Not So Super in the Press Box

Little Diversity Among U.S. Media Covering Game

Terence Moore, sports columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was among thousands of reporters at separate press conferences held in Miami on Wednesday by the two teams in next Sunday’s Super Bowl, the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts. He said he could count on one hand the other African American print reporters he saw:

Geoffrey C. Arnold of the Portland Oregonian; Anthony Cotton of the Denver Post; Tim Smith of the New York Daily News; and Moore’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution colleagues, Steve Wyche and D. Orlando Ledbetter.

Columnists Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Clarence E. Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star are also in Miami, but Moore’s point remains the same:

“It’s pathetic,” Moore told Journal-isms.

Chicago Tribune columnist Ed Sherman took note of the broadcast picture on Tuesday.

“The media are making a big deal out of Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy becoming the first African-American head coaches in the Super Bowl,” he wrote.

“Good. It provides the perfect contrast to an untold story about the media.

“In the previous 40 Super Bowls, only one African-American has sat in the broadcast booth: Greg Gumbel called the play-by- play for the 2001 and 2004 games for CBS.

“In a sport where more than 60 percent of the players are African-American, there never has been an African-American analyst in the booth for a Super Bowl.

“That’s stunning, considering the large pool of African-Americans who not only are the game’s biggest stars but also are glib and quotable.

“Jim Nantz and Phil Simms will work this year’s Super Bowl for CBS. Unless the lead broadcast teams for CBS, NBC or Fox unexpectedly change, there won’t be another African-American in the booth through at least 2012, the length of the current NFL TV contract.”

In a report last June from the Associated Press Sports Editors, the report’s primary author, Richard Lapchick, said, “When 94.7 percent of the sports editors, 86.7 percent of the assistant sports editors, 89.9 percent of our columnists, 87.4 percent of our reporters and 89.7 percent of our copy editors/designers are white, and those same positions are 95, 87, 93, 90 and 87 percent male, we clearly do not have a group that reflects America’s workforce.”

Moore has a theory about why this is so, and it’s not racism. He said many remember that in 1988, CBS Sports dismissed Jimmy (the Greek) Snyder after the veteran commentator said blacks were better athletes than whites because they were “bred to be that way” since the days of slavery. But Moore recalled that Snyder also said, “All the players are black. The only thing that the whites control is the coaching jobs.”

“It’s all about power and fear of losing power,” Moore said of the white male enclave. “They don’t want to give it up. When it comes to newspapers and television, it’s giving up power if you let the other ethnic groups get involved.”

Leon Carter, a black journalist who is sports editor of the New York Daily News, agrees that the problem “goes beyond the Super Bowl. It is an issue that has faced the industry for years.” It’s why Carter and others work to bring along younger journalists of color through the Sports Journalism Institute, he said.

“It’s better than it used to be,” Carter continued. “I applaud that there are a few more today than when Doug Williams was there” in 1988 as the first black quarterback to play the Super Bowl. Yet, “the No. 1 thing that took a hit when people made cutbacks was diversity, and that’s a tragedy,” said Carter. “I’m just as upset about the Philadelphia Inquirer,” where journalists of color were disproportionately laid off this month.

Carter sent an Asian American and an African American to Miami for the annual event, which last year was watched by 141.4 million viewers. “Those us us who do have the power have to work hard to continue to diversify. The best papers are the ones that realize they have to reflect the communities they serve,” he said.

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Some Pledge Diversity Among Campaign Reporters

The National Association of Black Journalists this week urged news outlets to be sure the 2008 campaign press bus is diverse, but so far the jury is out on how much that will be the case.

Media outlets that replied to inquiries from Journal-isms Wednesday asking for feedback on the NABJ request pledged diversity. However, most said they had not yet chosen their campaign teams, and some expressed surprise that the contest had begun so early.

Mike Silverman, managing editor of the Associated Press, the world’s largest news organization, said:

“The AP is committed to having a diverse reporting staff that reflects the communities we cover, both in the United States and around the globe. In making assignments for coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, diversity is one of many factors we take into account, along with such things as experience, the reporter’s own interest in politics, and a proven ability to break news and report quickly on a high-visibility story under intense deadline pressure.”

Asked if the campaign reporters had been selected, an AP spokeswoman said, “There is no full and final list at this time. Assignments will evolve as the campaigns evolve.”

Robert Rankin, Washington bureau chief of the McClatchy Co., was the first to respond, and he did so unambiguously. “We have not yet chosen staff for coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, but I can assure you that journalists of color will be part of our coverage,” he said.

Likewise, Richard Stevenson, deputy Washington bureau chief at the New York Times, said, “We have not yet made any assignments or personnel decisions about covering the candidates or the campaign . . . but diversity is clearly a goal for us as we put together our political team.”

The incoming Washington bureau chief, former Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet, himself a black journalist, clearly intends to make the election a priority. He said in the New York Observer Wednesday that “this bureau, right now, is in the middle of two of the biggest stories of the generation: Iraq, and the most exciting presidential election since 1968.”

[Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times Washington bureau chief, said Thursday: “The short answers are: 1. We’ve started putting a team together, but are only about 25% done. 2. Yes, journalists of color will be part of the coverage. 3. I agree with the NABJ. The campaign press corps needs to be as diverse as the nation it’s covering.”]

Time magazine appeared to be the only news outlet that could name a journalist of color who would be on the campaign bus.

In its Jan. 6 issue, Managing Editor Richard Stengel told readers, “correspondent Perry Bacon Jr. profiles John Edwards, who declared his candidacy in New Orleans last week. Perry is our point person on the ground in the early decision-making states, Iowa, New Hampshire and now Nevada, and in the coming months he will be reporting on what candidates are up to in those key states.”

Bacon went on to write this month about Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. Michael A. Fletcher, a Washington Post White House reporter, also wrote about Obama this week. [Susan Glasser, the Post’s assistant managing editor for national news, said on Thursday: “It’s a bit early for us to answer these questions as we are reorganizing and adding to our politics team right now as the 2008 campaign gears up (and I and our politics editor have only been on the job since last month). We certainly aim to have a diverse team covering the election.”]

Editors at Gannett News Service, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday, the Boston Globe and the Dallas Morning News did not respond.

Spokeswomen for CBS, NBC and National Public Radio said they planned to use journalists of color this year, but said personnel decisions had not been made. ABC, CNN and Fox did not respond.

As the AP’s Silverman said, not everyone is suited to cover a campaign. “It’s a very labor-intensive job,” Randal C. Archibold of the New York Times, who covered Edwards in 2004, told Journal-isms. But, Archibold said, “it’s also extremely rewarding. I learned a lot about politics and journalism. It definitely has its rewards.” Bacon agreed, reflecting on his coverage of the Democrats’ 2004 campaign. “It was a great experience and I learned a lot about politics and how politics works.”

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Tribune Co. Moves Hoy Publisher to Mainstream

Digby A. Solomon, publisher of Tribune Co.’s Spanish-language newspaper Hoy, Wednesday was named publisher and chief executive officer of Daily Press Inc., the publisher of the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., and of the semi-weekly Virginia Gazette in Williamsburg, Va.

The appointment makes Solomon one of a handful of Hispanic publishers of mainstream newspapers and the first of color at the Daily Press.

“Solomon had been publisher of Tribune’s Spanish-language newspaper Hoy since 2004,” a story on the Daily Press Web site said. “But he is no stranger to the Daily Press and Hampton Roads. After joining Tribune in 1990, Solomon spent seven years at the Daily Press as a reporter, assistant metro editor, business editor and director/new media. He supervised the launch of Daily Press online operations in 1995 as general manager of Digital Cities Hampton Roads, a partnership at the time with America Online.

“At the Daily Press, Solomon succeeds Rondra J. Matthews, who was named president, publisher and chief executive officer of Tribune’s Baltimore Sun Co. in September. . . .

“Javier J. Aldape, Hoy editor and vice president/product and audience development, has been named Hoy’s acting publisher.”

The Cuban-born Solomon was known as Digby A. Solomon when he was previously at the Daily Press, but at Hoy he used his full Spanish name, Digby Solomon Diez, so readers wouldn’t “assume this is another American who doesn’t speak the language,” he told Journal-isms. To avoid confusion back in Virginia, he said, he reverted to “Digby Solomon.”

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British Tabloid Holds Up Mirror to Racism

The Tuesday front page of Britain’s most popular tabloid, the Sun, showed 11 children of various ethnicities holding up signs identifying themselves as “nigger,” “spic,” “raghead,” “towelhead,” “yid,” “Paki,” “chav scum,” “half breed,” “terrorist,” “Chinky” and “pikey.”

“Chav scum” is explained as “a jibe at white working class people who wear brash designer clothes,” and “pikey” as one who continually travels, from the word “turnpike.”

Inside was another photo, this time showing all the children with a sign saying, “British,” and the caption, “What do we all have in common?” It was followed by quotes from each of the young people describing how they reacted to racist taunts.

Alec Pritpal Singh, 11, who had been called “Towelhead,” said, “The first time I got called a name it made me so angry and disappointed. I’ve been called a ‘Paki’ and ‘towelhead’. Now I want to be a journalist when I grow up and say how stupid it is to judge people on the colour of their skin.”

“May I say how much I disagree with those commentators who have scorned The Sun’s anti-racism initiative,” Roy Greenslade of the British newspaper the Guardian wrote Wednesday on his media blog. “When Britain’s most popular daily paper adopts a stance that we know may well conflict with the views of many of its readers by challenging deeply-held prejudices we should see it in positive terms. I have often criticised the paper for its trivial content and for running occasional name-and-shame campaigns that I felt were counter-productive.

“But I applaud The Sun’s editor Rebekah Wade whole-heartedly for her special racism issue of yesterday and for continuing with it today. And look at those letters, some of praise for the paper, some telling of the routine bullying they have suffered, some calling for tolerance. There are more on its website too. The paper, building on the Celebrity Big Brother dramas, has touched a nerve.”

The reference is to the reality show “Celebrity Big Brother,” which created a firestorm when participants on the show called Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, who is Indian, a “dog” and asked whether she lives in a shack. It “ignited a national debate on how racism, like a monster from the deep, still lingers and lurks in 2007,” the Sun said.

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Obama Called Fox CEO After Mudslinging

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., called Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes after Fox News commentators cited a since-discredited report that Obama had attended a radical Islamic school as a child, a Fox spokeswoman confirmed on Wednesday.

The spokeswoman was commenting on a report by washingtonpost.com blogger Mary Ann Akers, repeated on the Web site Fishbowl DC, that claimed that Obama’s staff was now freezing out Fox reporters.

The call from Obama to Ailes was “made without the knowledge of Obama’s staff,” the report said.

“The insider tells us that, while Ailes did not apologize, the conversations were cordial,” Fishbowl DC said.

[Obama spokesman Tom Vietor told Journal-isms Thursday that Obama and Ailes had a “confidential conversation” but confirmed that Obama talked with Fox reporter Carl Cameron on Monday when both were in New Orleans. Asked whether that meant the report of a “freeze-out” of Fox reporters was inaccurate, Vietor said, “you can draw your own conclusions.”]

• Herb Boyd, The Black World Today: The Obama Drama
• Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com: Referring to Barack Obama as a ‘Rock Star’ Gives People an Excuse to Not Take Him Seriously

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Baquet Says He Was Starting to Go Nuts

Former Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet told reporters Tuesday he accepted an offer to return to the New York Times after chances that he could return to the Los Angeles paper under new ownership seemed to dim.

“This is a personal decision for me,” he said in the New York Times after being named Washington bureau chief and assistant managing editor. “This has been a long time for me to be outside a newsroom, and it’s starting to make me nuts. I wish the L.A. Times the best. I love it.” He added, “This is not a signal to run for the doors.”

As Joe Strupp wrote in Editor & Publisher, “Soon after his departure from the Los Angeles Times in early November, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller contacted Baquet and said he would be interested in having him return to the paper where he served in several roles from 1990 to 2000, including as national editor. Around the same time, Baquet had what he termed ‘casual discussions’ with Los Angeles area billionaires Eli Broad and Ron Burkle who were among those bidding to purchase parts of The Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times. . . .”

“Last week, when it became clear that the Tribune Company was not planning to accept a bid any time soon, Baquet contacted Keller. . . .”

Howard Kurtz wrote in the Washington Post that he asked Baquet whether becoming a bureau chief was a step down. Baquet said: “My favorite thing to do at newspapers is to sit down with reporters and talk about stories, to shape coverage, and I’ll get to do a million times more of that than I did as editor of a paper.”

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“20/20” Viewers Send Gifts to Camden Children

“The Camden children who broke America’s heart on network television with a view into their desperate poverty and their dreams of a better life are being showered with gifts from across the country,” Sam Wood wrote Wednesday in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“On ABC’s ’20/20′ Friday night special ‘Waiting on the World to Change,’ Diane Sawyer introduced eight endearing children struggling in what has been called America’s poorest city.

“. . . One of the featured children, a 4-year-old homeless boy named Ivan Stevens, told Sawyer that he wanted to be Superman so he could help his family.

“On Monday, stacks of Superman comics — along with Superman pajamas and Superman blankets — began to arrive at the Urban Promise complex.

“A 13-year-old girl in Massachusetts sent Ivan a note, along with $200 of her bat mitzvah money. A woman in Texas, writing on an ABC Internet message board, offered to adopt him.

“A man offered Ivan and his family a house, said the Rev. Tony Evans, spokesman for the city of Camden. Unfortunately, the house was in Knoxville, Tenn., the man wasn’t going to pay to move Ivan to Tennessee, and Ivan and his family have no intention of leaving New Jersey.”

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Super Bowl Milestone Reminds Her of Maynard

“Sidney Poitier opened the door for Denzel Washington. Marian Anderson paved the way for Leontyne Price and Denyce Graves. Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson begat Venus and Serena Williams. More notable are the scores of unheralded pioneers and role models who mentor and inspire every day without recognition,” Annette John-Hall wrote Wednesday in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

She was writing about those who came before Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy, the first African American head coaches in the Super Bowl.

“I know I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for Oakland Tribune editor Robert C. Maynard, who hired me right out of college as a sportswriter,” John-Hall continued. “Maynard, a pioneer for newsroom diversity, saw potential in me that I didn’t even see.

“When I came aboard, Maynard ordered all the cheesecake posters and calendars off the walls. (Let’s face it, a newspaper’s testosterone-driven sports department was notoriously sexist circa 1980.) He created a newsroom culture that allowed me not only to produce, but to thrive. Thanks to Maynard, who was the first African American to head a major metropolitan newspaper, I, too, became a ‘first’ — the Trib’s first female sports columnist.”

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Short Takes

• “Fox Entertainment prexy Peter Liguori has a warning for the net’s showrunners, producers and creators: Pay attention to diversity, or risk losing out on a series pickup,” Michael Schneider reported Tuesday for Variety. “Liguori laid down that ultimatum to more than 40 producers behind both current series and pilots during a town meeting Tuesday. Speaking at a theater on the Fox lot, Liguori told the producers that they needed to step up efforts to hire diverse casts, writing staffs and crew. ‘We think as a network, it’s the right moral thing to do,’ Liguori said. ‘And it’s the right business thing to do. When you look at the top 10, top 20 shows out there, they’re diverse. For TV and certainly for Fox to be vibrant, relevant and authentic, we need to be reflective of the general population.'”
• “Freelance journalist Sara Olson and Gregg Kakesako of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin will not be called to testify in the military court case of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, a soldier who publicly denounced the Bush administration and refused to deploy with his unit to Iraq in 2005,” the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported Tuesday. Army prosecutors dropped the journalists’ subpoenas on Monday after Watada agreed to confirm that Olson and Kakesako had quoted him correctly in their articles.”
• “Jose Varela, the disgruntled and former El Nuevo Herald cartoonist, won’t serve any jail time for his brazen takeover of One Herald Plaza this past November 24,” Francisco Alvarado wrote Wednesday on his Miami New Times blog. “During his three-and-half hour standoff with Miami Police, Varela demanded the resignations of El Nuevo editor Humberto Castello and Miami Herald executive editor Tom Fiedler. The 51-year-old illustrator was charged with three felony counts of aggravated assault. Today, Varela pleaded no contest and was sentenced to two years probation. He has to serve 200 hours of community service, donate $500 to the United Way and stay away from the Herald’s headquarters. He must also refrain from contacting eight of the newspaper’s employees, including Castello.”
• Jack Marsh, former executive editor of the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader, recently was appointed Freedom Forum vice president/diversity programs. He’ll be working out of offices in Vermillion, S.D., Nashville and Washington. Marsh, 57, was director of the Freedom Forum Neuharth Center, which funds the Freedom Forum’s American Indian Journalism Institute. He sat down for a q-and-a with Alica P. Thiele, published Monday in the Argus Leader.
• “Nearly two centuries since the founding of the first Black Newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, publishers of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the Black Press of America, kicked off their 180th anniversary year hearing exhortations to continue pleading their ‘own cause’ even though the battles have significantly changed,” Hazel Trice Edney wrote from Phoenix for the NNPA.
• Robert M. Dixon, the provost at Grambling State University who ordered the student newspaper, the Gramblinite, suspended after errors in the paper that included plagiarism, told his side of the story in an op-ed piece Wednesday in the Monroe (La.) News-Star. He reinstated the paper after imposing a set of conditions. “When the students who currently work on The Gramblinite graduate, it is important to me that they are able to present portfolios of their work that do not contain fabricated stories or plagiarized material,” Dixon wrote. “It is important to understand that I sought a timely resolution of this matter.”
• Marilyn Milloy, a onetime reporter for Newsday, has been named features editor of AARP The Magazine in Washington, according to MediaLife magazine. She was most recently manager of publications at the National Education Association.
• Dwight M. Ellis, who retired in 2004 as vice president of the National Association of Broadcasters to start his own consulting firm, has been named one of three new members of the George Foster Peabody Awards board. The awards honor achievement in broadcasting and cable.
• Make/shift, a magazine “representing contemporary feminist culture and action around the world,” is launching in Los Angeles. “Erin Aubry Kaplan, who is also a columnist at the LA Times, is doing a regular column for make/shift called ‘Centrally Located.’ Staff writer Irina Contreras is a brilliant local activist/artist/writer who has contributed a photo essay and interviews of hotel workers near LAX for Issue 1. Local writer/performance artist Raquel Gutierrez (who performs with Butchlalis de Panochtitlan) wrote a smart, funny piece about children of immigrants’ love for ‘Ugly Betty’,” according to FishBowl LA.
• Twelve top minority broadcast journalism students from colleges across the country completed the inaugural nationwide fellowship program for minority broadcast-journalism students sponsored by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. “The students got hands-on, professional experience, and we had the opportunity to preview talented students for possible work at our 14 broadcast stations,” said Paul Karpowicz, president of Meredith Broadcasting Group, in a news release. Students received a stipend to cover travel, lodging and meal expenses.