“Bland Got Off Easy,” Columnist Writes of Tasered Man
46 Laid Off at Philly Inquirer, Daily News, Philly.com
K.C. Star Sells Out of World Series Victory Papers
Tribune Agrees With Spike Lee: This Is an Emergency
Columnist “Suspected” Boxer Was Lying About Porn Role
“SNL” Pulls Promo With Trump Calling Carson a “Loser”
Public Radio, TV Project to “Engage” Diverse New Audiences
Young Journalists Report From World’s Danger Zones
Top Black Twitter Engineer Quits Over Diversity Issues
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Rickey Joe Scott continued to wave his ID so the police officer could take it. Instead of accepting it, the officer pulled out a Taser and zapped Scott, who collapsed. (video)
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“Bland Got Off Easy,” Columnist Writes of Tasered Man
“This video aired on Fox4 last night,” editorial writer Tod Robberson wrote Tuesday for the Dallas Morning News under the headline “Walking while black, sitting while white, and questions of appropriate use of force.”
“It shows a man sitting in a chair in the lobby of Godley City Hall in Johnson County. The man, Rickey Joe Scott, had asked to talk to a code enforcement officer to register a complaint about a neighbor. Instead, a police officer arrived. And the officer appears not to be terribly pleased at being there.
“Seconds after arriving on July 3, the officer approaches Scott, still sitting, and demands an ID from . . . the 57-year-old man. Scott responds with no small hint of sarcasm and annoyance that, although he has an ID, the officer doesn’t need to see it. (Recall that this was the same complaint made by Dorothy Bland regarding a police stop in Corinth. Police said they had stopped to warn her that walking down the middle of the street was dangerous, but for some reason, they insisted on seeing her ID even though, she says, she was just walking down the street in her own neighborhood.)
“Bland got off easy. The officers handled the situation in a friendly and businesslike manner. In Godley, the officer demanded an ID from a man sitting in a chair. Scott stood up abruptly after his wife told him to chill out, stop arguing and just give the officer his stupid ID. Scott, clearly annoyed, reached into his pocket and produced his ID. The officer ordered him to turn around. Scott turned around, continuing to offer up his ID, as the officer demanded.
“That wasn’t good enough. With Scott’s back turned to the officer, Scott continued to wave his ID so the officer could take it. ‘I’m giving you my ID!’ he said. Instead of taking it, the officer pulled out a Taser and zapped Scott, who collapsed on the ground. The officer handcuffs Scott. . . .”
Robberson also wrote, “What’s interesting about this video is that it takes the racial issue out of the equation. What it depicts, once again, is a police officer’s harsh overreaction to what appears to be a peaceable situation. It depicts a police officer’s presence exacerbating a situation. The officer fails to control the situation. The officer allows his ego to guide his actions, and his ego tells him that his authority is never to be questioned, no matter what the circumstances. The officer makes the situation worse, not better. That’s the way a bully behaves, not an officer sworn to uphold the law. . . .”
In addition, “Scott was charged with resisting arrest a month and a half after the incident. Scott wanted to file a complaint against the officer, who is identified only as Officer Rogers. Godley police won’t let Scott file a complaint because the deadline for filing a complaint is within 30 days of the incident. . . . That’s a Catch-22 if I ever heard one. . . .”
Meanwhile, reaction to Bland’s comments about what she considered racial profiling for “walking while black” continued. A petition begun Oct. 29, urging that she be removed as dean of the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas had more than 3,500 signatures on Wednesday night.
Reaction to an essay Bland wrote last week in the Dallas Morning News “has been so strong that they have apparently warranted the popular Internet myth-busting site Snopes.com to write an article clarifying that the police stop did in fact happen,” Dom DiFurio reported Wednesday for the Morning News.
DiFurio also wrote, “The Snopes article seemingly confirms a widely held belief that Bland was lying about her traffic stop. This is something I didn’t know was possible to interpret from our presentation of the op-ed considering the fact that The Dallas Morning News published the Corinth police chief’s response alongside the op-ed as well as dash cam footage from the police department. . . .”
More mainstream news outlets, such as the Daily News in New York and the Tallahassee Democrat, which serves Florida A&M University, where Bland formerly taught, picked up the story. Finley Graves, University of North Texas provost and vice president for academic affairs, did not respond to a request for comment, but the university posted this message on Facebook on Monday:
“In response to the comments about Dorothy Bland’s recent opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News:
“As members of their communities, University of North Texas administrators, faculty and staff members have the same rights and obligations as other citizens.
“Unfortunately, Bland attached her title to her personal column in the Dallas Morning News. UNT seeks to make clear that in her column and in all associated matters, Bland was not acting or speaking on behalf of the university.
“Bland’s interactions with the Corinth Police and her communications about her perceived experience are her private business.
“UNT encourages our administrators, faculty and staff members to measure the gravity of their rights and obligations as a private citizen in light of their responsibilities to their individual professions, the university, and our students. When administrators and faculty and staff members speak and act as private citizens they should make clear that they are not speaking or acting on behalf of the university.
“UNT encourages individuals to read the columns that ran in the Dallas Morning News, and then watch the video to draw their own conclusions.
“That said, among UNT’s greatest assets is the collective diversity of thought at this university, our willingness to respect and examine differing perceptions and viewpoints, and our ability to engage in constructive dialogue in a civil manner. The university encourages others to have respectful discussion of the matter and attempt to see the situation from all points of view.”
- Wayne Bennett, the Field Negro: Polite profiling.
- Kim LaCapria, snopes.com: Offender Dorothy
- Michael E. Miller, Washington Post: Racism? By whom? This video of Texas cops stopping a black professor is a racial ‘Rorschach test’
- Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Why we see ‘them’ as a threat
- Tallahassee Democrat: Former FAMU director at center of ‘walking while black’ case
46 Laid Off at Philly Inquirer, Daily News, Philly.com
“More than half of Philly.com’s editorial staff and 25 percent of Daily News editorial staffers were among the 46 people laid off by Philadelphia Media Network, according to the employee union head,” Jeff Blumenthal reported Wednesday for the Philadelphia Business Journal.
Five are journalists of color, according to a company list, Journal-isms has learned: John Mitchell, Inquirer sports reporter; Solomon Leach and Regina Medina, education reporters at the Daily News; Julie Shaw, courts reporter for the Daily News; and Layla Jones of philly.com. However, the list might change as negotiations proceed with the Newspaper Guild.
Medina, the most senior journalist on the list with 16 years at the Daily News, messaged Journal-isms, “I’m not done with journalism and hopefully it’s not done with me. I want to keep digging into stories, this is what has been so thrilling for me, particularly in the last few years. Fingers crossed that I can continue with that work.”
She had been awarded a Renaissance Journalism fellowship, which “provides stipends, training, advice and mentorship to support talented journalists in undertaking special reporting projects on the educational opportunity gap.”
Blumenthal continued, “Emerging from a meeting with PMN management Wednesday afternoon, Howard Gensler, a Daily News columnist and the president of the Newspaper Guild Local 10, which represents more than 400 employees in editorial, advertising, circulation and finance, said Philly.com was ‘gutted.’
“Gensler said 17 of 29 Philly.com editorial staff were laid off, while 17 of 60 Daily News editorial staff were affected and 12 members of the Inquirer editorial staff — estimated to be between 150 to 200 people — lost their jobs.
” ‘That tells you who still has the juice in this company,’ said Gensler, referring to the Inquirer. ‘I don’t understand who the company thinks will put out Philly.com and the Daily News. I guess we’ll find out on Dec. 5, when everything becomes effective.’ . . .”
The Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia – Local 38010 of the Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, CLC, sent this note to members at 5:40 p.m. Wednesday:
“In an astonishing display of misdirected management, the Company today announced layoffs that decimate what just days ago the new publisher identified as the key to our future — digital reach and our unique print brands.
“Of the Philly.com staff of 29, 17 Guild members will be gone as of Dec. 4.
“At the Daily News, 10 reporters, including one as senior as 16 years, will be let go. Joining them in unemployment will be six copy editors, leaving one person to copy edit news (other than sports) and features. An editorial assistant that has served this company for 25 years is also among the casualties.
“The Inquirer will lose five reporters, six copy editors and desk assistants, including an assigning editor, and one news artist.
“The Guild is reviewing the layoff lists to determine whether any grievances are warranted. In the meantime, the company assures that professional job-placement help will be provided to anyone wanting it.
“Human Resources and a Guild representative will begin meeting tomorrow morning with those designated for termination to go over separation packages, including severance, COBRA and payment due for any unused time off.
“In a profession known for its skill with words, we have none today to adequately express our shock, dismay and disgust over such an unimaginative and destructive path to the future.
“In solidarity and heartache,
“The Guild Executive Board (which is losing one member to layoff)
“Bill Ross, Executive Director”
- Benjamin Mullin, Poynter Institute: Philly.com gutted in layoffs at Philadelphia Media Network
K.C. Star Sells Out of World Series Victory Papers
“After 30 years, the Kansas City Royals are again world champions,” Beth Welsh reported for the Kansas City Star on Monday.
“The Royals clinched the series in an unforgettable 12 innings in Game 5 to bring the crown home to Kansas City.
“You can order back issues of many World Series newspapers. Sorry, though: Monday’s ‘Royalty’ and Wednesday’s ‘A city united’ papers are sold out and will not be reprinted. . . .”
Inside the Star offices, “People throughout the building had on Royals stuff. It was quite the party,” Lewis W. Diuguid, editorial writer and columnist, messaged Journal-isms on Wednesday. “A memo was emailed to Star staffers Monday about Tuesday’s parade, encouraging employees to wear Royals gear,” Diuguid wrote in his blog on Tuesday. “I wore my World Series cap from last year,” Steve Paul, editorial page editor, said by telephone.
“Kansas City must ingrain a sense of our joy, our team spirit, and carry it forward,” columnist Mary Sanchez wrote Monday. “We have a good head start. Kansas City was ready for this win, as a team and as a metropolis.
“When the city’s most notable landmarks were bathed in Royal blue lights, the scenes were beautiful sights, posted and reposted on social media. But that only happened because prior civic and political leadership pushed and struggled to make and keep those places vibrant. Each location represents hours of meetings, plans that stayed focused on what the end result would mean for the city. It’s the determination of an athlete applied to development. It’s commitment to Kansas City as a community. . . .”
On Sunday, the Star editorial page equated the Royals’ victory to the city’s own comeback.
“In the world of sports, the Royals became known for their aggressive hitting style in 2015. They slugged fastballs better than most other teams. And they were relentless, pulling out many comebacks during the year but, most notably, in the postseason, where they set a record for most runs scored (51) in the seventh inning or later.
“This community has had that same kind of come-from-behind attitude in recent years, which explains a lot about the revival of Kansas City.
“It took an aggressive effort to get projects off the ground after so many lackluster years of neglect in the urban core.
“It took relentless leadership by political officials — as well as by voters who embraced opportunities to create a better city.
“The naysayers who said a decade ago that it wasn’t a good idea to build Sprint Center downtown? Wrong. The highly successful arena on Grand Boulevard will mark the starting point of the World Series victory parade on Tuesday, and the route will feature an up-and-coming downtown.
“The doubters who predicted the Power & Light District would be a wasteland of inactivity? Also wrong. Fans packed the entertainment space shoulder-to-shoulder Sunday night and partied on long after the Royals became world champions.
“The negative nannies on the streetcar and nearby redevelopment? So far, off base. The city, coincidentally, took possession of the first vehicle on Monday.
“Much like the Royals — who wandered in baseball’s netherworld for so many years, losing more than 100 games four times in five years starting in 2002 — Kansas City has staged a comeback of its own.
“There’s more: This Royals team is so good and so young, and has been to two straight World Series, we could see Kansas City back on baseball’s biggest postseason stage for years to come. . . .”
Tribune Agrees With Spike Lee: This Is an Emergency
“A gorgeous autumn Monday afternoon in Chicago“ [accessible via search engine], an editorial began Wednesday in the Chicago Tribune print edition.
“Around 4:15, an argument erupts in gunfire and, as people scatter, yet another perforated child slumps to the ground — multiple wounds, upper body. He draws his final thin breaths as South Side cops rush to the scene, some on bicycles, others in squad cars. A relative tells Bertha Lee that her grandson has been shot, just doors from her house. ‘I saw the body in the alley. He was lying in blood,’ she says. ‘But I didn’t see his face.’ At 4:39 p.m., 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee becomes the latest young Chicagoan pronounced dead of gunshot wounds.
“Tuesday, another gorgeous autumn afternoon. Filmmaker Spike Lee — a very different link to Chicago homicides is his only known relation to Tyshawn and Bertha — releases the 2 1/2-minute trailer promoting his controversial movie ‘Chi-Raq.’ In it a disembodied female voice repeats the message flashing onscreen: ‘THIS IS AN EMERGENCY.’ A gun sounds. Thin rivulets of blood drip from the four crimson stars of a Chicago city flag. ‘Welcome to Chi-Raq,’ says a strutting dandy in a crisp butterscotch suit, ‘land of pain, misery and strife.’ In a scene fragment, blazing weapons light up the darkness on a bedraggled Chicago street.
“The mere prospect of ‘Chi-Raq’ animates Chicago politicians who fear it will stigmatize their city, their neighborhoods. Many of Chicago’s aldermen decry the violence in their wards but like to shift blame — often to cops. The aldermen want police to stop the violence, although they don’t explain how; maybe Superintendent Garry McCarthy should teach them to catch speeding bullets.
“And many of Chicago’s lawmakers in Springfield have blocked legislation that would stiffen sentences for gun offenders. The legislators are concerned that longer incarceration would disproportionately hurt minority communities. Legislative leaders, also from Chicago, don’t publicly challenge that thinking. Perhaps someday the leaders will work up the courage to remind their members that the relentless slaughter from fearless gun offenders also disproportionately hurts minority communities. . . .”
The editorial also said, “Within days we’ll surely read about Tyshawn Lee’s funeral. And then most among us will forget about this 9-year-old, the way they forgot about the last 9-year-old. Remember Antonio Smith, the honor roll fourth-grader? The one whose family said he was smart enough to ‘sell water to a whale’? Remember when he was shot to death — multiple wounds, upper body? Didn’t think so. It wasn’t even 15 months ago. Might as well just wait for the next 9-year-old to draw his or her final thin breaths, right?”
“And Spike Lee’s movie? ‘In Theaters December 4,’ the trailer promises.
“If only the killing of Tyshawn Lee could provoke the same urgency that Spike Lee’s movie does: This is an emergency.”
- Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts, Dame magazine: When Did Black Folks Stop Loving Our Children?
- Phillip Morris, Plain Dealer, Cleveland: A gun should not be a part of Cleveland’s after school specials
Columnist “Suspected” Boxer Was Lying About Porn Role
“HE LIED,” columnist Jenice Armstrong told readers Tuesday in the Philadelphia Daily News.
“We suspected as much, but now Philly boxer Yusaf Mack is outright admitting that he lied about being drugged into doing gay sex for a XXX-rated porn flick.
” ‘I was ashamed,’ the former champ told me yesterday. ‘I’m sorry for lying. I’ve always been curious.’
“By now, you’ve probably heard about Mack and the infamous ‘Holiday Hump’n’ sex tape circulating that shows him engaging in a steamy threesome with two other hunky men.
“It’s been the talk.
“Not just in Philly but nationwide. My front-page column describing his accusations about having been drugged and tricked into doing gay porn went viral last week, with versions of the story popping up as far away as London’s Daily Mail. . . . ” Gawker.com reviewed the movie in graphic terms.
Asked to elaborate on her initial suspicions and whether there were discussions about taste, Armstrong messaged Journal-isms Wednesday, “Yusaf Mack told me he was drugged and couldn’t remember what happened. It sounded crazy to me, so I reached out to experts who told me that if he had been on GHB it was possible for him do something out of character sexually and also perform. The expert from ProjectGHB.org said people under the influence of that drug don’t always remember what they did while under the influence. That was what Mack claimed.
“Mack still maintains that he was given a pill of some sort and vodka but now admits that he knew what he was given.
“Earlier this week, he admitted to lying.
“In terms of taste, I knew not to go overboard in terms of describing what he did on the video. We did, though, go back and forth about what photo to use.”
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“The clips, which also feature Cecily Strong and other ‘SNL’ stars, cover everything from whether Trump’s appearance violates FCC’s equal time rules and the suspected ratings windfall it will be for the show to a dig at fellow Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson,” Variety reported. (video)
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“SNL” Pulls Promo With Trump Calling Carson a “Loser”
“Protesters gathered outside of NBC’s famed headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City on Wednesday for a ‘Dump Trump’ rally ahead of Donald Trump’s appearance as the host of Saturday Night Live this weekend,” Lauren Prince reported for NBC News.
“A petition decrying the Republican presidential candidate’s upcoming appearance on the comedy show was delivered by the protesters — who gathered outside the building that houses SNL studios —to the executives at NBC.
“The box containing the signatures read, ‘522,080 petition signatures demanding that NBC revoke Donald Trump’s invitation to host Saturday Night Live on Saturday, November 7th, 2015.’ . . .”
Meanwhile, Whitney Friedlander reported for Variety Wednesday, “NBC has released the promos for Donald Trump’s upcoming stint as ‘Saturday Night Live’ host and, as predicted, they are huge.” However, she added three hours later, “After posting the first promo for Donald Trump’s [appearance] on ‘Saturday Night Live’ on YouTube, NBC removed the original video from the site, replacing it a few hours later with a new teaser that had edited out the moment when Trump mocks Republican president candidate Ben Carson, calling him a ‘loser.’ . . .”
Earlier Wednesday, Hadas Gold wrote for Politico, “Remember three days ago, when representatives of almost all the GOP campaigns gathered in a Northern Virginia hotel to hammer out a list of demands they planned to send to networks hosting future Republican primary debates?“
She also wrote, “the latest draft of the letter being circulated has strayed far from the original list of demands. It is now a series of mostly mundane questions about debate criteria and basic logistics, though there is one asking for the networks to ‘commit to provide an equal number of questions to each candidate.’ The letter asks the network to return the questionnaire within one month of receipt. . . .”
- Editorial, Chicago Sun-Times: Hey, candidates, debate the issues, not the format
- Sharon Grigsby, Dallas Morning News: Is Ted Cruz a serious candidate for our Texan of the Year?
- Gromer Jeffers Jr., Dallas Morning News: In GOP game of Survivor, alliances matter — until it’s time for the tribe to speak
- National Hispanic Media Coalition: NHMC Joins Public Rally Demanding NBCUniversal Cancel Trump’s SNL Invitation
- Frazier Moore, Associated Press: GMA Anchor Lara Spencer Posts Photo Hugging Donald Trump
- Frazier Moore, Associated Press: Protest Against Trump Hosting ‘Saturday Night Live’ Grows
- Elizabeth Llorente, Fox News Latino: Latinos shouldn’t pay the price for Republican, NBC debate flap, activists say
- Ruben Navarrette Jr., Washington Post Writers Group: The CNBC debate’s teaching moment
- NewsOne: Hillary Clinton To Participate In Town Hall Moderated By Roland Martin
- Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: ‘Lame-stream media’ charge is getting really lame
- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: The GOP’s deranged list of debate demands
- Joe Strupp, Media Matters for America: News Media Veterans Rip GOP Debate Demands As Bullying And “Unreasonable”
- Julio Ricardo Varela, the Guardian: Whatever Donald Trump says on SNL, the Latino community won’t laugh
Young Journalists Report From World’s Danger Zones
“FUSION today announced it has picked up a ten-episode season of ‘Unreported World,’ ” the network, a joint project of Disney/ABC Television Network and Univision Communications, Inc., announced on Wednesday.
“The series follows dynamic, young journalists as they travel to dangerous locations all over the world to report stories that go uncovered or are flat out ignored by mainstream media.
” ‘Unreported World’ will be anchored by FUSION’s Dan Lieberman, Kimberly Brooks, and Mariana Atencio with reporting by Ade Adepitan, Nelufar Hedayat, Kiki King, Ramita Navai, Mary-Ann Ochota, and Seyi Rhodes. ‘Unreported World’ premieres with two back-to-back episodes Wednesday, November 11 @ 9P, followed by ‘NIGHTLINE on FUSION.’ . . . “
Fusion said the first topics are Kobani, a town in Northern Syria that was under siege by ISIS; female health workers who risk their lives daily, defying death threats from the Taliban, in order to immunize Pakistan’s children against polio; San Pedro Sula in Honduras, which has the world’s highest murder rate; and Egypt, which has experienced a “shocking” increase in sexual assaults and harassment of women. The series airs internationally on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.
Top Black Twitter Engineer Quits Over Diversity Issues
“Twitter Engineering Manager Leslie Miley, the only black engineer in a leadership position at Twitter, just publicly announced that he has left the company,” Megan Rose Dickey reported Tuesday for TechCrunch.
“In his post, he says his reasons for leaving have everything to do with the way Twitter is addressing diversity and inclusion.
“Though Miley was laid off as part of Twitter’s cuts in October, he says he had already told Twitter that he had planned on leaving at the end of October. He also passed on the severance package so that he could speak openly about his experience at Twitter. So, it seems as if Twitter was hoping to silence Miley by bundling him into the company’s layoffs.
“A particular low moment for Miley, he wrote, happened when he asked a question at Twitter’s engineering leadership meeting about what specific steps Twitter engineering was taking to increase diversity. Twitter’s senior VP of Engineering responded, ‘diversity is important, but we won’t lower the bar.’ Miley did not name names in his post. A visit to the leadership page on Twitter’s website will reveal that the company’s SVP of engineering is Alex Roetter.
“The tipping point for Miley, who joined Twitter in January 2013, came after meeting with Roetter to discuss Miley’s idea for a job proposal that focused on increasing diversity in engineering at Twitter. They both agreed that it was important to track the ethnicity of potential candidates in order to better understand where candidates were dropping out of the employment pipeline, Miley wrote on Medium.
“Where the two disagreed was around how to track the ethnicities of the candidates. . . .”
- Hugo Balta, Public Relations Society of America: Unconscious Bias: Cloning in the Workplace (Oct. 20)
- Josh Feldman, Mediaite: New York Daily News’ Shaun King’s Twitter Account Locked After Tweeting Out CNN Employee Info
Short Takes
- “On Sept. 23, journalism students from several Detroit high schools met at the MSU Detroit Center on Woodward Avenue to hear about a new partnership between Crain Communications and Michigan State University, “Alana Burke reported Wednesday for the Crain MSU Detroit High School Journalism program. “Detroit-based Crain and Michigan State University’s School of Journalism have pledged to revitalize the Detroit High School Journalism Program, which has been helping Detroit students practice journalism since 1985. The Detroit Free Press coordinated the program until passing it to MSU last year. . . .”
- Ava Wallace is joining the Washington Post sports department “as part of our local colleges coverage team, with a focus on Virginia and Virginia Tech athletics,” Post editors announced Wednesday. “Ava is a recent graduate of Northwestern University and currently works for USA Today, where she’s been covering golf, tennis and soccer and writing features on Olympics athletes. . . .”
- In Houston, “Fox-owned station KRIV has a segment called Fox Faceoff that seems unafraid to ruffle feathers,” Kevin Eck reported Wednesday for TVSpy. “On Monday’s 5 p.m., the station had community activist Quanell X facing off against political consultant Angela Box over a white South Carolina police officer dragging a black female student through a classroom. It started out tense and quickly ventured into more tense when Box started talking about violence in black culture. . . .”
- In the Kansas City Star, Jonathan Casey, archivist for the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City and manager of the Edward Jones Research Center there, displayed recently donated photographs of African American soldiers taken during World War I. “These images will be on display to the public with the Black Archives of Mid-America on Nov. 7 as a joint effort for the public to help provide any information on these images. The goal is also to determine if more images like these are in the community,” the Star reported Wednesday over a story by Brian Burnes.
- “Between 1981 and 1990, five Vietnamese-American journalists were killed in what the FBI suspected was a string of political assassinations. Unlike other violent attacks on journalists, these murders garnered relatively little attention,” ProPublica wrote Tuesday over a piece by A.C. Thompson. ProPublica also said, “Today, ProPublica and Frontline, here and in the television documentary ‘Terror in Little Saigon,’ tell the story of a reign of intimidation and murder for which no one has been held to account. . . .” The “Frontline” documentary aired on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Duy Hoang, spokesperson for the Viet Tan group asked that the program be retracted, writing, “you aired a program and published an article that assigned direct responsibility for the killing of five Vietnamese-American journalists.”
- “A gunman on a motorbike shot dead a Pakistani journalist in the country’s restive northwest on Tuesday and hours later the Taliban claimed the killing, bringing to 71 the number of journalists and media workers killed in Pakistan since 2002,” Saud Mehsud reported Wednesday for Reuters. “Zaman Mehsud, 38, was a journalist working for the Pakistani Urdu newspaper Daily Umet and SANA news agency, and also worked for the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Taliban commander Qari Saif Ullah Saif told Reuters: ‘We killed him because he was writing against us … we have some other journalists on our hit list in the region, soon we will target them.’ . . .”
- The Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday it was “alarmed by news reports that Iranian authorities have recently detained at least five local journalists, including the reformist journalists Issa Saharkhiz and Ehsan Mazandarani, and reporter Saman Sarfarzaee, who were all arrested Monday. . . .”
- When Lee O’Denat, known as Q, the founder of WorldStarHipHop.com, “looks to YouTube and Facebook, where many of WorldStar’s videos originate, he can’t help but notice that those sites continue to grow while his has yet to break into the mainstream,” Steven Kurutz reported Monday for the New York Times. “He would like WorldStar to be even bigger, with more original content, brand partnerships and global recognition to equal other digital media platforms. . . .”
- “Today we’re announcing the 20 winners of the latest round of funding from the Knight Prototype Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced Tuesday. “Through this initiative, Knight Foundation’s Media Innovation team supports early-stage media and information projects with $35,000 in support, design training and peer networking opportunities. The winning teams recently joined Knight in Miami for a two-day human-centered design workshop with the LUMA Institute, where they learned strategies for developing solutions with end users in mind. Each team will have six months to take their ideas from concept to demo. . . .”
- “A Reuters investigation spanning four continents has identified at least 33 radio stations in 14 countries that are part of a global radio web structured in a way that obscures its majority shareholder: state-run China Radio International, or CRI,” Koh Gui Qing and John Shiffman reported Monday for Reuters.
- “Univision affiliate WVEA in Tampa will no longer produce its own newscasts,” Veronica Villafañe reported Monday for her Media Moves site. “Entravision has decided to ‘hub’ news for Tampa out of its Orlando studios. . . .”
- “The Daily Illini college newspaper at the University of Illinois cancelled their subscription to over fifty cartoonists in my CagleCartoons.com newspaper syndication package this week,” Daryl Cagle wrote on Sunday, “in response to protests against a Halloween cartoon by Rick McKee of the Augusta Chronicle which featured a trick-or-treater climbing over a fence, saying, ‘I’m going as an illegal immigrant.’ ” McKee said, in part, “Our institutions of higher learning are supposed to be safe spaces where differing viewpoints are tolerated, but that no longer seems to be the case. There’s nothing racist about the cartoon and the notion that people should come into this country legally is an opinion that is widely held by many Americans. . . .”
- In a seven-minute conversation with Danielle Belton, associate editor of The Root, Ebony Senior Editor Jamilah Lemieux says the thinking behind the cover of Ebony’s November “families” issue, showing “The Cosby Show’s” Cliff Huxtable family behind broken glass, was, “Let’s really take on a very serious issue in a serious, thoughtful and nuanced way.” Lemieux, a single parent, also discusses work-life balance and how she manages to spend so much time on Twitter. [video]
- In Washington, “Daniel Snyder-owned Red Zebra Broadcasting on Wednesday announced it is discontinuing its morning drive show on ESPN 980, ‘The Man Cave‘ which was co-hosted by Chris Paul and former Washington Post columnist Jason Reid,” Scott Allen reported Oct. 28 for the Washington Post.
- “Michael A. Anastasi, a journalism leader with decades of experience who this spring led a team of reporters to the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, will begin leading The Tennessean newsroom later this month, the company announced Monday morning,” Adam Tamburin reported for the Tennessean. As president of Associated Press Sports Editors, “he founded that organization’s Diversity Fellowship Program, which seeks to create more female and diverse candidates for newsroom management positions. He has a long history of working on behalf of diversity in the journalism industry and continues to run the APSE program. . . .”
- “A Zimbabwe police spokesperson on Tuesday defended the arrest of three journalists, saying their newspaper’s claim that a senior police officer had been implicated in the recent poisoning of dozens of elephants was “meant to overshadow” the force’s efforts to arrest those really behind the crime,” news24.com of Cape Town, South Africa, reported on Wednesday.
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