Why Was Pandemic Response Team Disbanded?
‘Foreign’ Virus? Say What?:
Media Give Trump Blowback for ‘Jingoism’
. . . NABJ, NAHJ Postpone Local Events
Byron Allen Bids for 52-Station Tegna
‘Salem Witch Hunt’ Over Jason Johnson?
FAMU Abruptly Removes Ferrier as J-Dean
Susan Watson of Detroit ‘Freep’ Dies at 76
Polgreen Leaves HuffPost for Podcast Company
Russian Trolls Operating from Africa, CNN Finds
Survey of 8,000 Inmates Shows Whites for Trump
Group Wants 4 Stations for Ownership Training
Short Takes
Why Was Pandemic Response Team Disbanded?
PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor vowed to continue “to dig for truth” Saturday after confirming that the White House cut off her microphone at a news conference Friday after she asked President Trump what he called a “nasty question.”
At the news conference, in which Trump declared a national emergency due to the coronavirus outbreak, Alcindor asked Trump why his administration’s Pandemic Response Team was disbanded in May 2018. Trump replied that he knew nothing about it.
Later Friday, Alcindor told MSNBC’s Joy Reid, substituting for Lawrence O’Donnell on “The Last Word,” “This is stunning, given the fact that if he’s telling the truth, the president means he doesn’t know what was going on in his own administration, and if he isn’t telling the truth, which seems more likely at this point, then you have a president who is saying, ‘I’m completely aloof and don’t want any responsibility for this pandemic.’ “
Alcindor confirmed with Reid, “I was trying to ask a follow-up question to say it was your National Security Council, but you couldn’t hear me because the White House cut the mic.”
Trump’s description of Alcindor’s question as “nasty” recalled the way he has insulted other black female journalists, said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Ifill reposted on Twitter a link to a piece she wrote in November 2018, headlined, “When Trump attacks one black woman, we all feel it.”
Earlier Friday, the Washington Post posted an opinion piece by Beth Cameron, who was senior director for global health security and biodefense on the White House National Security Council.
Cameron, “When President Trump took office in 2017, the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense survived the transition intact. Its mission was the same as when I was asked to lead the office, established after the Ebola epidemic of 2014: to do everything possible within the vast powers and resources of the U.S. government to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic.
Thanks again @Yamiche It was clear who had integrity in that exchange and who did not https://t.co/zHfJkoNNpp
— Barbara Ransby (@BarbaraRansby) March 14, 2020
“One year later, I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like covid-19.
“The U.S. government’s slow and inadequate response to the new coronavirus underscores the need for organized, accountable leadership to prepare for and respond to pandemic threats. . . .”
Cameron added, “Biological experts do remain in the White House and in our government. But it is clear that eliminating the office has contributed to the federal government’s sluggish domestic response. What’s especially concerning about the absence of this office today is that it was originally set up because a previous epidemic made the need for it quite clear. . .”
Alcindor’s question instantly resonated with others who have challenged Trump. Jim Acosta of CNN, whose press credentials the White House tried unsuccessfully to pull, tweeted, “Great question, Yamiche!”
Responding to Trump’s statement that he knew nothing about the cut, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, tweeted, “Not true, @realDonaldTrump. I wrote to you more than 600 days ago demanding answers after you fired the entire White House pandemic team,” and attached the letter.
Others posted a video from 2018 in which Trump said he cut the team because as a businessman, “I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them.”
Alcindor’s name trended on Twitter Friday and #nastyquestion became a hashtag.
Alcindor responded in a tweet on Saturday. “Thanks so much for all the texts, tweets and notes of support. Everyday, I feel honored and privileged to dig for truth as a White House correspondent. I’ll make sure to keep asking questions on behalf of the American people.”
- Erica R. Hendry, PBS NewsHour: WATCH: ‘I didn’t do it,’ Trump says of disbanding pandemics office
- Deb Riechmann, Associated Press: Trump disbanded NSC pandemic unit that experts had praised
‘Foreign’ Virus? Say What?
March 13, 2020
CNN’s Don Lemon interrupts former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, saying his praise of President Trump’s coronavirus speech was unjustified.
Media Give Trump Blowback for ‘Jingoism’
President Trump is receiving blowback from some in the media for labeling the coronavirus as a “foreign virus” in his Wednesday night speech on the pandemic, delivered two days after Media Matters for America reported that “Some right-wing media personalities are stigmatizing Chinese people by attempting to rebrand coronavirus with terms like ‘the Wuhan virus’ or even ‘the yellow peril,’ even though the World Health Organization named it COVID-19 in part specifically to avoid anti-Chinese stigmatization.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden picked up on the reference as well, saying in a speech Thursday, “Labeling COVID-19 a ‘foreign virus’ does not displace accountability for the misjudgments that have been taken thus far by the Trump administration.”
The label should be offensive not just to the Chinese, the Jewish publication the Forward noted.
“The President’s disturbing phrasing echoed centuries of dangerous anti-Semitic rhetoric blaming Jews for widespread disease . . .,” Forward language columnist Aviya Kushner wrote Thursday. “The idea that outsiders or foreigners are both dangerous — and dangerous to health — is straight out of the Nazi playbook.”
CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta reacted immediately after the speech when Chris Cuomo turned to him for analysis on “Chris Cuomo Primetime.”
” ‘Now, why the president would go as far as to describe it as a foreign virus? That is something we’ll also be asking questions about,’ Acosta said,” the Hill recounted.
“He suggested that White House adviser Stephen Miller might have had a hand in the language.
” ‘But it should be pointed out that Stephen Miller, who is an immigration hard-liner, who advises the president, is one of his top domestic policy advisers and speechwriters, was a driving force in writing this speech,’ Acosta continued. ‘And I think it is going to come across to a lot of Americans as smacking of xenophobia to use that kind of term in this speech. . . .’ “
Facts are now officially racist. Well done CNN. https://t.co/uH6MVHAhJp
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 12, 2020
Bobby Lewis reported Tuesday for Media Matters, “On March 6, Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth helped Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attempt to replace the name ‘coronavirus’ with ‘the Wuhan virus,’ referencing the Chinese city that first experienced a major outbreak. Hegseth defended the term as ‘an accurate way to depict where it’s coming from’ and suggested it demonstrates ‘the vulnerabilities the president has talked about for a long time in an interconnected world where we’re dependent on a geopolitical adversary.’ He also said we should be ‘rejecting the globalists who say that’s the way it has to be. . . .’ ”
Justin Wise added Tuesday for the Hill, “Trump on Tuesday shared a tweet from a conservative activist saying that the ‘China virus’ was reason for the U.S. to build a wall along the southern border. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) have also referenced the ‘Chinese coronavirus’ in statements providing information about the disease’s impact. . . .”
Writing for the Atlantic Thursday, Ben Zimmer explained that identifying diseases with others has a long history. He referenced the late public intellectual Susan Sontag.
“Syphilis, which ravaged Europe beginning in the late 15th century, is a famous case of what Sontag calls ‘the need to make a dreaded disease foreign.‘ ‘It was the ‘French pox’ to the English, morbus Germanicus to the Parisians, the Naples sickness to the Florentines, the Chinese disease to the Japanese,’ she wrote. . . .”
Zimmer added, “Cognizant of how geographic labels have been unfairly used in the past, the WHO introduced a new set of best practices for naming infectious diseases, in 2015. Geographic names are to be avoided in order to ‘avoid causing offense,’ though the WHO did not insist that already established names like Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, should be retroactively changed.
“When the WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced last month that the new coronavirus disease would be called COVID-19, he referred to the 2015 guidelines to explain why the name did not refer to Wuhan, the city in central China where the virus is thought to have originated. ‘Having a name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing,’ he said, adding, ‘It also gives us a standard format to use for any future coronavirus outbreaks.’
Zimmer concluded, “The coronavirus, of course, doesn’t care what it’s called and, like all contagions, will continue to spread regardless of any jingoistic posturing.”
- Asian American Journalists Association: AAJA Calls on News Organizations to Exercise Care in Coverage of the Coronavirus Outbreak
- Justin Baragona, Daily Beast: Don Lemon Loses It After John Kasich Says He Liked Trump’s Coronavirus Speech
- Brian Bennett, Time: Why President Trump Wants to Frame COVID-19 as a ‘Foreign Virus’
- Chris Cillizza, CNN: Donald Trump’s scapegoating coronavirus speech shows he just doesn’t get it
- Natalie Escobar, “Code Switch,” NPR: When Xenophobia Spreads Like A Virus
- Bruno Maçães, Barrons: Trump’s New Script Casts Europe as the Villain
- Media Matters for America: Daily Wire host announces he will begin calling coronavirus “the yellow peril”
- Zhang Ping, Los Angeles Times: In the global response to COVID-19, there’s no room for racism
. . . NABJ, NAHJ Postpone Local Events
The National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists canceled or postponed imminent local events this week in light of the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic.
“We are also monitoring this situation as it relates to our national convention but as of now, it is our hope our plans for the joint convention continue,” Alberto B. Mendoza, NAHJ executive director,” wrote Thursday.
“We, unfortunately, must postpone ALL regional conferences, including Region II occurring this weekend,” wrote NABJ President Dorothy Tucker.
NABJ had regional conferences scheduled for St. Louis, Las Vegas, Nashville, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., starting this weekend in St. Louis.
At least one person in attendance at the annual conference of the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, held this year in New Orleans, has tested presumptively positive for the novel coronavirus, organizers said, Gordon Russell reported Tuesday for the Times-Picayune. NICAR is part of Investigative Reporters and Editors. More than 1,000 attended.
As Sara Fischer reported Thursday for Axios, “Media companies are going all-in on coronavirus coverage, launching dozens of pop-up podcasts, newsletters and special reports. But much of that coverage has shifted to accommodate journalists working from home.”
On Monday, USA Today’s Gabe Lacques, Bob Nightengale and Jeff Zillgitt reported that “Major League Baseball – along with the NBA, NHL and MLS – will close locker rooms and clubhouses to the news media and any non-essential personnel. . . .”
“Additionally, Univision’s Jorge Ramos was possibly exposed to coronavirus,” CNN reported Thursday. “While he is not exhibiting any symptoms, he has . . . stepped down from his role as one of the moderators for the debate, the [Democratic National Committee] said. The network’s Ilia Calderón (pictured) will take his place, alongside CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. The debate is still set to take place 8 to 10 p.m. ET Sunday.”
Late Friday, Essence magazine issued a statement about its popular Essence Festival.
“Based on the latest information, including increasing public health interventions and measures being implemented domestically and internationally, and the considerable amount of time to assess and respond to developments between now and July, we are planning to proceed with the 2020 ESSENCE Festival of Culture as currently scheduled, July 1-5 in New Orleans.
“Still, as a precautionary and proactive measure and with health as the foremost consideration, we are also identifying and securing alternate dates to ensure that we can adjust as quickly and seamlessly as possible in the event that circumstances require. Should that happen, we will honor all tickets sold for prior scheduled dates. . . .”
- Acee Agoyo, indianz.com: Tribes test Trump administration’s commitment with coronavirus crisis
- Kristen Hare, Poynter Institute: Is it canceled? Here are the journalism and media conferences that aren’t happening because of the coronavirus
- Student Press Law Center: Covering the Coronavirus Pandemic
Byron Allen Bids for 52-Station Tegna
“Media entrepreneur Byron Allen (pictured) has made an all-cash bid for Tegna and is said to be one of three potential buyers circling the Tysons, Va.-based broadcaster, according to a source familiar with the situation,” Jill Goldsmith reported Wednesday for Deadline.
“Allen’s Allen Media Group offered $20 a share, or about $8.5 billion, the source said. It is going up against Gray Television, which last week made [an] offer, also for $20 a share but in a combination of cash and stock. . . .”
Goldsmith also wrote, “Tegna is the name given to Gannett’s broadcast and digital business when it was spun off from the publishing assets. It owns 52 stations in 61 markets, including a preponderance of big-four network affiliates in many of the largest. It covers 39% of the country. . . .
“Allen Media currently owns 15 television stations in 11 markets. It acquired most of them last month from USA TV for $305 million and said then that it planned to invest some $10 billion to acquire ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox television stations over the next three years to become of the largest broadcast television groups in America.
“The company owns a handful of cable networks, including the Weather Channel, digital news site The Grio, and film and television production under Entertainment Studios. . . .”
Jason Johnson remains a contributor to Sirius XM radio. (Screen shot)
‘Salem
Witch Hunt’ Over Jason Johnson?
After five years with The Root,
political editor Jason Johnson has left the website,
although none of the principals will go on the record to say why.
The Daily Beast and other outlets following its
lead have been linking Johnson’s departure and what the Beast calls his
“temporary” benching as an MSNBC analyst to comments Johnson made on
“The Karen Hunter Show” on Sirius XM last month. He said that
“racist white liberals” support Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ presidential
campaign and that Sanders has done “nothing for intersectionality.”
Johnson added then, “I don’t care
how many people from the island of misfit black girls you throw out there to
defend you,” apparently a reference to the “Island of Misfit Toys” in
the 2001 computer-animated film “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” The island
is where unloved or unwanted toys live with their ruler.
Earlier this week in a conversation about the Sanders campaign and the behavior of his staff and supporters I referred to his campaign spokesperson as coming from the Island of Misfit Black Girls. It was a harmful and unnecessary comment and I apologize.
— Jason Johnson (@DrJasonJohnson) February 22, 2020
MSNBC, which also is not commenting on the record about Johnson’s status, has been under fire from Sanders supporters, their leader “suspicious of its wealthy hosts and corporate owners,” in the words of the New York Times.
Interestingly, while Hunter agrees that Johnson was right to apologize for the comment — she asked the producer to punch in the show’s standard disclaimer language at the time — Hunter told listeners that his remarks have been taken out of context and that at the time, she found them clever.
“I see how the Salem Witch Hunt happened and it’s dangerous,” Hunter said on her Feb. 25 show. (video)
Danielle Belton, editor-in-chief of The Root, was with Karen Hunter Feb. 25 as Hunter discussed Jason Johnson’s remarks on Hunter’s program. (Credit: YouTube)
Danielle Belton, editor-in-chief of The Root, was with Hunter on the program. While the Daily Beast headlined about Johnson’s “Misogynistic Anti-Bernie Screed,” Hunter said Johnson was “talking about one black woman, maybe two. So the notion that this man is a misogynist — y’all were doing too much.” As rendered on Twitter, she said, the remarks were unfairly edited.
Johnson remains under contract with MSNBC and continues as a tenured associate professor in the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University. He is still a contributor to Sirius XM.
FAMU Abruptly Removes Ferrier as J-Dean
“Michelle Ferrier (pictured, below) has been removed as dean of Florida A&M University’s School of Journalism & Graphic Communication, Byron Dobson reported March 6 for the Tallahassee Democrat, updated Monday.
Dobson also reported, “FAMU Provost Maurice Edington was to meet with faculty Monday to announce that Bettye Grable, a professor and former Faculty Senate president, would be named the acting dean of the school. . . .”
FAMU’s journalism program is considered among the best at historically black colleges and universities.
“Coincidentally, the move comes roughly a month after the Tallahassee Democrat reported Ferrier had filed a small claims lawsuit against a former subordinate for failure to repay a personal loan,” Dobson continued.
Ralph Cantave reported Sunday for the Famuan, the student newspaper, that many students were stunned and that “Students and alumni did not take this news lightly.“
He added, “The common concern for students is whether this will affect the school’s accreditation. In January of this year, a site team recommended re-accreditation for the journalism division. The two-person team said it would recommend full accreditation to the governing council. However, final determination for the accreditation won’t be announced until April.
“Grable will be the fourth dean SJGC has had in four years. . . .”
The 2018 announcement of Ferrier’s appointment added that Ferrier had been associate professor at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, “where she was named one of the top 20 journalism innovation educators for 2018. She is also founder of TrollBusters.com, ‘a just-in-time rescue service for writers and journalists experiencing online harassment.’ . . .”
Ferrier was granted tenure upon hire at FAMU and will remain a tenured professor at the university, Dobson reported.”
Susan Watson of Detroit ‘Freep’ Dies at 76
“Susan Watson, a reporter, editor and columnist for the Detroit Free Press, who was a powerful voice in the Detroit community, died on Saturday at age 76,” Allan Lengel reported for Deadline Detroit.
“She was hospitalized recently for complications from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that affected her lungs.
“Watson worked at the Freep for decades before going on strike in July 1995. She never returned to the paper, instead turning to work as editor of The Detroit Teacher, a biweekly publication of the Detroit Federation of Teachers.
“In 1965, Watson graduated from the University of Michigan. Two months later, she went to work at the Free Press.
“She was one of the first women columnists and the first female editor at the Detroit Free Press. In three decades at the paper, she became a leader in gender and race issues in journalism, serving as a role model to women in a male-dominated industry, according to a biography at the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame, where she was inducted in 2000. . . .”
Russian Trolls Operating from Africa, CNN Finds
“The Russian trolls are back — and once again trying to poison the political atmosphere in the United States ahead of this year’s elections,” Clarissa Ward, Katie Polglase, Sebastian Shukla, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Tim Lister reported Thursday, updated Friday, for CNN.
“But this time they are better disguised and more targeted, harder to identify and track. And they have found an unlikely home, far from Russia itself.
“In 2016, much of the trolling aimed at the US election operated from an office block in St. Petersburg, Russia. A months-long CNN investigation has discovered that, in this election cycle, at least part of the campaign has been outsourced — to trolls in the west African nations of Ghana and Nigeria.
“They have focused almost exclusively on racial issues in the US, promoting black empowerment and often displaying anger towards white Americans. The goal, according to experts who follow Russian disinformation campaigns, is to inflame divisions among Americans and provoke social unrest. . . .”
“The operation’s headquarters were in a walled compound in a quiet residential district near the Ghanaian capital, Accra. It had been rented by a small nonprofit group that called itself Eliminating Barriers for the Liberation of Africa (EBLA).. .
“The man running EBLA calls himself Mr. Amara and claims to be South African. In reality he is a Ghanaian who lives in Russia and his name is Seth Wiredu (pictured). Several of EBLA’s workers said they had heard Wiredu speak Russian. . . .”
- Edwin Appiah, Ghana Report, Ghanaian ‘linked to Russia’ busted for ‘meddling in 2020 US election’
- Tony Romm and Craig Timberg, Washington Post: Facebook, Twitter suspend Russian-linked operation targeting African Americans on social media
Survey of 8,000 Inmates Shows Whites for Trump
“Slate partnered with the Marshall Project to conduct a first-of-its-kind political survey inside prisons and jails across the country,” Nicole Lewis, Aviva Shen and Anna Flagg reported Wednesday.
“Now that criminal justice is a campaign issue and many states are restoring voting rights to those convicted of felonies, we asked thousands of incarcerated people across the country for their opinions on criminal justice reform, which political party they identify with, and which presidential candidate they’d support. We heard from more than 8,000 people. Here’s what they said:
- “A plurality of white respondents back President Donald Trump, undercutting claims that people in prison would overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.
- “Long stretches in prison appear to be politicizing: The more time respondents spend in prison, the more motivated they are to vote, the more they discuss politics, and the more likely their opinions are to evolve.
- “Perspectives change inside prison. Republicans behind bars back policies like legalizing marijuana that are less popular with GOP voters on the outside; Democrats inside prison are less enthusiastic about an assault weapons ban than Democrats at large.
- “Political views diverged by race. Black respondents are the only group pointing to reducing racial bias in criminal justice as a top concern; almost every other group picked reducing the prison population as a top criminal justice priority.
“Many respondents’ answers reflected the crucible of their own experiences — offering new insights into issues often discussed from a distance on a debate stage.
“ ‘I once believed in gun ownership,’ wrote Helen Gately, who is incarcerated at Arkansas’ J. Aaron Hawkins Sr. Center for Women. ‘But when I killed my abuser with a gun, I knew had there not been a gun in our house I would have never killed him. I would have never had the heart to stab him. But a gun made it impersonal, easy and quick. Now he’s dead and I’m here.’
“This country is still a long way from granting incarcerated people the right to vote, and polls show the idea is unpopular. But the thinking on who deserves these rights is changing. In the past two years alone, more than a dozen states reconsidered their felony disenfranchisement laws, often restoring voting rights to people on probation and parole or clarifying the rights restoration process. . . .”
Group Wants 4 Stations for Ownership Training
“The ‘imminent loss’ of four St. Louis-area AM radio stations has the MMTC concerned — and they are asking the FCC to do something about it,” Susan Ashworth reported March 3 for Radio World.
“The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) asked the Federal [Communications] Commission to provide emergency interim relief to preserve four radio stations and a construction permit by giving its subsidiary, MMTC Broadcasting, ownership and operating responsibility for the stations. The stations have been tangled up in the Bob Romanik imbroglio. . . .”
As John Garziglia reported Feb. 25 for Radio Ink, “almost two years of hearing proceedings . . . sought to determine whether Robert S. Romanik, the self-identified Grim Reaper and a convicted felon, was actually in control of the radio stations rather than the named licensee.
“No one ultimately appeared at the hearing on behalf of the purported licensee. The judge used the licensee’s non-appearance as the stated cause of dismissal” of license renewal requests for KFTK-AM, 1490 kHz, East St. Louis, Ill.; WQQW-AM, 1510 kHz, Highland, Ill., operating daytime only; KZQZ-AM, 1430 kHz, St. Louis; and KQQZ-AM, 1190 kHz, Fairview Heights, Ill.
Ashworth continued, “According to David Honig, who is [founding] president of MMTC as well as vice president of MMTC Broadcasting, the goal of the organization’s nonprofit subsidiary is to facilitate diverse ownership of broadcast stations. It has taken ownership of nine AM radio stations since 2008 and incubated new entrants at these stations by training them to become owners.
“In this case, the MMTC Broadcasting group told the FCC that it would like to volunteer to assume ownership and operating responsibility for the stations.
“ ‘Our plan is to operate them as radio incubators, generally along the lines of the incubator plan approved by the commission in 2018,’ the group said. ‘To execute this plan, MMTC Broadcasting would LMA [local marketing agreement] the stations to Roberts Radio Broadcasting LLC, a minority-owned and family-owned company based in St. Louis,’ which currently owns and operates an FM station in Jackson, Miss. . . .”
- Roger Caldwell, National Newspaper Publishers Association: Building A Powerful Black Media Based on Human Rights (March 4)
Short Takes
- “Today we are making a clarification to a passage in an essay from The 1619 Project that has sparked a great deal of online debate,” Jake Silverstein, editor of the New York Times Magazine, wrote Wednesday. “The passage in question states that one primary reason the colonists fought the American Revolution was to protect the institution of slavery. This assertion has elicited criticism from some historians and support from others. . . . We recognize that our original language could be read to suggest that protecting slavery was a primary motivation for all of the colonists. The passage has been changed to make clear that this was a primary motivation for some of the colonists. . . . “
- Last year, Vann R. Newkirk II, one of our staff writers, and our podcast chief Katherine Wells, came to me with an idea for a thorough reassessment of Hurricane Katrina,” Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, wrote readers on Thursday. He also wrote, “Floodlines, the mesmerizing podcast series that grew out of these conversations, is The Atlantic’s first foray into narrative audio. . . . They unearth human stories that take us to the heart of the tragedy; they investigate the failures of politicians and the media; and they question the officials who were in charge. . . . They achieve something great here, the deepest understanding of what Vann calls ‘an unnatural disaster.’ . . .”
- The Associated Press has promoted acclaimed reporter, editor and data journalist Ron Nixon (pictured) to be its global investigations editor, overseeing teams of reporters around the world and helping to infuse the AP’s global news report with accountability reporting and a strong investigative ethos,” The AP announced on Thursday. It also said, “Nixon joined the AP in early 2019 as international investigations editor, managing a team of investigative reporters in the U.S. and abroad. In that role, he has guided the AP’s ongoing coverage of the war in Yemen, including investigations that found the United Nations was investigating corruption in its own agencies, and uncovering efforts by Houthi rebels to block aid efforts. . . .”
- “Report for America has grown rapidly,” Steven Waldman, its co-founder and president, wrote Tuesday for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. “The program — which places emerging journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities — went from 13 corps members in 2018-19, to 59 in 2019-20 to 250 in 2020-21 (starting in June). . . . We had more than 1,800 applicants for about 200 open slots. Another indicator: About 90 percent of the current corps members renewed for a second year. And about half our current group of newsrooms have also requested additional reporters. . . .”
- “On March 23, we will notify 22 newsroom employees — 18 from the bargaining unit represented by Local One of the Newspaper Guild and four unrepresented managers — that we can no longer continue their employment with us, ” Tim Warsinskey, editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, wrote Monday. “The reason is strictly financial . . . .”
- “ ‘Death of the newspaper’ narratives focus mainly on two tiers in the business: the mega-chains, which are increasingly owned by investment funds or are publicly traded, and the tiny mom-and-pop outlets, based in small towns, that are slowly disappearing,” Ryan Binkley, CEO of the Anchorage Daily News, and Francis Wick, member of a newspaper family, wrote Wednesday for Columbia Journalism Review. “But such narratives ignore an entire segment of the industry that isn’t just surviving, but persisting: medium-sized, independent and family-owned newspaper chains that remain fully committed to producing newspapers in the communities they serve. We are not going away, we are not selling out, and we believe that journalism’s best days are ahead of us. . . .”
- “From the Los Angeles Times, ‘Asian Enough’ is a podcast about being Asian American — the joys, the complications and everything else in between. In each episode, hosts Jen Yamato and Frank Shyong of The Times invite celebrity guests to share their personal stories and unpack identity on their own terms. . . .,” Yamato and Shyong wrote Tuesday for the Times.
- Whoops! On the night of Tuesday’s Democratic primary, online readers of the Michigan Chronicle might have been surprised by the disappearance of Bernie Sanders. “After a close race against Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden has won the Democratic Primary in Michigan,” the primary story began. The brief account concluded, “Completed totals aren’t expected to be in until tomorrow afternoon. Biden will now face off against President Donald Trump until the November 2020 election.” The story was still up on Saturday afternoon, March 14.
- “Somewhere ESPN’s Monday Night Football team of Joe Tessitore and Booger McFarland are texting each other shrug emojis. Probably,” Joey Morona wrote March 6 for cleveland.com. “That’s because, according to two reports, the network is plotting to replace them with a pair of huge names: Al Michaels and Peyton Manning. . . .”
New Roch-hell
Mile-wide “containment zone” created in New Rochelle to fight coronavirushttps://t.co/TYfk4aDWa8 pic.twitter.com/1GAEPNEvcd— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) March 11, 2020
- Christopher John Farley, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and now executive editor at Audible, Inc., objects to the treatment the Daily News gave to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s order to place part of Westchester County in a mile-wide containment zone. “This tasteless tabloid headline doesn’t tell the real tale of what’s happening in New Rochelle,” Farley wrote Wednesday on Facebook. “Just yesterday one of my terrific neighbors texted me ‘Our families r here for each other.’ People aren’t turning on each other in New Ro, they’re turning to each other, and it’s been great to see. If anything, the [coronavirus] crisis has been more evidence, if any is needed, of our interconnectedness, and why we all need to make sure our community services and institutions, from our healthcare system to our schools —work for everyone, especially the most vulnerable. As a recovering journalist, I hope that story gets told!”
- “Lack of diversity can have serious consequences, as was the case with the government’s response to Hurricane Maria, the lethal 2017 storm that devastated Puerto Rico,” Joe Davidson wrote March 2 in his Washington Post column on the federal workforce. Davidson quoted Rep. Xochitl Torres Small , D-N.M, chairwoman of a House Homeland Security subcommittee. “Confusion, miscommunication and distrust in emergency situations can lead to unnecessary loss of life. Unfortunately, we saw this play out in the delayed disaster assistance in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria due to an insufficient number of bilingual employees. FEMA’s lack of Spanish-speaking employees caused problems throughout the disaster response and contributed to delays in getting assistance to people who needed it most.”
- For the first 25 years of her career, Soledad O’Brien, 53, “was a high-profile broadcast journalist, winning Peabodys for her coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, and gracing the pages of People’s 50 Most Beautiful list,” EJ Dickson wrote in a March 3 profile for Rolling Stone. “Yet over the past few years, she has become one of establishment media’s most fiery critics. On Twitter, where she has more than a million followers, O’Brien regularly blasts outlets for coverage that minimizes the threats posed by Trump’s administration. . . .”
- In Cincinnati, “Local 12 has named longtime reporter/anchor Paula Toti and anchor Kyle Inskeep (pictured) as evening co-anchors for the station’s primary evening newscasts effective immediately,” the station, officially WKRC-TV, reported March 2. “ ‘We conducted a nation-wide search in an effort to secure the strongest anchor team to lead the station to the next level in 2020,’ said Sinclair Broadcast Group Manager and Local 12 General Manager Jon Lawhead. ‘The results of that search made it abundantly clear to us that the team we’d put together in June of 2018 was exactly what the viewer and user wanted to see.’ . . . ”
- “Being the sole black face in newsrooms and in communities where not a lot of people look like you can be daunting, can lead to a lot of awkward moments, plenty of micro-aggressions, some direct aggression but it also lends itself to learning experiences on both sides,” Ty Rushing (pictured), managing editor of N’West Iowa REVIEW, wrote Feb. 27, updated March 6. “I’ve half-jokingly referred to myself as the Jackie Robinson of Iowa newspapers. . . . To date, I’ve been the first black staff writer at the Newton Daily News, Jasper County Tribune, Prairie City News, The Sheldon Mail-Sun, The South O’Brien Sun, The N’West Iowa REVIEW and Sioux City Journal. I’m also the first black person with an editor title at this company, which also has allowed me to be the first black person on staff with bylines in Sioux Center News and the Hawarden Independent/Ireton Examiner in addition to Iowa Information’s Sheldon-based publications. . . .”
- Rahsaan Harris resigned as president and CEO of the Emma Bowen Foundation for Minority Interests in Media, effective Feb. 28, Harris and the foundation announced Feb. 16. The foundation won the National Association of Black Journalists’ 2017 Best Practices Award. “With support from our more than 75 corporate and nonprofit partners, we recruit promising students of color and place them in multi-year paid internships at some of the nation’s leading media, PR and technology companies, provide the media and tech industries with a pipeline of young talent and emerging leadership, and advocate for best practices in diverse hiring, retention and advancement,” the foundation says on its website. Harris served as president for five years. Nikki Bethel, most recently senior vice president of Talent Management for HBO, will be interim CEO.
- As Black History Month came to a close, Newsday asked black Long Islanders of all ages what advice they would give their younger selves. “Newsday Assistant Managing Editor Monte R. Young (pictured) tells his 18-year-old self about some of the challenges he will face in his life – from racism to cancer – but that with faith, family and mentors, and ‘learning how to encourage yourself’ he will get through it all. ‘You’re going to have good black mentors … you’re going to learn that not all white folk are bad … as you get older you’re going to learn to give that back … you’re going to be pretty good at that.’ . . .”
- “Dozens of reporters in Cameroon are calling for help after losing their jobs and, in some cases, their homes because of the war between separatist forces and the government,” Moki Edwin Kindzeka reported Tuesday for Voice of America. “The reporters say they are constantly attacked or kidnapped for refusing to be propaganda tools for one side or the other. Thirty Cameroonian journalists, most of them women from the volatile North West region, have gathered in the capital city Yaounde to discuss the difficulties of reporting from Cameroon’s crisis zones. . . .”
- “The Ethiopian government should immediately lift the shutdown of internet and phone communications in the Oromia region,” Human Rights Watch declared Monday. “The two-month-long shutdown has prevented families from communicating, disrupted life-saving services, and contributed to an information blackout during government counterinsurgency operations in the area. . . .”
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View previous columns (after Feb. 13, 2016).
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2018 (Jan. 4, 2019)
- Book Notes: Is Taking a Knee Really All That? (Dec. 20, 2018)
- Book Notes: Challenging ’45’ and Proudly Telling the Story (Dec. 18, 2018)
- Book Notes: Get Down With the Legends! (Dec. 11, 2018)
- Journalist Richard Prince w/Joe Madison (Sirius XM, April 18, 2018) (podcast)
- Richard Prince (journalist) (Wikipedia entry)
- February 2018 Podcast: Richard “Dick” Prince on the need for newsroom diversity (Gabriel Greschler, Student Press Law Center, Feb. 26, 2018)
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2017 — Where Will They Take Us in the Year Ahead?
- Book Notes: Best Sellers, Uncovered Treasures, Overlooked History (Dec. 19, 2017)
- An advocate for diversity in the media is still pressing for representation, (Courtland Milloy, Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2017)
- Morgan Global Journalism Review: Journal-isms Journeys On (Aug. 31, 2017)
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2016
- Book Notes: 16 Writers Dish About ‘Chelle,’ the First Lady
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- Journal-isms’ Richard Prince Wants Your Ideas (FishbowlDC, Feb. 26, 2016)
- “JOURNAL-ISMS” IS LATEST TO BEAR BRUNT OF INDUSTRY’S ECONOMIC WOES (Feb. 19, 2016)
- Richard Prince with Charlayne Hunter-Gault,“PBS NewsHour,” “What stagnant diversity means for America’s newsrooms” (Dec. 15, 2015)
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- Journo-diversity advocate turns attention to Ezra Klein project (Erik Wemple, Washington Post, March 5, 2014)