by Eric Moskowitz explained that “The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis on April 4, 1968. His widow and four children sought refuge soon after on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. There, Coretta Scott King found the time and the peace to begin working on My Life With Martin Luther King Jr., a book that would be published the following year.” Earl Graves, an assistant to Robert F. Kennedy who would later found Black Enterprise magazine, was credited with facilitating the arrangement. The Manchester Union Leader carried a similar story.

“Who’s Left to Lead the Cause?” read the headline in the Reporter (PDF) of Fon du Lac, Wis., which interviewed local leaders. And the Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, W.Va., declared, below the paper’s nameplate, “King’s Widow Had Local Influence.” In Shreveport, La., the story below the Times’ nameplate was, “Locals share memories of Coretta Scott King.”

The New York Times ran the story over three columns at the bottom of the front page. In a break from its custom of not mentioning obituaries on the front page, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock ran Mrs. King’s photo, referring to the story inside.

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Cynthia Tucker Shares Photo Taken With Mrs. King

“For black women of my mother’s generation, Coretta Scott King was like Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy,” Cynthia Tucker, columnist and editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, wrote today in her newspaper.

But Tucker went on to say that King “allowed her children – whom I have fiercely criticized – to profit from their father’s legacy.

“And she was not above squeezing every dollar she could out of news organizations or other groups wanting to use passages from her husband’s sermons and speeches. She was blind to the inherent conflict in her logic: If her husband is a public treasure (and he is) whose legacy should be commemorated with a national holiday, then his speeches and sermons should be public property, too.

“Still, she continued to stand for social justice – adopting an expansive vision that many other civil rights activists were unable or unwilling to share.”

Two years ago, Tucker said, she wanted to compliment King on her stand against homophobia. “One of her aides – having read my columns criticizing King family antics that had left me unimpressed – couldn’t resist the irony: He suggested I have my picture taken with her, too,” Tucker wrote.

And she provided the photo.

Tucker’s was one of the first commentaries on King’s passing by columnists of color:

Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe: The King who led on world peace

Teresa Wiltz, Washington Post: Coretta Scott King, the Woman Who Stood Alone

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Payne Retiring from Newsday, Will Keep Column

Les Payne, “whose groundbreaking work as a reporter, editor and leader influenced the breadth, scope and reach of Newsday journalism as much as any figure in our paper’s 65-year history, is retiring from his post as Associate Editor,” Newsday Editor John Mancini announced to the staff in a memo today.

Payne, fourth president of the National Association of Black Journalists, is the paper’s top-ranking black journalist. Lost in painful layoffs and buyouts last year was Lonnie Isabel, a deputy managing editor. Foreign Editor Dele Olojede, who went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for his 10-years-after reporting on the Rwanda genocide, has also left the paper.

However, Mancini told Journal-isms amid the cuts, “Diversity is an initiative at Newsday. We want to continue that tradition. It’s very important to us, and to me.”

Payne, who turns 65 this year, will continue his weekly column, Mancini said in his memo. He recalled that Payne started his career at the paper.

“It’s important to remember that Newsday was a very different paper back when he joined it,” in Sept. 29, 1969, Mancini wrote. “It was a suburban newspaper with a very good Sports section, and was just beginning to do serious investigative work. It had no real National Desk, no Foreign Desk, and no full-time reporter in Albany.

“All of those – as well as Part 2 – were added over the years by Dave Laventhol, who as editor and then as publisher was intent on transforming Newsday into what he liked to call a ‘complete’ newspaper.

“More than any other single person on the staff, it was Les Payne who turned out to be the embodiment of that vision and the executor of those goals. He worked on the Investigations Team. He did first-rate national and foreign reporting on his own. He went on to oversee impressive national and foreign reporting by others. In addition to the Pulitzer he won as a key member of ‘The Heroin Trail’ reporting team, he launched and shaped projects that won Pulitzer prizes for coverage of the death camps in Bosnia, so-called ‘friendly fire’ casualties in the Gulf War and the Ebola plague in Africa.

“In the process, he also produced a weekly column that was so strong, so provocative and generated so much hate mail that Newsday editors got to know the names of all the Suffolk County Police Department’s bomb-sniffing dogs.

“He’s been a teacher and mentor to many, and played a forceful role in transforming Newsday from a mostly white and male newsroom into a very diverse place.”

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TV Critic Ken Parish Perkins: “I’m Still in the Game”

Ken Parish Perkins, who resigned in November as television critic at Texas’ Fort Worth Star-Telegram over plagiarism charges, is freelancing and teaching, saying “Potential interview subjects who know my situation are a little stunned that I’m still in the game, but eventually warm up.”

“I think people are shocked that I’d have the nerve to keep writing as though nothing happened,” Perkins told Journal-isms tonight. “As though I was [supposed] to disappear. It’s not that I don’t have a respect for this profession. I made a mistake. I admitted that. I’m still writing BECAUSE I have such a respect for this profession. I can still contribute with my head held high because I know what I did wasn’t deliberate. I don’t feel like a fake because I know, deep down inside, I’m not.”

Perkins wrote a cover story for the African American-oriented Chicago Defender’s Monday/Tuesday edition this week on the merger of the WB Network and UPN, as Mark Fitzgerald reported this week in Editor & Publisher.

Executive Editor Roland Martin, “a good friend, asked me to turn around something quick on the WB/UPN merger from a black perspective. I was more than happy to do that, particularly since I grew up with the Defender but began my professional career outside the city,” Perkins said.

Martin told E&P that Perkins was simply too talented and experienced to “be relegated to a non-journalism role” for the rest of his working life. “My belief very simply is, if a black journalist – or any journalist – cannot find redemption with the black press, he can’t find redemption anywhere,” Martin added.

However, Perkins said he also is a contributing writer to the Dallas Weekly, edited by Cheryl Smith, and had “freelanced three media stories to Spirit, Southwest Airlines’ in-flight mag. One examines the success of ‘Everybody Hates Chris,’ another is about the plight of reality television writers, and a third on the new Andre Braugher drama on FX, called ‘Thief.’ Katrina kept the series out of New Orleans, where the pilot was shot, which put them in Shreveport, a mere three hour drive from me. I jumped on it. Story turned out well.”

In addition, he said, “I hooked up with Writer’s Garret, an organization for professional writers based in Dallas. One of its programs is to put writers in public schools to teach creative writing. It’s all on a contract basis, which is great for my freelance flexibility. . . .I’m shocked at how much I love the teaching. I knew I’d like talking about writing, but to connect with these kids with words, something that’s as intimidating as a math equation, is exhilarating.”

As for his daily newspaper career, “well, I haven’t contacted anyone for a gig,” though he said he had been approached by two newspapers that both wanted to wait several months before discussing employment. “The question is whether I want to return. Right now I don’t,” Perkins said.

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Corpus Christi Paper Hears from Latinos

“While the Caller-Times has made some strides in covering the Hispanic community over the past 14 months, there is still room for improvement – that was the message Tuesday from many of the community leaders who attended a town hall-style meeting, which is part of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Parity Project,” Adriana Garza wrote in the Corpus Christi, Texas, paper today.

“In September 2004, the newspaper joined with the journalism association to help improve newsroom diversity and coverage of the Hispanic community.

“Buck Sosa, who was part of a protest of the Caller-Times several years ago, said he has seen no change over the years. “‘Seven years ago we decided to boycott the Caller-Times, and, as far as I’m concerned, it hasn’t changed,’ Sosa said. ‘They are still being biased.’

“But Parity Project Director Kevin Olivas said things are changing in the relationship between the newspaper and the community.

“‘Things have gone very good,’ Olivas said. ‘This isn’t something that can be fixed overnight.'”

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Turns Out Readers Agree About Oprah: Why Care?

Sam Fulwood, Cleveland Plain Dealer Metro columnist, was bracing for negative response from readers after he wrote Saturday on the flap over Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of the James Frey “memoir” that turned out to have been exaggerated.

“The most outrageous part is that Oprah’s opinion counts more than her public’s own eyes and ears,” Fulwood wrote Saturday. “Millions of people with nothing better to do than watch her afternoon broadcasts find insights into their own lives. It’s as if Oprah is a pop-culture televangelist, preaching to a public that lacks the common sense to sort fact from fiction. . . . Somebody should ask those watching: Why do you care what Oprah thinks?”

Tonight, Fulwood told Journal-isms: “I was stunned that so many readers agreed with me. A lot didn’t but 3 to 1 were with me.”

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Courtland Milloy Column Resurfaces at D.C.’s Post

Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, who had expressed a desire to give up his column and do something else at the paper, returned Wednesday with a column, “At Tax Clinic, Some Relief From Those Low-Income Blue.” His column last appeared Nov. 30.

[Added Feb. 2: Milloy’s concerns were prompted by a redesign of the paper that moved local columnists out of the left-hand column of the Metro page to make way for a zoned index.

[“They addressed my concerns,” Milloy told Journal-isms Thursday. “I do not want to be zoned,” and the column will not start on the Metro page and continue inside, as others have since the redesign. The Wednesday column was entirely on page 3 of the section. “I don’t want my fans to work any harder” than they have to, Milloy said, explaining that he thinks the column loses readers when they have to turn to another page to finish it.

[The local columnist also said his desire to do something else at the Post was rooted in “the upheavals at the paper. There have been a lot of changes in management. I’m always wondering how steep the learning curve will be about African Americans, and what role black journalists will have. African American editors have tended to be in a position of stopping a lot of stuff that’s off the mark, and other times the emphasis has been ‘let’s get more things in the paper that African American readers will appreciate.’

[“That often falls on the shoulders of African American employees, and that can get wearisome. That’s not resolved in my mind,” he said, but he said he had found a comfortable compromise.

[“I’m financially invested in the paper and I want it to succeed,” the longtime employee said, speaking of the paper’s 401 (k) program and his health and other benefits.

[Milloy said his extended absence was in part due to an illness in the family.]

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Short Takes

  • Kenneth Lowe, president and CEO of the E.W. Scripps Co., gave $50,000 to the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University Tuesday as Scripps executives participated in the second annual “Scripps Career Days” on campus. Some 150 to 200 students interviewed for jobs at Scripps Howard papers, including for 10 new internships to be paid by corporate headquarters, Judith Clabes, president of the Scripps Howard Foundation, told Journal-isms today. The $50,000 is to be divided between the school’s scholarship fund and students in the Academy of Writing Excellence, which is presided over by faculty member Will Sutton, a former president of the National Association of Black Journalists and former news manager at the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer.
  • “News in a New America,” promoted as “a fresh, thought-provoking analysis of the diversity of American news coverage and newsrooms” and written by Sally Lehrman, a medical and science policy writer who chairs the Diversity Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists, was officially launched Friday at the New California Media Awards in San Jose, Calif. “The book launch was great. Well over 1,000 showed up for the awards presentation. All 400 copies [or] so of the book that we had there were quickly taken,” Denise Tom, journalism initiatives program specialist for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, told Journal-isms. The book is published by the foundation.
  • The Magazine Publishers of America has adopted a West Harlem, N.Y., high school, in a program in which magazine staffers will mentor the students, with an eye toward steering them into magazine careers, Shaunice Hawkins, director of diversity development for the organization, announced. The project is at A. Philip Randolph Campus High School at City College in New York.

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