Maynard Institute archives

Carson Fights One-Two Punch From Media

by richard01617

Tales of West Point Offer, Violent Past Challenged

Amos Brown, “Voice of the People” in Indy, Dies at 64

Native People Hail Rejection of Keystone Pipeline

Unmasking of Cop’s Suicide Destroys Anti-Black Narrative

Website Created to Aid Laid-Off Philly Journalists

Women Who Escaped From ISIS Tell Their Stories

Adidas to Help Schools Change Offensive Logos

Former Rep. Gus Savage, D-Ill., Also Owned Newspaper

Clinton Courts Black Voters on Ebony Website

TV’s “Newsroom” Couldn’t Top Life at a N.Y. Tabloid

Short Takes

A new Ben Carson 60-second radio ad uses rapper Aspiring Mogul and is interspersed with portions of Carson’s stump speech. (audio)

Tales of West Point Offer, Violent Past Challenged

Ben Carson received a one-two punch from news media outlets on Friday, with CNN and Politico challenging parts of his biography. But as the day progressed, Politico’s big story — that the Republican presidential candidate had admitted to fabricating a scholarship offer from West Point — was itself challenged by other journalists.

“As all of Twitter — not to mention the Carson campaign — has pointed out, Carson admitted no such thing,” Erik Wemple wrote for the Washington Post. “At issue was a passage in Carson’s 1990 autobiography ‘Gifted Hands,’ in which he described being ‘offered a full scholarship to West Point.’ He never applied to West Point, however, and Politico reported that he had.

“Faced with these factual challenges, Politico has changed its story. Whereas the headline once read:

“Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point scholarship

“It now reads:

“Exclusive: Carson claimed West Point ‘scholarship’ but never applied

“And whereas the original lede once read: “

“Ben Carson’s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from POLITICO, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

“It now reads:

“Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Friday conceded that he never applied nor was granted admission to West Point and attempted to recast his previous claims of a full scholarship to the military academy — despite numerous public and written statements to the contrary over the last few decades.

“As of 5:05 p.m. Friday, there was no asterisk or correction or editor’s note alerting readers to the material changes in the Politico story, under the byline of Kyle Cheney. The absence of such concessions squares with a statement that the outlet supplied to the Erik Wemple Blog, which insists:

“We stand by our story which is a powerful debunking of a key aspect of Ben Carson’s personal narrative. The story online includes additional details now as well that bolster this account.

“To unpack this week-ending brouhaha a bit, Politico’s apparent error in alleging nonexistent admission by the Carson people that the candidate was guilty of fabrication is a big one — one that by any standard of modern or ancient journalistic hygiene should trigger a correction. The question of whether Carson ever applied to West Point is a bit more complicated . . .”

Meanwhile, Carson pushed back on a CNN investigation into the candidate’s account of his childhood.

“In a story published on Thursday, CNN reported that childhood friends of Carson were surprised about violent incidents he has described in a book, public speeches and interviews and had no recollection of such events,” Tal Kopan reported for CNN.

“Scott Glover and Maeve Reston spoke with nine friends, classmates and neighbors who grew up with Carson, and none had any memory of the anger or violence the candidate has described.

“Friday morning on CNN’s ‘New Day,’ he said the network’s reporting of his past was a ‘bunch of lies.’

” ‘This is a bunch of lies, that is what it is,’ Carson told Alisyn Camerota when she asked about the report by Glover and Reston in which they spoke to people Carson grew up with. ‘This is a bunch of lies attempting to say I’m lying about my history. I think it’s pathetic, and basically what the media does is they try to get you distracted.’

“Camerota pushed back on Carson’s argument that the reporters did not talk to people who knew him earlier than high school, but Carson rejected that and launched into an aggressive attack on the media. He accused the media of not scrutinizing President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to the same degree.

” ‘The vetting that you all did with President Obama doesn’t even come close, doesn’t even come close to what you guys are trying to do in my case, and you’re just going to keep going back, ‘He said this 12 years ago’ — it is just garbage,” Carson said. ‘Give me a break.’

“Reston and Glover repeatedly approached the Carson campaign during their reporting and again before publication of the story. But the campaign staff declined to comment or to assist them in locating classmates or victims of violence who could provide insights about Carson’s past.

“On ‘New Day,’ Carson did not explain which aspects of the story he feels are incorrect.

“CNN’s story pointed out that none of the people interviewed challenged the veracity of his accounts, but said they were surprised at them and did not reflect the youth that they knew. . . .”

In another report Friday, Reid J. Epstein wrote for the Wall Street Journal, “The day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968, Ben Carson’ black classmates unleashed their anger and grief on white students who were a minority at Detroit’s Southwestern High. (accessible via search engine)

“Mr. Carson, then a junior with a key to a biology lab where he worked part time, told The Wall Street Journal last month that he protected a few white students from the attacks by hiding them there.

“It is a dramatic account of courage and kindness, and it couldn’t be confirmed in interviews with a half-dozen of Mr. Carson’s classmates and his high school physics teacher. The students all remembered the riot. None recalled hearing about white students hiding in the biology lab, and Mr. Carson couldn’t remember any names of those he sheltered. . . .”

Epstein also wrote, “Mr. Carson’s campaign manager, Barry Bennett, said Friday there was ‘no evidence’ that any aspect of Mr. Carson’s biography wasn’t true. . . .”

Amos Brown, “Voice of the People” in Indy, Dies at 64

“Before beginning his first song, ‘Love’s in Need of Love Today,’ Stevie Wonder dedicated his Saturday night concert in Indianapolis to longtime radio host and local icon Amos C. Brown III,” Ellen Garrison reported Saturday for the Indianapolis Star.

“Brown, 64, a media presence and a leader in the African-American community in Indianapolis for 40 years, died Friday at his family home in Chicago.

“He collapsed from what is believed to be a heart attack in his parents’ home late Friday afternoon, Maryland-based broadcaster Radio One said.

“He was known throughout Indianapolis and Central Indiana for his passionate advocacy on behalf of the African-American community and his fearless commitment to good journalism.

“Brown’s popular show, ‘Afternoons with Amos,’ running from 1-3 p.m. weekdays on WTLC-AM (1310), debuted on Radio One in 2004 and is one of the city’s most popular radio shows. He was inducted into the Indiana Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2007 and was a finalist for National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Awards.

“State Rep. Gregory Porter, D-Indianapolis, said Brown gave citizens an avenue to ask politicians the tough questions that mattered to them. He said Brown’s death is a devastating loss for the African-American community.

” ‘Amos is truly a fixture in our community,’ said Porter, who had known Brown for more than 30 years. ‘He moved here years ago, but he fit right in, and he’s truly a voice of the people. He asked their questions. With his loss, there’s going to be a communication crater in our community.’

“Another longtime friend of Brown’s, Cordelia Lewis-Burks, said she can’t imagine Indianapolis without Brown.

” ‘We’ve lost so many community leaders and you wonder who will step in and fill their shoes,’ said Lewis-Burks, vice chair of the Indiana Democratic Party. ‘Amos was able to help so many people, and he touched so, so many lives.’

“Brown moved to Indianapolis in 1975 from his native Chicago. After working in radio and TV for more than a decade, he launched Indianapolis’ first daily African-American-oriented television news show, ‘The Noon Show’ in 1992. . . .” (Added Nov. 7)

Native People Hail Rejection of Keystone Pipeline

“Indigenous activists and environmentalists hailed President Barack Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday November 6, calling it a victory for Mother Earth and a step toward shutting down the Alberta oil sands entirely,” the Indian Country Today Media Network reported.

Most news media reported the reaction of environmentalists, but Native people have also long opposed the pipeline.

” ‘In the fight against Keystone XL our efforts as indigenous peoples, whether Lakota, Dakota, Assiniboine, Ponca, Cree, Dene or other, has always been in the defense of Mother Earth and the sacredness of the water,’ said Tom Goldtooth, head of the Indigenous Environmental Network, in a statement, ICTMN reported.

” ‘Today, with this decision, we feel those efforts have been validated. With the rejection of Keystone XL we have not only protected the sacredness of the land and water but have also helped our Cree & Dene relatives at the source take one step closer to shutting down the tar sands. The black snake, Keystone XL, has been defeated, and best believe we will dance to our victory! ‘ . . .”

Unmasking of Cop’s Suicide Destroys Anti-Black Narrative

“It was a narrative perfectly suited for Fox News’s conservative commentariat,” Andrew Kirell wrote Thursday for the Daily Beast. “Too bad it was total bullshit.

“Three assailants allegedly shot and killed Lt. Joe Gliniewicz, a wholesome small-town cop and Army vet known locally as ‘GI Joe’; a 30-year veteran of the force; a married father of four; a local hero.

“His death had to be part of an ominous trend of societal menaces murdering law officers in cold blood, supposedly fueled by President Obama’s ‘anti-cop’ rhetoric and the Black Lives Matter movement. Several Fox Newsers were quick to make that connection just as Fox Lake, Illinois, police set out to find the three perpetrators Gliniewicz mentioned over the radio just before he died. . . .”

The Washington Post published “a partial list of pundits, politicians  and media who used Joseph Gliniewicz’s death to push the ‘war on cops’ narrative.”

Website Created to Aid Laid-Off Philly Journalists

“In the hours after Philadelphia Media Network announced a round of punishing layoffs at Philly.com, the mood in the newsroom was grim,” Benjamin Mullin reported Friday for the Poynter Institute.

“More than half of the journalists were notified on Wednesday that they wouldn’t have a job at the website in a month’s time, a fate they would share with dozens of their colleagues from other newsrooms throughout the company.

” ‘It was doom and gloom for a couple of hours,’ said Brian McCrone, a news editor at Philly.com.

“McCrone, one of a handful of journalists [at] Philly.com who will keep their jobs, decided to do something about the cuts. Before the day was out, he’d joined an effort to help find his colleagues jobs by their last day in early December. Within four hours, he says, the mood had changed, and volunteers in the newsroom were compiling job opportunities at outlets throughout the area.

“The result of their effort is ‘Can I still hire a former PMN’er,’ a website devoted to finding a job for all 46 journalists who’ve been pink-slipped. . . .”

As reported on Wednesday, five of the 46 due to be laid off are journalists of color, according to a company list: 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 of Greater Philadelphia.

In another development, lawyers representing the Guild “on Thursday expressed interest in buying the Philadelphia Daily News from its parent company in a gambit to forestall layoffs, a move that was quickly rejected by owner Gerry Lenfest,” Mullin reported.

Women Who Escaped From ISIS Tell Their Stories

“They are the survivors, these young women,” photographer Seivan M. Salim wrote for the Daily Beast, introducing her photo essay.

“Their fathers and brothers have been killed, and in many cases the older women in their families were taken away.

“The zealots of the so-called Islamic State do not recognize their Yazidi religion, and took the girls to be slaves. … Think on that a moment: ‘slaves.’

“It’s not a figurative term, it is literal bondage: humans as chattel to be bought and sold, forced to work, and raped at will.

“Most of them were taken from in and around the town of Sinjar, Iraq, which fell to ISIS in August 2014. Often beaten, often starved, and utterly defenseless, many refused to bathe, hoping that would keep men away from them. Others pretended to be mothers. But many were raped no matter what ruses they employed, or how much they pleaded.

“Eventually they were taken to Raqqa, the de facto capital in Syria of the putative caliphate, to a makeshift slave market. And, usually when they managed to get a hold of a cell phone, these few were able, one by one, to arrange to escape. With them they brought these accounts of brutality and duplicity that paint a never-before-published account of slavery under ISIS.”

An editor’s note explains that Saliam “covers the north of Iraq for the Associated Press and collaborates with Metrography, Iraq’s first and only independent photo agency. Saliam fled Iraq with her family as a child, and grew up in northern Iran. She returned to work in Iraq in late 2012.”

Armstrong Williams discusses his ownership of seven television stations Friday on TV One’s “News One Now with Roland Martin.” Williams is the largest black owner of TV stations in the United States. (video)

Former Rep. Gus Savage, D-Ill., Also Owned Newspaper

Gus Savage, the late civil rights activist who represented a district on the South Side of Chicago in Congress for 12 years, was also a journalist, starting the Chicago Citizen newspaper in 1965 and selling it in 1980, Norman Parish wrote Wednesday for the Citizen.

Savage died on Saturday at his home in Chicago, a day after celebrating his 90th birthday, the Associated Press reported.

“Savage attended Roosevelt University in Chicago, becoming lifelong friends with the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and businessman Dempsey Travis, Parish wrote.

“Savage eventually worked for the Woodlawn Booster newspaper in Chicago. He left the newspaper after having editorial disagreements.

“So, Savage started the Citizen Newspaper in 1965.”

“He used the newspaper’s platform to tout black businesses,” his son, Thomas Savage, said.

“He led campaigns against the Chicago political machine and touted equal housing,” Parish continued.

“The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. said: ‘He was a town crier for justice.’

“William Garth, Sr. who worked for Savage and now the owner of the Chicago Citizen Newspaper group, agreed.

” ‘Everything he promoted was totally black,’ recalled Garth, who sold advertisements for Savage. ‘If it wasn’t black, he didn’t have a lot to say about it.’

“Savage would even criticize advertisers. . . .”

In a column this week for the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service, James Clingman, founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce, wrote about “the necessity for Black people to own more communications outlets in order to control and disseminate pertinent information to Black people.

“How? Establish syndicates that could purchase more outlets; form an alliance of affluent and conscious Blacks to purchase communications outlets and produce programs to empower rather than dumb-down Black people.

“Increase support of Black-owned media and their advertisers by Black consumers; leverage the support of Black readers, listeners, and viewers of Black media by insisting on more than just mind-numbing idiotic portrayals of Black folks. These simple tactics could strengthen our lines of communications. . . .”

Clingman also wrote, “Without control of communications, an army is severely handicapped. We had better get rid of our negative channels of communications, shore up the positive ones and create more of our own.”

Clinton Courts Black Voters on Ebony Website

In an op-ed for ebony.com, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wrote Friday, “We need a new and comprehensive commitment to equity and opportunity for communities of color. That means making major new investments to create jobs and economic opportunity, ensure equal pay for women, and end redlining in housing once and for all.

“It means strengthening access to credit, promoting entrepreneurship, and making it easier to start and grow a business. It means replacing the school-to-prison pipeline with a cradle-to-college pipeline, so every child can live up to his or her God-given potential.

“We need policies that will help overcome the enduring impacts of racism. For instance, I have proposed making universal, high-quality preschool a reality. Low-income African American and Latino children gain the most from high-quality preschool programs — helping close the achievement gap. As president, I will fight to give every child in America the fair start they deserve. . . .”

Meanwhile, TV One announced that “News One Now” is devoting its entire broadcast Monday to covering Clinton’s scheduled Saturday town hall meeting in Orangeburg, S.C. Monday’s show airs at 7 a.m. ET. The event is being hosted the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus, and moderated by Roland S. Martin, “News One Now’s” host and managing editor.

TV’s “Newsroom” Couldn’t Top Life at a N.Y. Tabloid

Rubén Rosario, a columnist at the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, Minn., who worked as a staff writer for the Daily News in New York from 1976 to 1991, told readers Thursday that while recuperating at home, he watched the television series “The Newsroom.”

“I saw nothing there — the back-stabbing, the occasionally laughable romantic tensions between co-workers, the journalistic mistakes that supposedly came close to sinking the lead characters — that could top real life.

“I know at my old shop in NYC a black copyboy who spat into a sandwich and then delivered it to a racist editor who frequently called him ‘boy.’

“I know about a copy editor who stood atop the desk of his despised boss and, essentially, did a Number One on it.

“I know a late columnist who flung his typewriter through a sixth-floor window during a temper tantrum at an equally short-fused city editor. The two men bent elbows at the local print tavern hangout hours later. Heck, maybe I should write a TV series. . . . “

Short Takes

  • ” ‘My body feels like it’s on fire,’ Jonathan L. Butler, 25, told The Washington Post on Thursday night, four days into his one-man protest,” Michael E. Miller reported Friday for the Washington Post. Butler, who is black, is a master’s degree student in educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Missouri-Columbia. ” ‘I have pain all over. I’m exhausted. Of course, I’m hungry. I’ve got an ongoing headache.’ . . .” Among the reasons for the hunger strike: “an instance when black journalism students were called the n-word and threatened with comments about the Ku Klux Klan. . . .” More at mic.com. Also: Mizzou football players make social statement with ‘Black is powerful’ protest [Updated Nov. 7]

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