Maynard Institute archives

In Dallas, “Diversity Really Taking a Hit”

by richard0501

Journalists of Color Line Up for News’ Buyout Offer

Some of the top-ranking and most prominent journalists of color at the Dallas Morning News — including Dwayne Bray, the metro editor; Vernon Smith, deputy international editor; Lennox Samuels, Mexico City bureau chief and former deputy managing editor; and sports columnist Kevin Blackistone — said today they are applying to take a buyout.

News management reportedly said the offer to apply had been accepted by at least 85 employees, its goal.

“Our diversity is really taking a hit,” reporter Toya Stewart told Journal-isms in an oft-repeated phrase. Stewart said she was going to graduate school at the University of Minnesota to earn a master’s degree in health journalism. She has been at the paper 6 1/2 years.

The paper has made no official announcement about who has taken the buyout offers, and Editor Bob Mong did not return telephone calls seeking comment. The News has the option of not granting the buyouts to those it hopes will stay, and none of the buyouts is official until Sept. 13, staffers said.

However, some have already accepted other jobs.

Bray said he will join ESPN at its Bristol, Conn., headquarters as news editor on its remote production crew.

Night Photo Editor Alysia Oglesby, who like Bray is African American, is due to start this month as night deputy director of photography at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Though she had been at the News only a little over a year, every employee was eligible for the buyout, she said. The Atlanta paper called her at an opportune time, she said, and “it just felt like the right move for me. I instantly had a strong affection for the photo staff” in Atlanta. “I’m thrilled,” she said.

The Morning News, with a daily circulation of 649,709, is the nation’s 13th largest newspaper, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. It is owned by the Belo Corp., which also owns the Providence (R.I.) Journal, the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., and several broadcast properties.

Not all those applying for the buyouts know what they will do next.

Smith, who has been at the paper 18 years, said, “My plan is to see if I can find myself a good medium-market managing editor’s job. I’ve had a good run here. I’d like to leverage that into running my own shop.”

Blackistone, a 20-year veteran of the paper, he said he planned to move “and cobble out something on the East Coast, writing, TV, Web site stuff.” He is a regular panelist on ESPN’s “Around the Horn.” The buyout was structured in a way that “the incentive to stay is drastically reduced,” said Blackistone, who is 46.

The buyout offer consists of two weeks of base pay per year of employment up to 15 years, plus three weeks’ pay for each year of service that exceeds 15, the News reported on Aug. 11, adding that the cash offer was capped at one year’s pay.

“I am going to take some time off,” said Samuels, a 23-year News veteran who for the past 2 1/2 years has been Mexico City bureau chief. “I’m looking at a number of opportunities in and out of the business.”

Samuels has had responsibility for lifestyle, national, international, metro, sports, investigative and business coverage over his News career, but said he considers himself a “true internationalist. I really have a passion for international news.”

After the paper’s downsizing, he said from Mexico City, busy with coverage of the aftermath of the still-contested presidential election, “the newspaper will continue to offer to readers international news, but it will be driven less by staff-generated coverage. That’s the context in which I made my decision. It’s been a good ride, and one moves on,” he said.

Bray, the metro editor and a six-year veteran who was previously the paper’s sports editor, said ESPN had been talking with him about a job for the last three years. After the buyouts were announced, the company asked Bray, 41, “Is now the time?” he said. Two of his children are now in college, giving him more freedom to move.

His deputy, Leona Allen, who also is African American, will be acting metro editor, he said. “I really think the Metro department responded to my leadership. It was already a great department,” Bray said. “Most of them will still be here. We’ve done some great work covering the Dallas city government, the Dallas Independent School District, the fast-growing Collin County. I feel like I’ve let my staff down, but . . . it’s time for me to see what the TV side has to offer,” Bray said. An assistant sports editor at the News, Noel Nash, also left for ESPN, supervising a database unit, Bray said. However, he left right before the buyout offers.

All those interviewed lamented the buyouts’ impact on diversity at the paper, which reported 18.6 percent people of color in the last census of the American Society of Newspaper Editors — 4.9 percent Asian American, 7.8 percent black, 5.7 percent Hispanic and .2 percent Native American.

“I’ve had a good career at the DMN and I have no regrets,” Smith said in an e-mail. “I’m proud of the contributions I was able to make as an editor and as an advocate in the recruitment and development of journalists of color. I hope that when the dust finally settles from the buyouts, the DMN will find a way to maintain its commitment to diversity.”

“You hear less and less in our industry about diversity,” Samuels said. “You don’t hear as much about it as you did in the 80s and 90s. Maybe it’s the business considerations. The focus is on nuts and bolts.”

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Networks Release Plans for Sept. 11 Anniversary

Robin Roberts, Pierre Thomas, Byron Pitts, Richard Lui, Sumi Das, Soledad O’Brien, Natalie Morales, Lester Holt, Ann Curry, Alison Stewart and Carl Quintanilla are some of the television journalists scheduled to be part of network coverage of the five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

News releases from ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC on their plans for commemorating the anniversary are compiled in a separate column that will be updated as other networks’ plans become available.

“CBS’ re-airing and updating of critically acclaimed documentary 9/11 on Sept. 10 will be commercial-free, a network source confirmed, John Eggerton wrote Wednesday in Broadcasting & Cable.

“For its initial airing March 10, 2002, the show contained no traditional commercials but had three breaks, underwritten by Nextel, for public-service announcements relating to the 9/11 tragedy, including fundraising pitches.”

In another story, Eggerton wrote today:

“Sinclair Broadcasting said Friday that it will delay CBS documentary 9/11 until after 10 p.m. on its two CBS affiliated stations. CBS called the decision regrettable but understandable.

“In a release, Sinclair explained the move: ‘It is unfortunate that the current rules, which promote censorship and impose excessive fines, coupled with the lack of clear or advance guidance from the FCC, impede broadcasters from airing programs that honor our heroes and memorialize significant events, such as 9/11, that have unified us as a nation,’ the company said.”

The concerns involve language, or more specifically the FCC potential response to it.

“The documentary, which has aired uncut twice before, includes profanities uttered in the heat of the Sept. 11 disaster. CBS has said it expects to have no problems with the FCC, which has been cracking down on profanity, but apparently some stations aren’t so sure,” Eggerton wrote.

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Chicago Media Follow Jesse Jackson to Mideast

[Added Sept. 2] “I’ve been in the Middle East with the Rev. Jesse Jackson for the first five days, and I feel like I’ve been working on a degree in Middle Eastern affairs,” Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell wrote Wednesday on her blog.

“We’ve been in Syria where we met with the president, as well as religious leaders. Jackson’s mission is to secure support for the proposed UN peacekeeping mission, to extend the cease-fire” in Lebanon, “and to convince Hamas and Hezbollah forces to release three Israeli prisoners.

“We left Syria by motorcade, escorted by military personnel.

“By the time we reached Beirut, my heart was aching over the devastation in this region.”

The columnist, who last month won the National Association of Black Journalists award for commentary, told readers Wednesday Jackson was traveling “with four religious leaders, a video-photographer, photographer, biographer and four journalists from the Chicago region.”

One of those journalists, Don Terry from the competing Chicago Tribune, has been filing short news stories. He wrote Monday after Jackson met with Syrian President Bashar Assad, “The Syrians have treated Jackson like a foreign dignitary. His delegation was met Saturday night by an eight-car fleet of black Honda Legends, idling on the tarmac of the Damascus airport. A motorcycle escort led the way, sirens wailing. The next morning, the delegation was whisked into the brown hills surrounding the city to the People’s Palace, a sprawling white building of marble floors and towering ceilings.

“Jackson led the way across a red carpet stretching from the front gate to a huge doorway where Assad stood waiting, a slight smile on his face. He and Jackson warmly shook hands. The men have met several times, including at the state funeral in 2000 for the president’s father.”

Mitchell added Monday:

“Jackson led the group — which included Rabbi Stephen Jacobs, founder of the Progressive Faith Foundation; Nazir Khaja, chairman of the Islamic Information Service and member of the Muslim-Jewish Task Force, and the Rev. Raymond Helmick, a Jesuit priest — down a red carpet that stretched across a rotunda-size entryway.

“Also in the room for the first part of the meeting was Jackson’s son Jonathan, a Rainbow/PUSH board member, and Nina Laura Malek, widow of the late R&B singer Lou Rawls who is originally from Lebanon.”

“Since arriving, Jackson has had access to leaders in both Syria and Lebanon, as well as to shadowy figures whom the United States considers sponsors of terrorism in the region,” Mitchell wrote on Wednesday.

“Even if the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. leaves the Middle East on Saturday without a captive in tow, he will have shed much-needed light on the ongoing crisis between Lebanon and Israel.”

Ebony and Jet magazines, also based in Chicago, sent writer Sylvester Monroe and photographer Vandell Cobb on the trip, “the first time the magazines have been on a live news trip like this overseas in years,” Bryan Monroe, editorial director of Ebony and Jet, told Journal-isms. Jet is posting material on its Web site and will have coverage in its Sept. 11 and Sept. 18 editions, he said.

Allison Payne of Chicago’s WGN-TV had filed four stories from the trip as of Saturday night, the station said.

On the broader issues of terrorism and war:

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Guest Would Have Told Williams What He Thought

Juan Williams, senior correspondent for National Public Radio, began his “Political Corner” segment on NPR’s “News and Notes With Ed Gordon” Thursday with a mention of his new book, then went on to introduce his two political experts, one of whom later told Journal-isms he believes Williams’ book raises “a question of journalistic accuracy.”

After host Gordon threw the ball to Williams, the correspondent said, “Thanks, Ed. I’m in Columbia, S.C., today promoting my new book, ‘Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead End Movements and Culture of Failure that are Undermining Black America, and What We Can Do About It.’ So I’m speaking to you by phone today. It’s an unusual situation. But we’re joined by our regular stellar cast.”

None of the segment was about Williams’ book, and Ron Walters, political science professor at the University of Maryland, told Journal-isms he had no problem with Williams promoting it on the show – “and I have a right when I’m asked about it to give my opinion,” he said. However, Williams’ book did not come up in the discussion.

 

 

Walters said the book is “really very interesting in the sense that it seems to be written to validate Bill Cosby, but it really has another agenda, which is to launch his own criticism of the failure of black leadership. What he does is to wrap the book in the history of the civil rights movement to give his book some credibility. If you don’t know that history, then you can be suckered in,” said Walters, an adviser to Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns in the 1980s.

“He, like many other critics” who attack civil rights leaders for not emphasizing personal responsibility, “exhibit their distance from the black community – never been in the black church or they don’t listen really to the Rev. [Al] Sharpton,” because those leaders “have been critical . . . of certain aspects of African American behavior,” Walters said. The book could have been “written to support a right-wing establishment point of view or it’s just sloppy,” Walters said. “In the context of this book, I would raise a question of journalistic accuracy. . . Bill Cosby is not a sociologist, and there is no evidence that a sociologist was consulted.”

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Courage Defined as “Rejecting the ‘Black Line'”

“When columnists questioned the threat Saddam Hussein posed to the United States prior to the invasion – as I did in columns I wrote at Newsday – outraged e-mails and letters arrived in bulk, even as a few readers agreed,” Newsday columnist Sheryl McCarthy writes in the summer issue of Nieman Reports, an issue dedicated to “Reflections on Courage.”

“My naivete was questioned by many, including a former congressman and mayor whom I respected. My view about the impending war ran contrary to that held by many of my friends and colleagues, some of whom became apoplectic as I wrote and argued this perspective. For columnists, words we speak among friends only get amplified when we publish them, too. Questioning the reasons for the war meant not only going against the President’s policy but against the beliefs of many people I knew and respected.

“Black journalists often approach their work believing they have an obligation to ‘think and write black.’ This expectation is shared by many in the black community. But this means embracing a philosophy of blacks as victims that blames white people and institutionalized racism for most social and economic problems facing our community.

“Most black columnists I know routinely acknowledge the impact that racism has on African Americans, but we are characterized as ‘not being black’ and criticized as ‘blaming the victim’ when we go on to suggest that aspects of black culture play a role in impeding progress when we write about insufficient respect for education, the glorification of street culture, entrenched sexism, or attitudes about sex and reproduction. Rejecting the ‘black line’ by acknowledging that many solutions can be controlled by us represents courage.”

Others who contribute to the issue include Jose A. Martinez-Soler, founder and chief executive officer of “20 Minutos,” Spain’s most widely read daily newspaper; Alagi Yorro Jallow, cofounder and managing editor of The Independent in Gambia; Shyaka Kanuma, founder and editor of Focus, a new independent newspaper in Rwanda; Ignacio “Nacho” Gómez, investigations director at Red Independiente/Noticias Uno in Bogotá, Colombia; and Jay Harris, Wallis Annenberg Chair in Journalism and Democracy at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication, and former publisher of the San Jose Mercury News, among others.

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Tortured Kenyan Journalist Seeking U.S. Asylum

[Added Sept. 2] Peter Makori, the Kenyan journalist on a fellowship at the Kansas City Star who was tortured in his home country, is applying for asylum in the United States, and as a condition of the application, has ended his employment at the Star.

Miriam Pepper, the Star’s editorial page editor, told readers last Sunday that, “Makori’s affidavit recounts his false arrests, beatings, threats on his life and other atrocities: ‘Because of these abuses, and my continued vocal opposition to the corrupt government of Kenya, in newspapers now around the world, I will be targeted for arrest, abuse, or even death should I return. For this reason I am asking that you allow me to stay in the United States under your protection. From this place, I will continue my work exposing the conditions in Kenya, but at least here I will be safe.'”

Pepper added that “Just 20 percent of those who seek asylum in the United States prevail.

“We hope he will be granted that safety,” Pepper continued. “The Editorial Board won’t forget his counsel. I have no doubt that when topics of lesser light arise, someone will ask: What must Peter think?”

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State Dept. Warns Media on Travel to Darfur

“Following the arrest for espionage of a high profile US journalist in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, the State Department warned media against trying to visit the area without Khartoum’s permission,” Agence France-Presse reported on Thursday.

“In the most high-profile case, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Salopek was arrested on August 6 with two Chadian escorts while on assignment for National Geographic magazine.

“He was charged by a local court on Saturday with criminal espionage, reporting false information and entering Sudan without a visa, and could face years in prison if convicted.”

In another development, Reporters Without Borders condemned the violence with which the Sudanese police dispersed a demonstration in central Khartoum on the afternoon of Aug. 30, arbitrarily arresting at least three journalists. The demonstration was called by a score of opposition parties in protest against fuel and sugar price hikes, the organization reported Thursday.

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Hampton J-School Wins Temporary Approval, 13-11

[Updated Sept. 3] A divided accrediting council for journalism programs Friday accepted an appeals board’s recommendation that the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University temporarily be granted full accreditation.

The 13-11 vote, with abstentions, taken after a three-hour debate, “means a new site team will visit Hampton during the 2006-2007 cycle and issue a recommendation for reaccreditation, provisional or denial. Basically, it’s a do-over. Hampton retains its full accreditation status, will submit a new self-study and the team will review all nine standards, just as it does during a regular accreditation visit,” Jackie Jones, who represents the National Association of Black Journalists on the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, told Journal-isms on Saturday.

“This means more work for Hampton. If it had chosen to seek a review after one year, which is allowed under the two-year provisional period, the original site team chair and another appointee — not someone from the original team — would have revisited Hampton and reviewed its progress on the standards that were found in noncompliance last term. By winning the appeal, Hampton’s provisional status is tossed out and it goes through the process again, essentially as though last year never happened,” Jones said.

“While the Appeals Board found fault with some procedural matters on the part of the site team, it also found that the self- study contributed to some of the problems that occurred on the site visit.”

The school had been granted ‘provisional’ accreditation in May, meaning the school would have up to two years to come into compliance with accreditation standards.

That decision was attacked by Dean Tony Brown and University President William R. Harvey, who undertook a rare appeal in July. The appeals board’s recommendation was taken up by the full council Friday in Chicago.

Brown, whose school unfurled a banner proclaiming “We Won!” after the appeals board recommendation, sent out an e-mail Friday saying, “We won — again.”

Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte, who represents the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, said on Sunday that she raised the issue of the council’s own diversity. The Asian American Journalists Association dropped out of the council because it felt it could no longer afford its dues, and the Native American Journalists Association is not a member. The sliding scale upon which dues are based means that an organization with a budget of $150,000 pays $1,500, or 1 percent of its budget; whereas a $5 million organization pays $6,000, which is about one-tenth of 1 percent, she told Journal-isms.

“In the end it boils down to, are you interested in diversity or just everything being money?” she said. Her concerns were referred to a committee, she said. In addition, de Uriarte said she questioned whether white women should continue to be considered representative of diversity. “NAHJ is concerned that you can have a totally white staff, but as long as you have women, you’re considered diverse,” she said. “When do white women cease being counted?”

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Remembering Working Poor This Labor Day

[Added Sept. 2] “Labor Day originated as a proud nod to social and economic achievements of workers, who produced manufactured goods and built cities with sweat, muscle and long grueling hours. That powerful and heroic model of labor is dead. With the erosion of New Jersey’s manufacturing base, unskilled workers wind up mostly in service jobs and the public sector,” Lawrence Aaron wrote Friday in the Record of Hackensack, N.J.

“The highest median household income in the country is in New Jersey, according to census data released this week. But adjusted for inflation, that figure has lost buying power and slipped below the state’s 1989 median. Minimum wage has lost 30 percent of its dollar value since 1979,” Aaron wrote.

He recommends the documentary “Waging a Living,” a P.O.V. production by Roger Weisberg on the working poor, which airs this Labor Day weekend on many PBS stations.

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Short Takes

  • “A court in Beijing today sentenced Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong, China correspondent for The Straits Times, to five years in prison on charges of spying for Taiwan. The Committee to Protect Journalists noted that authorities have not presented evidence that Ching committed any crime, and that his jailing appears to be a continuation of the worst crackdown on the media in China since the aftermath of the demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989,” the committee said on Thursday.
  • Theater editor Jorge Morales of the Village Voice was among eight people dismissed “in a move that decimated the senior ranks of its arts staff,” Motoko Rich reported today in the New York Times. Art department staffer Minh Uong was also let go, according to Fishbowl NY. When he was named a year ago, Morales was described by the Voice as having “written about theater, film, books, and culture for The Village Voice, where he was assistant editor and copy chief. Prior to joining the Voice in 2001, Morales was an online editor at The Industry Standard, and previously, news editor and arts editor at the Daily News website.”
  • “Josh Wolf, a freelance journalist who has been jailed since Aug. 1 for refusing to turn over videos of a political protest to a federal grand jury, was granted bail today by a federal appeals court,” Bob Egelko reported Thursday in the San Francisco Chronicle. “In recent weeks, SPJ leaders negotiated with Wolf’s lawyers, convincing them to cap the 24-year-old’s legal fees at $60,000. The Society’s board of directors followed up Aug. 23 by agreeing to pay $30,000 of Wolf’s legal expenses,” the Society of Professional Journalists said Thursday. Now SPJ “is challenging other journalism groups to raise enough money to cover the rest of Wolf’s legal bills.”
  • “Effective Monday, Sept. 4, for editions of Tuesday, Sept. 5, we are joining most other major news organizations and the National Geographic Atlas (our standard for place names) in referring to three Indian cities by their official names: Bombay becomes Mumbai; Madras is Chennai; Calcutta is Kolkata,” Don Podesta, the Washington Post’s assistant managing editor for copy desks, told Post staffers on Thursday. The world’s largest news organization, the Associated Press, this week continued to use “Bombay.”
  • Shashi Tharoor, a candidate for U.N. secretary general, was interviewed Aug. 17 by board members of the South Asian Journalists Association in a Webcast. Tharoor, U.N. undersecretary general for communications, was interviewed by SAJA board members Sree Sreenivasan and Vikas Bajaj. He took questions from listeners around the world, SAJA said.
  • “The public can now play a part in renaming the student newspaper at the University of Louisiana at Monroe,” Jordan Blum wrote today in the News Star of Monroe, La. “The school newspaper, which has been The Pow Wow for nearly the full 75 years a college has existed in Monroe, is adjusting with ULM’s mascot change from Indians to Warhawks. . . .The changes at ULM were sparked by the NCAA, which in August 2005 adopted a new policy discouraging Indian mascots.”
  • “William Kearney, the founder of Hampton University’s department of mass media arts, died last week in North Carolina. He was 86,” the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., reported on Aug. 25. “As a student at Hampton, he helped launch a campus radio station, WHOV, which is still broadcasting. He worked at HU from 1947 to 1985 and again from 1990 to 1992. He founded and became chairman of the department of mass media arts in 1967. In 1991, he was the first black person inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame for his efforts educating young journalists.”
  • Ed Bradley, former general manager of KSLA-TV in Shreveport, La., is officially a mayoral candidate and is one of four leading candidates, according to a poll taken by the Shreveport Times, Michelle Mahfoufi reported in the Times on Aug. 23.
  • Myranda Stephens was to leave WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, Va., this week to take a job with WHP-TV, the CBS affiliate in Harrisburg, Pa., the Roanoke station reported.
  • “Thanh Truong jumps over 20 markets to general assignment reporter at KUSA-TV in Denver, Colorado. Thanh goes to Denver from WWL-TV, New Orleans, Louisiana where he has spent the past three years as a general assignment reporter,” his agent, John Sprugel of Mort Meisner Associates, reported.

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