Maynard Institute archives

Out of the Chair

by richard0585

Time Alumnus Jack E. White, Hampton U. Part Ways

Jack E. White, retired bureau chief, correspondent and columnist for Time magazine, is leaving the Scripps Howard Endowed Chair at Hampton University, he told Journal-isms, after a dispute with the dean of the school, Tony Brown.

“The program will be better as soon as they replace Brown with someone who is committed to journalistic values and academic freedom, and who actually knows something about the business,” White said.

“Hampton’s rather restrictive attitude toward free speech and hostility to questioning is in conflict with the values of a free press.”

The Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications is the result of a $10 million commitment from the Scripps Howard Foundation to upgrade journalism education on the historically black campus. However, the journalism program has had three leaders since 2002, and seven professors left after the last school year.

White, 59, who was a writer-in-residence at Howard University after his 2001 retirement, was brought to Hampton by former journalism director Christopher Campbell in 2003 as “the Scripps Howard Visiting Professional.” Campbell resigned in July 2004, calling himself another casualty of the “authoritarian” nature of the university administration.

Brown, 73, best known as host of the long-running television program “Tony Brown’s Journal” and founding dean of the Howard University School of Communications, arrived soon afterward. White served this year as Scripps Howard Endowed Chair, succeeding his reporting colleague from the civil rights era, veteran journalist Earl Caldwell, who became writer-in-residence. White taught four classes, in reporting and newswriting.

During Brown’s deanship, the university continued to be accused of seeking to intimidate journalism students, a charge that led to an April 2005 meeting between leaders of the National Association of Black Journalists, Brown and University President William R. Harvey. Brown and Harvey strongly denied the charge, with Brown writing in an op-ed piece that NABJ had trafficked in “unfounded allegations, rumors and gossip.”

White said his decision not to return was based on events that followed a February visit by a site team from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The team faulted the school on two of nine accreditation standards, recommending only provisional accreditation. Other historically black colleges, such as Southern University and Florida A&M University, received the same recommendation but discussed the results of their evaluations publicly, leading to stories in their school newspapers. But Hampton tried to convince student journalists that there was no story to write and Brown, according to White, told faculty members he would not make the site team’s comments available. The Hampton paper, the Script, reported that Brown “declined to discuss the site team’s recommendation.”

White said he was accused of “instigating” when he said he thought the secrecy was a mistake. In a memo, Brown told faculty members he would share some of the accrediting team recommendations, and implied that faculty members who were present the previous year had shared confidential information with Journal-isms, whose author he described as “your favorite blogger,” according to White.

Since White was one of the few holdover faculty members, he said he asked for a retraction of the statement and an apology, but Brown did not reply.

Brown did not respond to a request from Journal-isms today for comment.

On Friday, however, as he appeared before the Accrediting Council, meeting at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., Brown declared that the school stood for freedom of speech and that the First Amendment was taught throughout the curriculum. The site visit team, according to an 11-page letter from Harvey to Jannette Dates of Howard University, who chaired the team, had said the “administration discourages free speech, free press.”

“Free speech and freedom of the press are cherished traditions at Hampton University,” Harvey replied, and he called Brown “a professional icon, acknowledged by colleagues across the country as one of the best journalists in the field.”

Ieesha McKinzie, outgoing editor of the Hampton Script, said White, while not the official adviser, “came around a lot and helped us out and gave us tips to make stories better. He’s always had an open door.” He, Caldwell and Doug Smith, another faculty member, “have that real-life experience.” McKinzie said White taught one of her senior classes. “He pulls no punches. He wants people to be good writers. He was great,” she said.

“I think I could have made a contribution. I’m not going to make it at Hampton. I hope to make it somewhere else,” White said.

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Unequal Coverage Seen After Black Woman’s Killing

“All three were bright, beautiful, young Massachusetts women with promising futures. And all three were brutally murdered,” Jessica Heslam wrote Friday in the Boston Herald.

“Yet only the slayings of Hopkinton mother Rachel Entwistle – murdered along with her baby, Lillian Rose – and Hub college student Imette St. Guillen garnered national and even worldwide media coverage for weeks on end.

“The equally chilling murder of former Milton High School cheerleader Dominique Samuels, whose torched body was found Sunday in Franklin Park, has been ignored by the national media. As of yesterday, perhaps 10 newspaper articles had been written about her.

“Samuels, 19, was black. Entwistle was white, while St. Guillen shared both white and Hispanic heritage.

“Errol Cockfield, a board member of the National Association of Black Journalists and a reporter for Newsday, said if the national media doesn’t pick up the Samuels murder, ‘It’s proof to me that there’s something wrong with newsroom managers in terms of how they think about race.'”

Samuels “was found slain April 30 in Franklin Park in Boston, a few blocks from her home, her body burned beyond recognition. Police have scoured the area for clues, but have not identified any suspects or made any arrests,” the Boston Globe reported Sunday as hundreds attended her funeral.

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Immigration Backlash Turns to Choice of Words

“A few weeks ago, pollsters for NBC and The Wall Street Journal asked this question,” media critic L. Brent Bozell III wrote in a piece that appeared in conservative outlets Sunday: “If thousands of immigrants in the U.S. do not show up for work on May 1 in protest of immigration policy, do you think this will do more to help their cause, do more to hurt their cause, or have no real effect either way?”

“Fifty-seven percent said it would hurt their cause. Only 17 percent said it would help.

“But that point is being roundly and deliberately ignored by the national media. Tossed and turned by internal diversity police who demand a greater minority presence and minority consciousness in the newsrooms, those who report the ‘news’ are doing their level best to ensure that the protesters for ‘immigrant rights’ get the best possible publicity boost.

“So when the May 1 boycott and protests occurred, it was just another syrupy, sugary turn for the pro-illegal alien media.”

One of Bozell’s criticisms was the language used in the coverage. He was not alone.

“The paper has used ‘illegal immigrants’ for several years, it’s accurately descriptive, and it hasn’t riled readers until now, when some of them are looking for signs of bias. It reminds me of the ‘terrorist’ versus ‘insurgent’ debate with early stories about the war in Iraq,” Public Editor Armando Acuña wrote Sunday in the Sacramento Bee.

In the Seattle Times, Executive Editor Michael Fancher said Sunday, “I suspect that readers with fixed opinions on the issue won’t find much to like in our policy. The more rigid their position, the less likely they are to accept any labels but the ones that support their conviction.”

A Washington Post reader, Robert Rubinstein of Gaithersburg, Md., challenged the use of “undocumented workers” Saturday in a letter to the editor:

“Your May 1 editorial ‘After the Walkout’ used the politically correct terminology ‘undocumented workers’ rather than illegal immigrants.

“You indicated that some immigrants use ‘false identity documents.’ Thus they are not undocumented but falsely documented.

“In fact, a significant number of these immigrants came to the United States legally but did not return to their home country when their legal entry was complete. This group has expired documents.

“They can be called falsely documented or identified with expired documents, but it is inappropriate to call them undocumented.”

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists, backed by the other journalist of color organizations, called in March for an end to the use of ‘illegals’ as a noun and for curbing the phrase “illegal alien.”

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Duo Starts “Name Your Baby Lou Dobbs” Contest

“Los Angeles’ top rated English language Latino radio talk show, The Pocho Hour of Power on KPFK 90.7 FM , Fridays at 4pm, has made an unprecedented financial offer to so-called ‘illegal immigrants,'” the show announced on April 26.

“In the interest of racial harmony and assimilation of immigrants into U.S. culture, the co-hosts of the Pocho Hour of Power make this offer: The first undocumented immigrant to name their U.S. born child ‘Lou Dobbs,’ before September 16th, 2006, will win $500.00 worth of baby nursery items from participating East Los Angeles merchants supporting the Name Your Baby Lou Dobbs Challenge.”

“About the contest, Dobbs was uncharacteristically silent,” Rush & Malloy reported today in the New York Daily News. “‘We don’t have a comment,’ his spokeswoman said.

“Despite hundreds of dollars’ worth of baby merchandise as prizes (see www.pocho.com), there’ve been no takers so far,” Rush & Malloy said. “Small wonder: If Dobbs is so objectionable, who could saddle an infant with his name?”

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“E.R.,” MTV Video Game “Covering” Darfur

“‘CBS Evening News’ decided that genocide wasn’t newsworthy, devoting only two minutes to coverage of Darfur in all of 2005 – but there’s excellent coverage on MTV’s university network and in episodes of the TV show ‘E.R.’ set in Darfur,” Nicholas Kristof, who won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for commentary for his columns on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region, wrote on Sunday.

“And one of the best presentations of life in Darfur is in an extraordinary video game developed with help from MTV and available free at www.darfurisdying.com. In the game, you’re a Darfuri, trying to survive as Sudan’s janjaweed militias hunt you down.

“So that’s how the response is unfolding to the first genocide of the 21st century: a video game is one of the best guides to understanding the slaughter, and our moral vacuum is filled by teenyboppers and movie stars.”

Referring to “E.R.” star George Clooney, Oliver Burkeman and Suzanne Goldenberg wrote Friday in London’s Guardian:

“Clooney and fellow celebrities Angelina Jolie and Hotel Rwanda star Don Cheadle are the most high-profile figures in a movement that has been gaining ground for many months, forging an unlikely alliance between leftwing students and rightwing Christians, and spanning both sides of an otherwise bitterly divided Congress. And while humanitarian groups say the Bush administration’s response only begins to address the scale of the disaster, it is evident that the campaign has succeeded in influencing the White House.”

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Short Takes

  • Richard Parsons, chairman and CEO of Time Warner, and Rossana Rosado, CEO and publisher, El Diario/La Prensa, were on New York magazine’s list today of media figures among “the Influentials.”
  • “Three CBS-owned stations being orphaned by UPN’s September shutdown will replace their UPN prime with local news and reruns of top syndicated shows,” Allison Romano reported today in Broadcasting & Cable. She listed KTXA-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth, WSBK-TV in Boston and WBFS-TV Miami-Fort Lauderdale.
  • Mark Trahant, editorial page editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and board chair of the Maynard Institute, has begun reading his Sunday column, made available by podcast.
  • “Radio One Inc. of Lanham, the nation’s largest radio network targeted at African American audiences, said yesterday that first-quarter profit fell 73 percent because of flat growth in the radio industry, programming challenges at its large Los Angeles station and higher compensation costs,” Krissah Williams reported Friday in the Washington Post.
  • “There’s life after being obese and dumped for a stripper – just ask former Channel 2 morning anchor Shon Gables,” Richard Johnson reported today on the New York Post’s Page Six. “At the Ebony Outstanding Women in Marketing & Communications Luncheon at the Hilton last week, Gables told the crowd: ‘Ten years ago I was 210 pounds and my husband had just left me – with a new baby – for a stripper. I was sleeping on the floor and wondering what my next step would be. For those of you who have no hope and think you can’t turn your life around, I’m here to say you can. And for those who are wondering where I’m going now that I’m off the morning news, let me just say there is life after CBS.’ Gables is expected to announce her new gig within the month.”
  • “Take care of yourself, be thin and regular checkups,” advises Orlando broadcaster Mark McEwen, Orlando Sentinel TV critic Hal Boedeker reported today. “More than 700,000 Americans suffer strokes annually, and it is the third leading cause of death in the country. African-Americans are twice as likely as Caucasians to have a stroke,” Boedeker wrote, reporting on the former CBS morning newsman’s progress since a massive stroke in November.
  • “A recent GQ article spoofing Michael Jackson has the singer demanding the magazine apologize and pull the issue from circulation,” the Associated Press reported Friday. “Jackson’s representative, Raymone K. Bain, said Jackson is ‘furious’ about a series of photos featuring a Jackson impersonator in the magazine’s May issue, now on newsstands. . . Jim Nelson, GQ editor-in-chief, responded with a statement Friday: ‘It is very clear that the pictures in the story … are satirical.'”
  • “Journalists in Connecticut will have a qualified privilege from revealing sources, notes and other information beginning Oct. 1, under a bill the state legislature overwhelmingly passed Wednesday. Gov. M. Jodi Rell is expected to sign the bill,” the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said on Thursday.
  • “Verónica Villafañe, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, urged those attending an international seminar in Spain to strive to form ‘a universal Spanish’ as the number and strength of Spanish-language media outlets continues to grow in the United States,” NAHJ reported on Friday.
  • Colbert King, deputy editorial page editor and columnist at the Washington Post, joined the roundtable on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation” for a third time on Sunday, discussing the resignation of Porter Goss as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. A study by the National Urban League of Sunday morning talk shows found that only 8 percent of guests over two years were African American.
  • Ahmad Ahmad, who emigrated from Syria to North Carolina six years ago, couldn’t find any Arabic-language publications, so he started one. “The second edition of Sawtuna, which means ‘our voice,’ was distributed throughout the Triangle last month – mostly in delis, restaurants and libraries,” Yonat Shimron reported Saturday in the Raleigh News & Observer. “The 20-page tabloid is experimental.”
  • “Sterling Sharpe, the five-time NFL Pro Bowler with the Green Bay Packers, and most recently an analyst on the NFL Network, has joined NBC’s Football Night in America, Sunday’s studio show, which will lead into the network’s Sunday Night Football game telecasts,” Mediaweek reported last week.
  • “Kent Ninomiya, a former reporter at Channel 7, has joined WICD-TV, the ABC affiliate in Champaign, as managing editor and weekend news anchor. He most recently was a news anchor at KSTP-TV in Minneapolis and KCOP-TV in Los Angeles,” Robert Feder reported Thursday in the Chicago Sun-Times.
  • Former anchor Tamara Banks, “currently on a tour of Jordan, is writing a Web log for DenverPost.com on her experiences in the Mideast. Banks is leading a ministerial group through Jordan on her second trip there,” the Denver Post said last week. “She traveled to Jordan with several other journalists shortly before the outbreak of the Iraq war. Banks serves as neighborhood liaison for Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. Previously she was an anchor and reporter for Denver TV station KWGN-Channel 2 after stints at other TV and radio stations across the country.” She was also a board member of the National Association of Black Journalists.
  • Alwyn W. (Al) James, a white journalist who hosted the Voice Of America’s “Daybreak Africa” until he retired in 2003, died May 2 at age 77, the Robert A. Pumphrey Funeral Home in Bethesda, Md., confirmed today. James began his career at the Voice of America in 1981 as an engineer. “Daybreak Africa” is beamed throughout the continent.

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