Candidate Says Founding Wasn’t Based on Ethnicity
John McCain, the putative Republican nominee for president, told a gathering of news editors on Monday that the United States, which began as a nation where only white male property owners could vote, is “a country founded on an idea and not on class, ethnic or sectarian identity.”
The Arizona senator made the statement in his prepared remarks and uttered them without challenge as he addressed an Associated Press gathering at a joint convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Newspaper Association of America in Washington.
When the United States was founded, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person in allocating seats in Congress. Many of the founding fathers were slaveholders.
“Southerners made sure that slavery was embedded in the very legislative process of the nation, as that was created by the Constitution — they made the three-fifth ‘representation’ of slaves in the national legislature a non-negotiable condition for their joining the Union,” Garry Wills wrote in his 2003 book about Thomas Jefferson, “Negro President.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made headlines two weeks ago when she repeated her characterization of the United States as created with a national “birth defect” that denied blacks opportunities.
McCain’s statement went unchallenged by the two white AP journalists, Liz Sidoti, political writer, and Ron Fournier, online political editor, who questioned McCain after his speech. His observation about America’s founding came at the end of a ringing defense of small-town values that he recited in denouncing widely reported comments about small-town Pennsylvania made by Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic front-runner, at a San Francisco fundraiser.
Although Obama has said he expressed himself clumsily at the fundraiser, McCain and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton, have seized upon the remarks to portray Obama as elitist and out of touch.
An obviously tired Obama addressed the convention at a sold-out luncheon on Monday. He repeated that he was a person of deep faith, was born to a single mother, grew up near steel mills, worked as a community organizer and could not be considered elitist. But he stood behind his belief that many working class people who have experienced the negative effects of globalization are embittered by the failure of government to help them.
“If John McCain wants to turn this into a contest of which party is out of touch, that’s a debate I’m happy to have,” Obama said.
Obama’s comments at the fundraiser were criticized for implying that small-town Americans “cling” to religion and guns, along with anti-immigrant feelings, when they are in economic distress.
Many news stories have avoided the racial context of Obama’s remarks at the fund-raiser, but Obama began them by offering an alternative to racism as the reason white working class people have voted for him in lower numbers than others.
“So, it depends on where you are,” Obama began, explaining the demographics of Pennsylvania, “but I think it’s fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre…I think they’re misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to ‘white working-class don’t wanna work — don’t wanna vote for the black guy.’ That’s…there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today — kind of implies that it’s sort of a race thing.
“Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laughter), then that adds another layer of skepticism.” [Full text, next item.]
McCain scored points with the crowd by announcing his support for a federal “shield law” for journalists.
Obama, asked how he felt about whether journalists’ confidential sources should be protected, said, “that should be decided by the courts,” in whom he said he had confidence, and went on to discuss protecting civil liberties while combating terrorism.
Obama also said that while he is pro-choice, he understands “there is a moral element to that issue,” but that the “media culture” makes it difficult to get that across. “We feed on controversy,” he said, adding that when he says, “‘I disagree but see the other guy’s point,’ that doesn’t make headlines.”
Obama began his speech by thanking by name the several Associated Press reporters who have been covering him. None was a black journalist.
Clinton speaks on Tuesday.
- The Nation, blog: Obama ‘Gets It’ on Trade
- Mike Allen, Politico: 12 reasons ‘bitter’ is bad for Obama
- Leah Boyd, ASNE Reporter: “Obama bin Laden” — Singleton: ‘A slip of the tongue … I’m so sorry.’
- David Coleman, Huffington Post: I Was There: What Obama Really Said About Pennsylvania
- Dave Davies, Philadelphia Daily News: Obama camp makes case for no-shows in Philly’s black neighborhoods
- Sara Robinson, Orcinus blog: The Real McCain on Immigration and Race
- Denise Shiffman, AdAge.com: Obama’s Rivals Should Steal From His Social Playbook
- Jack White, theRoot.com: Generation Envy
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Text of Obama’s Remarks at S.F. Fundraiser
Following is the text of Sen. Barack Obama’s remarks at an April 6 fundraiser in San Francisco, seized upon by his opponents as “elitist”: They were published by Mayhill Fowler on the Huffington Post, which broke the story. Web site:
OBAMA: So, it depends on where you are, but I think it’s fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre…I think they’re misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to ‘white working-class don’t wanna work— don’t wanna vote for the black guy.’ That’s…there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today — kind of implies that it’s sort of a race thing.
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Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laughter), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).
But— so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What’s the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is — so, we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide health care for every American. So we’ll go down a series of talking points.
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you’re doing what you’re doing.
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Sheila Rule, Stephen Miller Taking N.Y. Times Buyout
Longtime New York Times journalists Sheila Rule, senior editor, and Stephen C. Miller, assistant to the technology editor, are taking the company’s buyout offer, the two confirmed on Monday.
Executive Editor Bill Keller announced in February that the newspaper would eliminate about 100 newsroom jobs this year, and said buyouts would be part of the process.
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Rule described her job this way to her alma mater, the University of Missouri School of Journalism: “I have a hodgepodge of responsibilities, including recruiting reporters, running our internship program and developing workshops and programs, such as The New York Times Student Journalism Institute for students who attend historically black colleges.
“After graduating from MU in 1972, I was a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch until 1977, when I joined The New York Times,” she said. “Over the years, my beats included the New York State Legislature, the homeless, civil rights, social services, pop music and culture. I was a foreign correspondent for six years, based in Nairobi and later, London. I was promoted to my current position in management in 1994.”
Rule told Journal-isms that “I hope to do my part to help bring about social change” through the firm she founded, Resilience Multimedia, a New York-based publisher of African American and Latino books.
She “started writing to the incarcerated as a volunteer for the Riverside Church Prison Ministry. Inspired by the rich talent she found behind prison walls, she started Resilience Multimedia. Future titles will help the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated tackle other hard challenges. And to present a more balanced image of this population, Resilience will publish books featuring formerly incarcerated men and women who have become successful as entrepreneurs and in other endeavors,” the publisher’s material says.
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Miller, who is leaving the paper officially on Friday, said he would continue to work there as a consultant who conducts training. He said he was going to China at the end of May to help train journalists and would remain as a board member of Investigative Reporters and Editors.
Miller, 62, said he would have been with the newspaper 18 years in August. He headed the training program for the newsroom, wrote for the paper on consumer electronics issues and technology, and tested new products for what might be used at the Times.
He has also been active in the National Association of Black Journalists and its New York chapter.
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Nominate a Media Executive for Ida B. Wells Award
Nominations are being accepted for the 2008 Ida B. Wells Award, presented annually to a media executive or manager who has made outstanding contributions toward making American newsrooms and news coverage more accurately reflect the communities they serve.
Administered jointly by the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Conference of Editorial Writers, the award seeks to give tangible and highly visible recognition to an individual or group of individuals who have provided distinguished leadership in increasing access and opportunities to people of color in journalism and improving coverage of underrepresented communities, in the words of a news release.
First bestowed in 1983, the award is named in honor of the pioneering 19th century editor and publisher who was a champion of integration and whose crusade against lynching earned her acclaim on two continents. Professors at the Medill School of Journalism serve as curators of the award.
Eligibility: Any news executive, manager or journalist who has made significant contributions to newsroom diversity and/or improved coverage of communities of color is eligible for the award.
Nominations: Any person may nominate a candidate for the award by completing a nominating form and submitting it along with supporting statements to m-awards@northwestern.edu
Presentations: The award is presented alternately at the national conventions of the sponsoring bodies. The 2008 award will be presented at the convention of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, planned Sept. 17- 20 in Little Rock, Ark.
Previous Winners:
2007 Steve Capus, president, NBC News
2006 Virgil L. Smith, president and publisher, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times
2005 Reggie Stuart, corporate recruiter, Knight Ridder
2004 Don Browne, chief operating officer, Telemundo
2003 David Yarnold, senior vice president and editor, San Jose Mercury News
2002 Sam Adams, retiring curator, Ida B. Wells Award Program
2001 Reid MacCluggage, editor and publisher (ret.) the Day, New London, Conn.
2000 No award given
1999 Timothy M. Kelly, president and publisher, Lexington-Herald-Leader, Ky.
1998 Paula Walker Madison, vice president and news director, WNBC, New York
1997 Frank A. Blethen, publisher and chief executive officer, the Seattle Times
1996 Donald Graham, publisher and board chairman, the Washington Post Co.
1995 Shelby Coffey III, editor and executive vice president, Los Angeles Times
1994 Gerald M. Sass, senior vice president, the Freedom Forum
1993 Wanda Lloyd, senior editor for administration, USA Today
1992 Jay T. Harris, vice president/operations and assistant to the president, Knight-Ridder, Inc.
1991 John C. Quinn, deputy chair, the Freedom Forum, former chief news executive, Gannett Co., Inc.
1990 Mervin Aubespin, associate editor, the Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.
1989 Albert Fitzpatrick, assistant vice president, Knight-Ridder, Inc.
1988 David Lawrence Jr., publisher and chair, Detroit Free Press
1987 Loren Ghiglione, editor and publisher, the News, Southbridge, Mass.
1986 James K. Batten, president, Knight-Ridder, Inc.
1985 Barry Bingham Jr., editor and publisher, the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times, Ky.
1984 Daniel B. Burke, president and chief operating officer, Capital Cities Broadcasting
1983 Allen H. Neuharth, chair and president, Gannett Co., Inc.
