Maynard Institute archives

Cops Stop Black Journalist 50+ Times

by richard0575

First-Person Story Has Toronto Poised to Change Policy

Media Scramble to Cover Fatal Shooting of 9 in Charleston

States in U.S. Said to Violate Standards on Deadly Force

N.Y. Times Adds Details on Chokehold Death of Eric Garner

Reports Have Holt as Permanent “Nightly News” Anchor

Montel Williams Says “Today” Pitched Softballs to Dolezal

Puerto Ricans Say “Rear View” Photo Wasn’t From Parade

Local News Still “Root” of Operation at Washington Post

N.Y. Times Fashion Cover Girl is 16, From Angola

Anchor Loses Case Challenging His Firing Over “N” Word

Short Takes

First-Person Story Has Toronto Poised to Change Policy

May issue of Toronto LifeA black journalist in Toronto who wrote that police have interrogated him more than 50 times because of his race generated such outrage that the city’s mayor plans to introduce a motion to end the practice — known as “carding” — on Thursday.

Desmond Cole‘s cover story in the May issue of Toronto Life magazine, headlined, “The Skin I’m in — I’ve been interrogated by police more than 50 times — all because I’m black” received a “huge” reaction, Editor Sarah Fulford told Journal-isms Wednesday by telephone.

Mayor John Tory reversed his position supporting the practice.

The piece “became a major part of the public conversation,” Fulford said.

Cole told Journal-isms that “carding” — in which police stop people on the street and in their vehicles and record and store information about them in a secret database — had occurred for years. But until the Toronto Star exposed the practice in 2012, he said, white journalists generally were oblivious to it or paid it no attention.

The Star reported then that its “analysis of Toronto police stop data from 2008 to mid-2011 shows that the number of young black and brown males aged 15 to 24 documented in each of the city’s 72 patrol zones is greater than the actual number of young men of colour living in those areas,” Jim Rankin and Patty Winsa wrote in the series, “Known to Police.”

“Young white males and those designated as ‘other’ do attract police attention, but nothing as pronounced as black and brown youth. . . .”

Even after the Star’s series, however, the issue gained little traction in other media until Toronto Life published Cole’s first-person story.

“Here in Canada, where we don’t often talk about race, I have a responsibility as a black journalist to talk and explain race in an honest way,” Cole, 33, told Journal-isms by telephone. “We really don’t do that very well in this country.

“We tend to treat them as strictly emotional issues — meaning we don’t see the kind of fact-based and statistical side of race issues,” Cole continued. “We tend to reduce them to how people feel. For example, how do the black communities feel about the police?” This, despite “all kinds of statistics on how police treat black people,” and how people of color fare “in the criminal justice system, in the schools, in the child aid system.

“I have a license that a lot of my white colleagues and my non-African colleagues don’t. A lot of white journalists feel it’s not their place to write about race. I think that’s too bad.”

In his Toronto Life piece, Cole wrote that his experience of being repeatedly stopped by police was met with incredulity when he informed whites he knew.

“When I told my white friends about these encounters with police, they’d often respond with skepticism and dismissal, or with a barrage of questions that made me doubt my own sanity. ‘But what were you doing?’ they’d badger, as if I’d withheld some key part of the story that would justify the cops’ behaviour. . . “

Cole said he encountered the same attitude among journalists.

“The questions in a lot of my white counterparts’ minds had to do with the behavior of black people,” Cole said. “Let’s be blunt about it. That is a function of white supremacy. You’re treated in a discriminatory way, but [they] make the conversation about the victims’ behavior, and the propriety and the worthiness of justice. This is very similar to the way that the media respond to all kinds of issues of systematic oppression,” he continued, with “women, people who don’t fit the gender binary that we have or the sexual orientation that we have — with skepticism and a lack of curiosity.”

When the Star series appeared, Cole was writing for Torontoist, which calls itself a magazine of “news, politics, events, culture and everything in between.”

The son of immigrants from Sierra Leone who was born in Red Deer, Alberta, Cole said the Star’s reporting shocked him. “I was in my early days of being a journalist. It was one of the biggest stories I have ever encountered in our city.” With the support of his editors, Cole began writing about how the “carding” policy was affecting those who were stopped.

“But it wasn’t as startling to people as I expected, not enough to my satisfaction,” Cole said, especially when, in April, authorities decided to continue the carding practice.

“I decided I could no longer be just a reporter on this issue.”

After three years of telling other people’s stories, the freelancer decided to include his own in a piece for Toronto Life.

Associate Editor Emily Landau encouraged him to expand the sections about his experiences. Readers found the “carding” abuse more credible because they were happening to and being described by a journalist, Cole said. “They said, ‘oh, my God, this is shocking, and it is important.’ “

Since the piece appeared, Cole has been in “huge demand. I’ve spoken on every major news network, television, radio, in every [major] part of the country and many minor ones.”

Media outlets that failed to report on the practice were now writing opinion pieces about it.

The mayor “said the system has ‘eroded the public trust,’ and he plans to go before Toronto’s police board on June 18 and call for the practice to be eliminated,” the Canadian Broadcasting Co. reported on June 11. 

Police Chief Mark Saunders, who is black, said he would follow the dictates of his superiors. But he defended the practice, telling the CBC, “When we do it right, it’s lawful. When we do it right, it enhances public safety.”

“I’ve said from day one, I will not support random stopping of anybody,” Saunders said, reiterating that he has been opposed to random stops since he started his term as police chief in recent weeks. “I will not do that and I do not tolerate that,” the CBC quoted Saunders as saying.

Cole said the details in expected changes in policy will be key. He also said there isn’t time to wait for lawsuits to be resolved.

“We need a remedy now.” Not only does the practice violate the guarantees of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the nation’s constitution, but it is also eroding trust between police and communities.

“The mayor and the police board absolutely have the power” to change that, Cole said.

Credit: Toronto Star

Media Scramble to Cover Fatal Shooting of 9 in Charleston

“A white gunman killed nine people during a prayer meeting at one of Charleston’s oldest and best-known black churches Wednesday night in one of the worst mass shootings in South Carolina history,” Glenn Smith, Melissa Boughton and Robert Behre reported shortly after midnight Thursday for the Post and Courier in Charleston.

“Heavily armed law enforcement officers scoured the area into the morning for the man responsible for the carnage inside Emanuel AME Church at 110 Calhoun St. At least one person was said to have survived the rampage.

“Police revealed no motive for the 9 p.m. attack, which was reportedly carried out by a young white man. Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said, ‘I do believe this was a hate crime.’ . . .”

Media were scrambling to cover the crime and offering historical perspective, though some complained that the morning television shows did not stay with the story long enough.

“When a gunman opened fire on Charleston’s Emanuel A.M.E. Church Wednesday, spraying bullets into a group of worshipers gathered for a mid-week prayer meeting, it was as though history repeated itself,” Sarah Kaplan wrote for the Washington Post.

“This historic congregation, the oldest of its kind in the South, had already seen more than its fair share of tumult and hate. It was founded by worshipers fleeing racism and burned to the ground for its connection with a thwarted slave revolt.

“For years its meetings were conducted in secret to evade laws that banned all-black services. It was jolted by an earthquake in 1886. Civil rights luminaries spoke from its pulpit and led marches from its steps. For nearly two hundred years it had been the site of struggle, resistance and change. . . .”

On TVOne’s “News One Now” with Roland Martin, commentator Armstrong Williams said slain State Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor, was a cousin.

Chris Ariens reported Thursday for TVNewser, “Scott Pelley, David Muir and Savannah Guthrie are en route to South Carolina to anchor their newscasts from Charleston tonight . . . For the morning shows, Atlanta-based Steve Osunsami reported for Good Morning America, DC-based Jeff Pegues reported for CBS This Morning and Chris Jansing was on the ground for the Today show. . . .”

States in U.S. Said to Violate Standards on Deadly Force

“Amnesty International reviewed US state laws — where they exist — governing the use of lethal force by law enforcement officials and found that they all fail to comply with international law and standards,” the human rights group said in “Deadly Force: Police Use of Lethal Force in the United States,” according to a report released early Thursday.

“Many of them do not even meet the less stringent standard set by US constitutional law. Some state laws currently allow for use of lethal force to ‘suppress opposition to an arrest’; to arrest someone for a ‘suspected felony’; to ‘suppress a riot or mutiny’; or for certain crimes such as burglary. A number of statutes allow officers to use lethal force to prevent an escape from a prison or jail. Others allow private citizens to use lethal force if they are carrying out law enforcement activities.

“Amnesty International found that:

  • “All 50 states and Washington DC fail to comply with international law and standards on the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers;
  • “Nine states and Washington DC currently have no laws on use of lethal force by law enforcement officers; and
  • “Thirteen states have laws that do not even comply with the lower standards set by US constitutional law on use of lethal force by law enforcement officers.

The group recommended that “All state legislatures should introduce or amend statutes that authorize the use of lethal force to ensure that they are in line with international standards by limiting the use of lethal force by law enforcement to those instances in which it is necessary to protect against the threat of death or serious injury” and that “Congress should take legislative action to ensure that all federal, state and local law enforcement officials restrict their use of lethal force in compliance with international law and standards.”

In addition, Amnesty urged that the U.S. Justice Department ensure the collection and publication of nationwide statistics on police shootings and that the president and Justice Department “support the creation of a national commission (National Crime and Justice Task Force) to examine and produce recommendations on policing issues . . . .”

N.Y. Times Adds Details on Chokehold Death of Eric Garner

The first official police report on the death of Eric Garner, the Staten Island, N.Y., man who was choked to death last year while in police custody, “failed to note the key detail that vaulted the fatal arrest into the national consciousness: that a police officer had wrapped his arm around Mr. Garner’s neck,” Al Baker, J. David Goodman and Benjamin Mueller wrote for the New York Times’ Sunday print edition.

“Interviews and previously undisclosed documents obtained by The New York Times provide new details and a fresh understanding of how the seemingly routine police encounter began, how it hurtled toward its deadly conclusion and how the police and emergency medical workers responded,” they wrote.

The reporters noted that a cellphone camera held by a friend of Garner recorded the struggle. ” ‘We didn’t know anything about a chokehold or hands to the neck until the video came out,’ said a former senior police official with direct knowledge of the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his access to confidential department information. ‘We found out when everyone else did.’ . . . “

The story also focused attention on emergency medical workers.

“For minutes as Mr. Garner lay on the ground, he was not given oxygen by the responding emergency medical personnel, who were from Richmond University Medical Center.

” ‘If someone was choked out, probably they need oxygen right away,’ said Israel Miranda, president of the Uniformed E.M.T.s, Paramedics and Fire Inspectors F.D.N.Y. Local 2507, which does not represent the Richmond University medical personnel. . . .”

Lester Holt

Reports Have Holt as Permanent “Nightly News” Anchor

NBC and Brian Williams have come to a tentative agreement that keeps Williams at the network and makes Lester Holt, who has been filling in for the past four months, permanent anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” Brian Stelter reported Wednesday for CNNMoney.com. Other news outlets quickly followed.

“The decision, described by people with knowledge of the plan, ends months of speculation that Williams could leave NBC altogether,” Stelter wrote in an early version of his story.

“Williams will not be returning to the ‘NBC Nightly News’ anchor chair, the people said. Instead he will have a new role; the details of it are unknown to all but a very small number of executives.

” ‘No one knows anything,’ one anchor at the network complained Wednesday.

“But that may change very soon: NBC is likely to make an announcement about Williams’ future on Thursday, the people with knowledge of the plan said.

“In addition, Lester Holt, Williams’ fill-in for the past 4 months, will become the permanent anchor of ‘Nightly News.’

“The appointment makes Holt the first black solo anchor of a weekday network nightly newscast.

“Holt is on vacation this week — his first extended period of time off since Williams was suspended in February.

“As for Williams’ future at the network, the options are numerous, given that NBC News is an arm of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast. . . .”

Emily Steel, John Koblin and Ravi Somaiya reported for the New York Times Wednesday night, “Mr. Williams is expected to move to a new role primarily at the cable news network MSNBC, probably in a breaking-news capacity in the beginning. . . .”

Montel Williams Says “Today” Pitched Softballs to Dolezal

“I did a lot of interviews in my show’s 17 year run,” Montel Williams wrote Tuesday for TVNewswer, “so I know full well the pressure to grab that juicy exclusive — and Rachel Dolezal’s story certainly is that.

“It’s sensational, timely, controversial, and — holiest of all — trending on Twitter. There’s nothing wrong with chasing an exclusive, but landing it often comes with a price. Producers are often pressured to avoid certain topics and focus narrowly on those most favorable to the interviewee.

“Watching the Dolezal interview, I suspect that was the case. Clearly, my show had an entertainment component and it was hardly ‘news.’ Nor was the Dolezal story — it’s a lifestyle story. Sure it’s easy for me to cast stones no longer being a prisoner of my overnight ratings. My point is bigger and goes to the heart of the TV business today.

“The gist of Today’s interview was, ‘Set the record straight: are you white or black?’ Sure that’s fun, gossipy, built-for-Twitter question, but it ignores the fundamental issue here: ‘Why should we trust anything you say if you’ve been lying for a decade?!’

“The other foundational issue goes to self-identification, and it’s one that, as a father of four bi-racial children, I’ve done a lot of thinking about. My kids could identify as white, black or bi-racial and be honest in doing so. I think people should have some freedom of self-identification provided that identification is built on a platform of honesty.

“While she was living as white, Dolezal sued Howard University for discrimination based on the fact she was a white pregnant woman. Then while she was living as black, she reported numerous hate crimes which law enforcement believes may have been fabricated. She’s been flip-flopping her race and fabricating bias in every identity she chooses.

“And yet instead of asking ‘Have you been dishonest?’ Today preferred to focus on, ‘What race are you today?’ That’s like Wells Fargo asking a bank-robber, ‘Are you withdrawing or depositing?’ . . .”

Local News Still “Root” of Operation at Washington Post

Owner Jeff Bezos might want to take the Washington Post to a more global audience, but Executive Editor Marty Baron maintained Tuesday that the root of the news operation is local news.

“It’s absolutely central that we have strong roots,” Baron said at the Engage Local conference sponsored in Newark, N.J., by the American Society of News Editors, the American Press Institute, the McCormick Foundation, the News Literacy Project and Montclair State University.

The aim of the two-day event was to promote better ways for news organizations to further engagement with their local communities. It began Monday night with a town-hall session with Newark residents.

Baron was interviewed by Merrill Brown, director of the Montclair State School of Communication and Media and a former Post reporter in a lunchtime “fireside chat.” The discussion covered the Post’s ever-expanding web and mobile presence, topics that interest millennials, the  imprisonment and trial of Post reporter Jason Rezaian in Iran, and more.

Brown noted that the Graham family, the Post’s previous owners, said often that the Post was first and foremost a local paper. However, as Michael Meyer said of Bezos in the July/August 2014 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, “As it has been with Amazon, his obsession at the Post is finding a way to integrate a product into millions of people’s lives in a way they haven’t yet experienced.”

Baron said that the Post’s Metro staff numbers 80 and that the Post publishes an All-Met sports section on high schools. But he said the local staff, too, is involved in the effort for a wider reach. “How do we take our local stories, if they are emblematic of something going on on a national level — can we turn them into something larger?” Baron asked.

Examples of issues with such “crossover” potential are “free range” parenting, in which children receive less supervision, which originated as Maryland story, and police stories.

As to local outreach, a “Coffee@WaPo” discussion series with community members, launched Wednesday with a moderated discussion about sexual assault on college campuses, based on Post reporting conducted with the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Baron said the Post doesn’t really have a hyperlocal presence. Such an attempt in Loudoun County, Va., in 2008 failed. “It’s very expensive to do, but it’s an issue we really have to confront.” Overall, Baron said, “We try to engage with the local community in every way that we can.”

Other topics at the conference included revenue-building measures for community newspapers, such as redbankgreen, a directory of restaurants in the Red Bank, N.J., area; innovative ways to interact with readers and listeners, such as New York Public Radio’s “Bored and Brilliant” project and the Bay Area’s StoryWorks, a collaboration between a local theater and the Bay Area-based Center for Investigative Reporting; and research from the Pew Research Center on community engagement with media in Denver, Macon, Ga., and Sioux City, Iowa.

Portions of the conference can be watched at http://engagelocal.org/livestream/ and on the NJ News Commons channel on YouTube.com.

N.Y. Times Fashion Cover Girl is 16, From Angola

When T: The New York Times Style Magazine relaunched in 2013, readers instantly noticed the lack of people of color. T’s editor-in-chief, Deborah Needleman, promised to be more vigilant.

The issue published with Sunday’s newspaper featured Amilna Estevão, a 16-year-old from Luanda, Angola, on its cover.

She “was discovered in 2013 after participating in the Elite Model Look competition in Angola. From there, she went on to the Elite International competition in China and won third place,” according to Erika Ostroff, writing in Yahoo Style.

Needleman told readers, “As for our exquisite cover model, Amilna Estevao, when we saw her at Alexander Wang’s fall show, we were gobsmacked. At only 16, she possesses a classic beauty and natural poise that will only deepen as she matures. This is her first major magazine cover, but my guess is that she will have a long career if she chooses to. . . .”

Anchor Loses Case Challenging His Firing Over “N” Word

“After less than three hours of deliberation yesterday, an all-white jury decided that former Fox 29 anchor Tom Burlington had not been fired for racial reasons,” Dan Spinelli reported Monday for the Philadelphia Daily News.

“Burlington was terminated on July 12, 2007, after using the N-word during a June 23, 2007, staff meeting about the Philadelphia Council of the NAACP’s symbolic burial of the infamous epithet.

” ‘Does this mean we can finally say, “N—–?” ‘ Burlington testified he’d said in the meeting. However, Anne Malone, to whom Fox 29 referred Burlington for sensitivity training, wrote that he had said the word three times in rapid succession during the June 23 meeting.

“Jerome Hoffman, attorney for Fox 29, said in his closing argument that Malone’s notes predate Burlington’s lawsuit, and may best reflect his honest recollection of the meeting.

” ‘Just stop and think: Who in the world would ever say that?’ Hoffman said yesterday about Burlington’s comments. . . .”

Short Takes

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