MSNBC’s Debate Hosts Had Their Own Ideas
The Democratic presidential campaign came to Las Vegas Tuesday night, and MSNBC promised a debate in that city that would “focus on issues important to minority voters.”
But though the event was sponsored by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, 100 Black Men of America, a Latino political action committee, the Democratic African-American Leadership Council, the College of Southern Nevada and the Nevada Democratic Party, the questions were asked by Brian Williams and Tim Russert — NBC’s two most prominent journalists, but both white males — with Natalie Morales, a Latina, pitching e-mailed questions from voters.
Representatives of the groups told Journal-isms they were happy for the exposure, but not many of the questions they suggested made the cut.
The arrangement stood in contrast with other debates this political season targeting voters of color— the “Iowa Brown and Black Forum” on Dec. 1, and Tavis Smiley‘s “All American Presidential Forums” carried in the summer and fall on PBS. All had journalists of color as questioners.
“We didn’t have much input with MSNBC. It’s their TV station. They were the ultimate purveyors of the show,” Tony Sanchez, chairman of IMPACTO, the nonpartisan political action committee of the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce, told Journal-isms. He estimated about 25 percent of the questions ultimately posed were directly related to people of color.
The Native American Network sent out an e-mail Monday headlined, “Candidates to Debate Native Issues on National TV.” It said, “Native issues will, for the first time ever, be included in a nationally televised debate. Tune in to MSNBC tonight, to see our presidential candidates debate some of the issues facing Indian Country.”
Louis Gray, Nevada state director of that network, said he had consulted with the Tribal Council of Nevada to formulate the questions. “I kept trying to find out every day what questions they were going to ask, and if they were going to ask them,” he told Journal-isms.
None were broached.
DiversityInc magazine published a subscription-only story from Las Vegas on its Web site on Wednesday, “Why Were Racial Issues Downplayed in Debate Aimed at Blacks, Latinos, Asians?”
“There was no discussion of issues of particular interest to Asian Americans, although the Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIA Vote) had lobbied for Asian-American issues to be discussed,” Yoji Cole wrote in the DiversityInc story. “‘Nevada has the fastest-growing Asian-American/Pacific Islander community in the country, in particular Clark County [home of Las Vegas], and with that we could be the factor in either caucus, Republican or Democrat,’ said Vida Benavides, chair of APIA Vote.”
MSNBC disagreed with the premise of the story.
“The debate last night did focus extensively on race, right from the first question,” Jeremy Gaines, vice president for communications at MSNBC, told Journal-isms. “As we announced last week, the debate focused on issues of importance to minority voters, including the economy, the war in Iraq, and gun control.”
Staged on Martin Luther King Jr.‘s birthday, the discussion opened with rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton stepping back from the charges and counter-charges over perceived racial slights and attacks that boiled over the weekend, agreeing that a prolonged clash could harm their party, as David Epso reported for the Associated Press.
Then it was on to the subprime mortgage lending crisis, presidential leadership qualities and other issues that affect all Americans, voters of color included.
At one point, Clinton said, “This is a black/brown debate. We haven’t actually talked about black/brown issues — I regret that.”
The two hours did include moments when the questions more closely reflected the stated theme. Russert asked Obama, “Do you believe there’s a history of a decision, where Latino voters will not vote for a black candidate?” (Obama quipped that both groups voted for him in Illinois.) Russert prefaced a question about gun control with, “The leading cause for death among young black men is guns — death, homicide.” He asked about the military, saying, “The volunteer Army, many believe, [is] disproportionate in terms of poor and minority who participate in our armed forces.” And he asked Clinton for her response as he said, “One of your pollsters was quoted in The New Yorker magazine as saying this: ‘The Hispanic voter has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.'” (She said the pollster was speaking historically.)
“The conversation was much more substantive” than in previous debates,” State Sen. Steven A. Horsford, a board member of the African American Democratic Leadership Caucus, told Journal-isms.
One of his questions — about the high dropout rates among blacks and Latinos — was asked. Another, about the high rate of incarceration among black men, was not. Still, the mortgage crisis disproportionately affects people of color, and Horsford said he was pleased that Clinton volunteered that she wanted to “commend the 100 Black Men, because I worked with the 100 Black Men in New York to help create the Eagle Academy, a high school for young African American and Latino men.”
Horsford is a member of 100 Black Men, and he said, “We do think there is a role for the community to play” in improving education. “We can’t rely just on institutions, on white middle-class women to raise and teach our children.” An Obama supporter, Horsford added he was pleased that the Illinois senator mentioned the role of fathers, and that former senator John Edwards voiced concerns of lower- and middle-class Americans.
Perhaps as important to the sponsoring groups was that they could raise their issues with the candidates at receptions and rallies before and after the debate.
“Yes, I wish immigration had been” broached on the air, Sanchez said, but “I do think we got a lot,” not least by the candidates’ presence. “We’re not used to this attention in Nevada.”
Gray was not as agreeable. He said he attended a lively day-after session with about 50 or 60 people of color, primarily College of Southern Nevada students and faculty, “people who felt much like me.”
Afterward, he was read the MSNBC statement saying the debate had focused extensively on race.
“They don’t get it,” Gray said.
Molly Ball, Las Vegas Review-Journal: DEMOCRATIC DEBATE: Hopefuls play safe, nice
Liz Cox Barrett, CJR Daily: There’s No ‘I’ in Debate Moderator
Jeff Zeleny, New York Times: Ruling Quashes Kucinich’s Hope of Joining Lineup
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Critic: Media Played “Telephone” With Race Remarks
“The political press, this past week, engaged in an epic game of Telephone: hear the whisper, spread the word,” Megan Garber wrote Tuesday on the Columbia Journalism Review Web site. “It started last Monday, when Hillary Clinton was interviewed on Fox News and, trying to highlight her experience working within that labyrinth known as Washington, noted that it took a president— LBJ— to codify the work of MLK.
“Then, on Sunday, BET founder Bob Johnson introduced Clinton at a South Carolina campaign event, during which he compared Barack Obama to Sidney Poitier‘s Dr. John Prentice in ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’ (‘I want to be a reasonable, likeable Sidney Poitier’) and alluded — glibly and unmistakably, though the Clinton camp tried to spin it otherwise— to Obama’s teenage experimentation with cocaine.
“And now— despite last night’s truce between Obama and Clinton — the Democratic party may be broken. Or so some in the press are saying. . . .
“It’s fair to question the role that race is playing in the campaigns — and to question what this particularly divisive election will do, in the long run, to the Democratic party. But it’s both baffling and troubling that the media reached these points of Meta-Speculation via a single, and generally innocuous, comment. The evolution from comment to story to intra-party fight to bigger story to intra-media fight to even bigger story to what-does-it-all-mean analysis — reveals a lot about the makeup of campaign coverage, from id to superego: its quick-fire nature; its viral makeup; its tendency to love a good dogfight even more than it loves a good horserace.
“. . . The whole affair, more than anything else, is incredibly sad. The two leading candidates of the party that, right now, seems to have the momentum going into the national election will, whoever wins the nomination, make history. We should be thrilled. We should be proud. But the past week’s ‘racial overtones’ coverage reminds us that, however much our political universe has progressed, our media universe is still often one of ‘(sound) bite first, ask questions later.'”
Bob Johnson apologizes for Obama comments (CNN) [Added Jan. 17]
Rachel Sklar, Huffington Post: Right, And In Context. Is That Too Much To Ask? Or Is It Just A Fairytale?
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Noose on Golfweek Cover Hits Some the Wrong Way
“You won’t believe this — from GolfWeek,” a sportswriter e-mailed to colleagues in the National Association of Black Journalists Wednesday afternoon.
The cover of the magazine featured a noose, and the writer was correct: Most people didn’t believe it. When one actually saw the image on the magazine’s Web site, he said he e-mailed the publisher and editor “telling them how appalled i was at the cover shot. . . as well as the lack of judgment that allowed it to be published in the first place.”
“Ask any black golfer who lives near Jasper Texas where a black man was tied to the back of truck and dragged around till his death if this is what they wanted to see on their door step or in the super market,” another said. “Forget a golfer, which is their target audience, why would anyone want to see this? It’s an issue to talk about it. But a noose on the cover is unnecessary.”
Editor Dave Seanor agreed that “it is an arresting cover,” and told Journal-isms “we debated long and hard” about how far to go in illustrating a debate about something that “is terribly offensive to African Americans.”
The cover was prompted by the debate over suspended Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman‘s exchange with analyst Nick Faldo at the Mercedes-Benz Championship, in which Tilghman said of Tiger Woods, “Lynch him in a back alley.” Woods supported Tilghman, who he said was a friend, but she was suspended for two weeks amid the uproar.
Seanor explained that his magazine received e-mails from subscribers who thought the punishment an overreaction. After a discussion with his staff, he said the publication needed to give its readers a reality check on what the noose represents to African Americans.
At first, the Web site featured the cover image without the story and editorial that accompany it, but those elements were added after Seanor was made aware of the black sportswriters’ concerns.
He said his publication — 98 percent subscription and a circulation of about 160,000 — has no African Americans on its editorial staff, but that other black staffers approved of the cover. He said it was difficult to attract writers to covering such a primarily white sport.
A mixed reaction greeted Seanor’s explanation.
“OK, I read the story that accompanied the noose, but I still think this idea was terrible and their lack of diversity shows,” one said.
“First and foremost, they put a noose on their cover and they don’t explain at all the history of lynching, why it is a sensitive word in the black community, or anything of that nature. So, in effect, they are putting a noose on the cover to sell magazines, not as a teaching tool.
” . . . And now that we’ve learned they have little, if any, diversity at their magazine, why in the world would they even think they could pull off something so provocative?”
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Oprah Unsure About Journalism on Her New Network
“Oprah Winfrey is getting her own TV network. OWN — for Oprah Winfrey Network — will debut next year in nearly 70 million homes with cable and satellite, part of a deal announced Tuesday with Discovery Communications,” David Bauder reported for the Associated Press. “It will replace the Discovery Health network.”
No decision has been made on whether the network will include any journalism, a spokeswoman for Winfrey’s Harpo Productions Inc. told Journal-isms. “We haven’t even hired a CEO,” she said. Nor has it been decided where the new network will be based.
“The announcement builds a media empire that already includes the top-rated TV talk show, a magazine, a satellite radio network, a Web site and TV movies made under her banner,” Bauder’s story continued.
“She will be chairwoman of the network, owned 50-50 by Discovery and her company, Harpo Productions Inc. In return for taking over a network already operated by Discovery, Winfrey gives half ownership of the Oprah.com Web site.”
Phil Rosenthal added Wednesday in the Chicago Tribune: “It is an opportunity to establish a legacy.
“‘The truth of the matter is one day the show has to end,’ Winfrey, who will turn 54 this month, said in a call with reporters.
“. . . ‘This network isn’t just about me,’ she said. ‘It’s using the voice and the brand and the vision, but it really is about creating possibilities for any number of people . . . to extend the vision in a way that obviously I cannot 24 hours a day.”
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Mora Sees His Exit as “Setback for . . . Minorities”
Anchor Antonio Mora, who announced on Tuesday he is leaving Chicago’s CBS-owned WBBM-TV to join CBS-owned WFOR-TV in Miami, said his departure is a setback for people of color, Robert Feder reported Wednesday in his Chicago Sun-Times column.
Feder asked Mora: “Your hiring here was a major advance for Hispanics in the market. So does that make your departure a setback?
Mora answered: “I think there is little doubt that it’s a setback for Latinos and minorities in general. I was the first Latino male to be the main anchor at a network station in the country’s top three markets. Chicago will now have no prime-time Latino at the three big broadcast networks in any position — news, sports or weather.
“David Novarro [of Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32] is now the only Latino in any position in the evenings at any English-language station. That’s in a city that is one-third Latino!”
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Writer Recalls Being the “Obama” of His High School
Joseph Williams, deputy chief of the Boston Globe’s Washington Bureau, wrote Sunday that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency reminds him of 1980, when he was a black student running for student body president at majority-white Ooltewah High School, about 20 miles outside Chattanooga, Tenn.
“Campaigning meant wearing what poet Paul Laurence Dunbar described as ‘the mask,’ the public, nonthreatening identity a black person assumes to navigate through a world dominated by white people,” Williams wrote. “Wearing ‘a face that grins and lies,’ as Dunbar wrote, is a common survival tactic that becomes second nature to most black people.
“There was just one campaign speech, before the student body. Delivering it meant a decision: I had to sound ‘credible.’ That meant I would have to use my white-boy voice before an assembly that included my black peers. In front of everyone, I would have to wear the mask. . . .
“When it comes to power, it’s fair to say, white people tend not to follow any black leader who doesn’t transcend race — that is, who doesn’t speak impeccable English and doesn’t act or dress like someone from the middle class. African-Americans, in turn, are cool to any aspiring leader who doesn’t speak in their vernacular, who goes against the civil rights orthodoxy, and who seems too close to the white man.
“Both attitudes are toxic. The former is a latent, subtle expression of racism, as limiting as a black person’s physical appearance used to be under Jim Crow. The latter confines black people to a prison of our own creation— a rejection of the sort of multicultural fluency required of any leader in 21st-century America.”
Joe Williams with Neal Conan on “Talk of the Nation,” National Public Radio: Black Journalist Recalls His Own Run for Office
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3 More Newspapers Announce Staff Cutbacks
The San Diego Union-Tribune, the Kansas City Star and the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., are the latest newspapers to undergo staff cutbacks.
“The San Diego Union-Tribune laid off 27 employees Tuesday afternoon, including at least five newsroom staffers, the latest cut in a company that has reduced its workforce by 10 percent in the past month,” Rob Davis wrote Wednesday for the Voice of San Diego.
“On top of the layoffs, the Union-Tribune has bought out 76 employees since late December, laid off an additional 14 press room workers and told 18 advertising artists their positions would be outsourced later this year.”
It could not be learned how many journalists of color were affected. Davis’ story said: “Three current or former newsroom staffers confirmed the layoffs include film critic David Elliott, reporter David Washburn, director of photography Andy Hayt, photographer Sean DuFrene and assistant sports editor Michael Rosenthal.”
At the Kansas City Star, 24 veteran employees “have chosen to leave the paper under a voluntary severance program aimed at trimming costs, Dan Margolies reported for Wednesday’s paper.
“Star publisher Mac Tully declined to break down the departures by department, other than saying that six persons in the newsroom accepted the offer. The six included two copy editors.” Their names were not disclosed.
In Newport News, Va., “The staff cuts that have besieged the Daily Press in recent years amidst a publishing industry decline continued Monday as the newspaper announced it is eliminating 14 positions,” Chris Flores reported on Tuesday.
Nationally, “Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that for the first 10 months of 2007, the number of employees in the newspaper industry declined 2.8% to roughly 350,000. That’s a loss of about 10,000 employees, compared with the same period in 2006,” Jen Saba reported on Tuesday for Editor & Publisher.
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Short Takes
Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and House Minority Leader Mike May Tuesday announced the creation of a special committee to investigate Rep. Doug Bruce‘s kicking of a Rocky Mountain News photographer on Monday, the News reported. “Bruce delivered a swift kick with his right foot to Rocky photographer Javier Manzano‘s left knee — saying, ‘Do not do that again’ — during the ceremonial morning prayer on the House floor Monday,” the story said. “The kick knocked Manzano off-balance, causing one of his cameras to tip over on the floor. Romanoff conveyed his apology on behalf of the House to Rocky Editor, Publisher and President John Temple. . . . House rules allow the media full access to the floor where the incident happened. No restrictions are placed on photographers during prayers or other activities.”
“If ever there was a need for serious national black news shows, it’s now. And no one succeeded in providing such a public service” like Deborah Tang, “a former BET vice president for news, who died recently of cancer. She was 60,” Courtland Milloy wrote Wednesday in the Washington Post. “Not so long ago, you could watch news programs that featured a wide range of insight and perspective by black experts. The station to watch, believe it or not, was Black Entertainment Television — that is, before the cable network was sold to Viacom in 2000 and most of its news programming was canceled.”
The Philadelphia Tribune, the nation’s oldest newspaper serving the African American community, announced Wednesday it has agreed in principle with Virtual Paper, a Canadian-based-digital publication firm, to provide a new, print-replica, digitally transmitted “e-Edition” of the Tribune by early February. “Offering an ‘e-Edition’ will allow The Philadelphia Tribune to make available the entire format and content of our Tuesday, Friday and Sunday editions to our subscriber base and to other readers, including large regional and national audiences,” publisher Robert W. Bogle said.
The printed edition of the San Antonio Informer, a weekly African American newspaper with a circulation of 2,500, has been officially put to bed. It has been converted to Web-only, at www.sainformer.net, Gregory Moore Webmaster and managing editor, announced on Wednesday.
Jesse Jackson met with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin on Dec. 9, according to a filing by Georgetown Partners LLC, a black-owned investment company, and urged the FCC to require that Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.’s planned purchase of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., be contingent on an agreement that the company leases at least 20 percent of its channels to minority-controlled firms, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.
“The search is down to two candidates to become the new dean of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, John Mariani wrote on his blog Monday for the Syracuse (N.Y.) Post-Standard. “Sam L. Grogg, dean of the School of Communications at the University of Miami, will visit the SU campus Jan. 24-25 . . . Lorraine E. Branham, director of the School of Journalism at the University of Texas, will visit campus Jan. 29-30.”
Rick Whitlow, sports director for WJTV-TV in Jackson, Miss., “said he was fired from the Jackson TV station Monday after he refused to work an unscheduled weekend,” Gary Pettus reported in the Clairon-Ledger of Jackson. “Whitlow said Monday that he had told station officials he would not be able to work unscheduled weekends so he could devote time to military-family support groups following the deployment of his son, Army Pvt. Eric Whitlow, 23, to Iraq in August.”
In HBO’s “The Wire” and in commentary on such sites as Slate.com, Poynter.org and Fimoculous.com are accusations and insinuations about the Baltimore Sun that include grubbing for prizes, gutting coverage and favoring the sweet tale over the complex truth, David Montgomery wrote Wednesday in the Washington Post. “Wire” creator David Simon was a Sun reporter from 1983 to 1995.
“New print and Web ads in both English and Spanish are available on the Sunshine Week Web site. The ads may be used by any participant free of charge now, during Sunshine Week (March 16-22), and through the November 2008 elections,” the Web site says. “Featuring the Sunshine Campaign ‘spokesmammals’ Ronnie and Donnie, as well as the ‘Vote for Sunshine’ campaign button imagery, the ads remind people that open government is a non-partisan issue and a right shared by everyone.” Sunshine Week is led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
“Linda Jones‘ voice breaks when she talks about coming out of labor to find her son, Dorian, stillborn,” Nancy Churnin wrote Monday in the Dallas Morning News. “That was 22 years ago, but the pain is still very much with her. The Dallas writer, 54, a former reporter for The Dallas Morning News, has learned . . . to find joy by communing with her son’s spirit through journaling. Teaching others to work through grief by writing has become her passion and mission. It inspired her to create ‘It’s Only Temporary . . . A Journal for Surviving Loved Ones,’ a workbook with writing prompts to help people work through pain.”
Ruben Keoseyan, a former executive editor of the Los Angeles daily La Opinión, was named publisher of the Chicago Spanish-language weekly La Raza Tuesday,” Editor & Publisher reported. “ImpreMedia, which publishes both papers, said the appointment marked his return to the chain. In 2005, Keoseyan became director of Primera Hora, the Puerto Rican tabloid.”
“The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned by the detention and upcoming trial of Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh in Mazar-i-Sharif, Balkh province, northern Afghanistan,” the organization said on Monday. “The 23-year-old journalism student and brother of prominent journalist Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi will be tried in a religious Islamic court on charges of blasphemy, according to Rahimullah Samander, head of the Afghan Independent Journalists Association and the Committee to Protect Afghan Journalists. The court has already issued a statement recommending that Kambakhsh receive the death sentence, Samander said.”
In Brazil, “Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the murder of TV cameraman Walter Lessa de Oliveira on 5 January in Maceió, the capital of the northeastern state of Alagoas, amid a disturbing crime wave in the city,” the organization said. “Witnesses say he was gunned down by a drug trafficker and revenge appears to be the most likely motive.”
In South Korea, “The incoming government will seek to abolish a controversial newspaper law, which has been criticized for restricting press freedom and the media industry, the presidential transition committee said yesterday,” according to Song Sang-ho, reporting Wednesday in the Korea Herald. “The law includes a clause under which any daily newspaper with a market share of 30 percent or any three dailies with a combined share of 60 percent are subject to monopoly regulations . . . Critics said it targets major newspapers critical of the government and undermines press freedom.”
“A court in the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, today sent the director of a private newspaper to prison to await trial on criminal charges in connection with an editorial about a political scandal,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Tuesday. “Faustin Bambou of the biweekly Les Collines de l’Oubangui was transferred to Bangui’s main Ngaraba prison after his arraignment on charges of ‘incitement to disturbances against law and order and revolt against public institutions’— a criminal offense carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison under the penal code, according to defense lawyer Mathias Barthélemy Morouba.”
