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Fewer Black Voices Assess Obama Speech

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"Leading Sentiment: President Has Wasted a Crisis"

. . . .At Daily Beast, Little Change Apparent on Diversity

Obama’s Job Approval Slips Among Spanish-Speaking

Atlanta Station Fined After Flash Fire in News Truck

When Paula Madison Reached for Her NABJ Network

Mexican Firm to Close Hispanic Magazine

Miami Herald Producing Documentary on Haiti

Few Protections Seen for Latin American Press

California Chicano Media Association Awards Honors

Knight News Challenge Gives Out $2.74 Million

Short Takes

The New York Times’ David Carr, left, and Brian Stelter discuss the media response to President Obama’s Oval Office address in a video on the Times website. (Video).

Leading Sentiment: "President Has Wasted a Crisis"

The ultimate assessment might not have been different, but there were fewer African American voices than usual assessing President Obama’s speech from the Oval Office Tuesday night on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"I’m not booked on CNN tonight, so listen at 7:15 am est on @tjmshow for my perspective," commentator Roland Martin tweeted.

Columnist Eugene Robinson was absent from MSNBC, but he wrote a quick blog item for the Washington Post.

BET and TV One went with their usual programming, although BET spokeswoman Jeanine Liburd noted, "We aired the President’s speech LIVE on CENTRIC," BET’s secondary network, "and we streamed LIVE on BET.com. We ran crawls on BET alerting our audience to both." She also said BET had covered the spill "in our news briefs on-air and on-line."

TV One spokeswoman Lynn McReynolds, asked whether that network had covered the spill in venues other than its Sunday public affairs show, "Washington Watch," said, "Washington Watch was created as a public affairs show to provide perspective on news issues like the oil spill . . . Washington Watch has covered it."

On CNN, reporter Joe Johns was among a panel of correspondents assessing the speech, and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, a native of New Orleans, did a brief turn from the field. Juan Williams was part of the commentary team on Fox News Channel, and NBC’s relatively brief broadcast television coverage was anchored by Lester Holt, who is substituting this week for "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams.

Among Spanish-language networks, Univision and Telemundo carried the speech live, anchored by Maria Elena Salinas and Jose Diaz-Balart, respectively. Spanish-speaking interpreters translated Obama’s remarks.

"Millions upon millions of gallons (liters) of polluting crude oil continue to spew into the Gulf¬†nearly two months after the British-based company’s Deep Horizon drilling platform exploded, killing 11 workers and setting in motion an environmental and economic catastrophe," as the Associated Press noted on Wednesday.

In the first speech of his presidency from the Oval Office, Obama laid out what his administration has done and will do to overcome the country’s worst environmental crisis. On Wednesday, BP "agreed to finance a $20 billion fund to pay the claims of people whose jobs and way of life have been damaged by the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, senior administration officials said Wednesday," the AP reported.

Obama announced in the speech that he would meet the next day with BP officials and demand that they compensate the spill victims.

However, "With nearly one-third of Obama’s 17-minute speech devoted to long-term energy reform, critics complained that the president gave the immediate crisis short shrift and provided no new details," Alexandra Fenwick wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review.

"The president has wasted a crisis," Cynthia Tucker declared in her blog for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"The speech was flat and uninspiring. He recited a litany of the things the administration has done to try to bring the spill under control, but it was a rehash of things the public has already heard. Yes, he’s going to make BP pay. That’s good – as far as it goes. But he didn’t use the moment to assert a resolute sense of command.

"Nor did he use it to call on Americans to make the sacrifices that will be necessary to make the transition from petroleum to cleaner fuels. Yes, he said a little about it. But he didn’t even endorse the energy bill currently languishing in the Senate."

Robinson was equally disappointed. "The president was cool, determined, forceful – stylistically, all the things that the braying commentators said he had to be. But where was the substance? Specifically — and urgently — where was the new plan to contain the oil spill and protect the coastline? I wish I’d heard the president order the kind of all-out marshaling and deployment of resources that now seems imperative. But I didn’t," he wrote.

One of Obama’s few public supporters of color seemed to be Marc Lamont Hill, an associate professor of education at Columbia University’s Teachers College who appeared on National Public Radio’s "Tell Me More."

"I would argue from a policy perspective, he didn’t give enough detail," Hill said. "He didn’t talk about what we’re going to do for shallow water drilling. He didn’t offer any concrete plan for how we can get off this fossil fuel addiction. From a policy standpoint, I don’t think he said enough. But in terms of allaying the anxieties of the American people and moving forward his political agenda, I think he did a good job."

"One in five households with television sets watched President Obama’s Oval Office address about the Gulf oil spill disaster on Tuesday night, according to The Nielsen Company," Brian Stelter wrote for the New York Times. "An average of 24 million households and 32 million people tuned in to the almost-20-minute address, according to Nielsen, which only counts at-home viewing.

"Only a handful of telecasts – the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards, the finale of ‘American Idol’ – can garner more viewers than a presidential address in prime time. But the Tuesday night ratings hint at some fatigue among Americans, either toward President Obama or toward the oil spill."

. . . At Daily Beast, Little Change Apparent on Diversity

In February, the Web magazine the Daily Beast ran a list by staffer Tunku Varadarajan of "The Left’s Top 25 Journalists" and a similar one for the right. There were no black journalists among them, and Pulitzer Prize-winning African American commentators expressed their views about that in this space.

On Wednesday, the website founded by the celebrated Tina Brown, editor of Vanity Fair magazine from 1984 to 1992 and of the New Yorker from 1992 to 1998, ran commentary by "Daily Beast contributors" on President Obama’s speech on the oil spill.

With the exception of Varadarajan, who is South Asian, all — Tina Brown, Nicolle Wallace, Rick Outzen, Mark McKinnon, Paul Begala, Margaret Carlson, Sam Donaldson and Peter Beinart — appear to be white.

In April, the American Society of News Editors said it had asked 28 online news operations to participate in its annual diversity survey. The Daily Beast was among those that did not respond; a spokesman said the website had no record of the original request.

ASNE is preparing to try its online survey again.

Obama’s Job Approval Slips Among Spanish-Speaking

"Hispanics’ approval of President Barack Obama’s job performance slipped to 57% in May Job Approval, after falling from 69% in January to 64% in February," Lydia Saad reported for the Gallup Organization last week. "By contrast, whites’ and blacks’ approval of the president has been steady throughout 2010.

"These trend figures are based on monthly averages of Gallup Daily tracking for 2010, including interviews with approximately 1,000 Hispanics each month.

"The two major drops in Hispanics’ approval of Obama this year ‚Äî in February and May ‚Äî coincide with two periods when the president was under fire for not doing enough to promote comprehensive immigration reform in Congress.

"The decline in Obama’s approval rating with Hispanics is seen mainly among those interviewed in Spanish: an 11-point drop in the past month and a total of 21 points since January."

Outside the Fulton County (Ga.) Jail, Nov. 11.

Atlanta Station Fined After Flash Fire in News Truck

In Atlanta, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined WSB-TV $5,000 for safety violations surrounding a live truck accident in November, according to Atlanta television blogger Doug Richards.

"The accident took place when a WSB crew exited the parking lot of the Fulton County jail with its microwave mast raised. The mast came into contact with some 115,000 volt transmission lines above Rice Street, causing an electrical surge in the truck that slightly injured its occupants, photographer Leonard Raglin and reporter Tom Jones. The shock and a flash fire destroyed the equipment inside the truck. 

". . . Raglin, the truck operator and a veteran photographer, had failed to stow the mast prior to driving the vehicle. Alarm systems in the truck had been disabled.

"Raglin and Jones were the first to admit that their nearly fatal oversight was the primary cause of the accident. Yet it’s unclear whether OSHA specifically noted the station’s failure to maintain the truck’s alarm system. It’s not mentioned in the citations."

When Paula Madison Reached for Her NABJ Network

In the July issue of Ebony magazine, Paula Madison, executive vice president and chief diversity officer at NBC Universal and a board member of the Maynard Institute, tells this story:

"When I worked years ago at the Dallas Times Herald, I was in my mid-to-late 20s, and I had this wonderful boss who I still think was probably one of the best bosses I’d ever had, a Jewish, White male," Madison, 57, told interviewer Harriette Cole, acting editor-in- chief.

"I say that just because of what’s about to come. My job was night assistant city editor, so he said to me one day, ‘Paula, I want you to come to the page-one budget meeting today,’ and I said, ‘Oh, why?’ He said, ‘Because, I want your input.’

"Now, you know, the page-one budget meeting is with all the editors of the front pages of the sections ‚Äî Sports, Living, National, Metro ‚Äî and I’m thinking, "What do you want my input about?" So of course, I said it out loud. He said, ‘Everybody in the room is White and I want to have a voice in there that’s not White.’

"I said, ‘I’m not coming to the meeting.’ He said, ‘What do you mean, you’re not coming to the meeting?’ I said, ‘I’m not coming to the meeting. You are, in fact, going to destroy my career. You think those page-one budget editors are going to feel good about me because the only reason why I got to be in the room is because I’m some Black chick you took kindly to?’ He said, ‘But how am I supposed to get this voice in the room?’ I said, ‘I got r?©sum?©s.’ I said, ‘I’m a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. I can get the names of Black editors who are page-one budget editors who rightfully belong in that room. Give me until next week. I’ll set up some people.’ And I did. And he, in fact, hired someone."

Madison does not name the new hire. In the 4,000-word interview, she went on to discuss how she maintains a healthy marriage while being the primary breadwinner, and replies, to a question about what to do when you’re not being treated well:

"I will in a minute go out and fight about something, but before you expend all your energy on the negative side of ‘Why won’t you give me this’ or ‘Why won’t you give me that,’ why don’t you spend it on the positive side and go out and get it for yourself?"

Mexican Firm to Close Hispanic Magazine

"Eva Longoria is the last celebrity to grace the cover of the final issue of Hispanic magazine," Veronica Villafa?±e reported Monday on her Media Moves site.

"The magazine, which was founded in 1987 and was billed as the largest subscription-based Hispanic publication, has come to an end, with the Apr/May issue being its last."

Hispanic magazine reported to the Audit Bureau of Circulations an average circulation of 306,422 for the six months ending in December, compared with 316,500 the previous year. All but 354 copies were sold by subscription. However, only three issues were reported published during the last six months of 2009.

The magazine is not listed among those whose advertising revenue is charted by the Publishers Information Bureau, but Carlos Pelay, founder of Media Economics Group, a research company that tracks advertising in Hispanic media, told Diego Vasquez of Medialifemagazine.com in March, "the largest magazines — like Latina, People en Espa?±ol, Siempre Mujer, and Ser Padres ‚Äî have suffered double-digit declines, and their impact is felt across the segment. Virtually every title was in the red in 2009."

The Mexican company Editorial Televisa bought a majority stake in Hispanic Publishing Group of Coral Gables, Fla., in 2004, in a $4 million deal that included Hispanic magazine. Televisa Chief Executive Emilio Azcarraga Jean said he wanted to increase the company’s U.S. holdings to create a media empire that straddles the Americas. Editorial Televisa was the world’s largest Spanish-language magazine publisher, the Miami Herald said at the time.

Miami Herald Producing Documentary on Haiti

The Miami Herald is producing its first documentary, "Nou Bouke," on the January earthquake in Haiti that killed as many as 300,000 people, Nancy San Martin reported in the Herald on Wednesday.

"The magnitude of the story required a historical account of a nation that has long struggled to pull itself out of some kind of rubble — be it the work of Mother Nature, extreme poverty or political upheaval," she wrote.

"The title comes from words scrawled on the walls of ruined buildings throughout Port-au-Prince, in affected suburbs outside the capital city and as far away as Gonaives, where back-to-back storms in 2008 also left a trail of death and destruction. ‘Nou Bouke: We are Tired’ is a testament to the harsh reality for many in the Western Hemisphere’s most desperate nation.

"As the Caribbean nation faces perhaps its most challenging crossroads due to the immense loss of life and property resulting from the earthquake, Nou Bouke will present a comprehensive look at the Haitian polemic. The hourlong documentary, which will be ready by the end of the year and will be distributed nationally through our partnership with WPBT, is a representative mosaic that depicts the many perspectives that surround the hopes and aspirations of the Haitian people as they move forward into a future full of uncertainty."

Few Protections Seen for Latin American Press

While democracies are prevalent in Latin America, the press continues to operate with few institutional protections, Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, testified in Congress, the Committee reported on Wednesday.

"Citing the example of Brazilian reporters exposing a massive corruption scheme carried out by President Fernando Collor de Mello, Simon noted that many Latin American countries have a strong history of independent and critical media. Despite this, however, journalists in the region are increasingly vulnerable to both government repression and violence.

"Simon also highlighted CPJ’s concern about the press freedom environment in a number of countries, including Mexico, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Cuba," the Committee said in reporting on the testimony, made before the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.

California Chicano Media Association Awards Honors

Efrain Hernandez, an assistant foreign editor at the Los Angeles Times who formerly ran the Tribune Co.’s Minority Editorial Training Program (METPRO), was one of four honorees at a CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California scholarship banquet Friday in Los Angeles.

"Efrain was honored for his longtime service to CCNMA and his commitment to diversity. He served 13 years on the CCNMA Board of Directors, serving as president of the Los Angeles Chapter and as treasurer of the statewide board of directors," Executive Director Julio Moran told Journal-isms. CCNMA was formerly known as the California Chicano News Media Association and predates the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

"Other honorees were Sandy Nunez, coordinating producer for ESPN in Los Angeles. She is the highest ranking Latina at ESPN and received her award for career achievement.

"Karin Winner, recently retired editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune, was honored for her support of the CCNMA San Diego Chapter. She allowed staff members time off to help teach at CCNMA’s annual high school journalism workshop and supported the chapter’s annual La Pluma Awards Dinner.

"The last honoree was The California Wellness Foundation for its media and civic partnerships program, which utilizes the media, including the ethnic press, to help improve the health of the people of California through conferences, panels and journalism curriculums.

"We also held our 11th Ruben Salazar Journalism Awards, which recognize stories that contribute to a better understanding of Latinos in the United States.

"The winners were:

"Radio: Zaidee Stavely of Radio Bilingue in Fresno for a story that uncovered an unusually high number of babies born with birth defects in mostly Latino Kettleman City, CA. Print: Diana Martinez and Alex Garcia of the San Fernando Valley Sun and El Sol, for their stories looking into the arrests of day workers in the city of San Fernando, resulting in the halting of the arrests. TV: There was a tie: Cristina Londono of the Telemundo network for her story on abuses Latina women suffer in the workplace, and Jaqueline Hurtado of KKEY Telemundo in Bakersfield for her story on autism among Spanish-speaking Latinos."

Knight News Challenge Gives Out $2.74 Million

Retha Hill, director of the New Media Innovation Lab and professor of practice at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is among the 2010 winners of the Knight News Challenge, a contest that funds ideas that use digital technology to inform specific geographic communities, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced on Wednesday.

Hill is a former vice president for content development for BET Interactive, a founding editor of washingtonpost.com and onetime president of the Washington Association of Black Journalists.

She and Cody Shotwell of ASU are to share $90,000 for a project called CitySeed.

A summary of the application says, "To inform and engage communities, CitySeed will be a mobile application that allows users to plant the ‘seed’ of an idea and share it with others. For example, a person might come across a great spot for a community garden. At that moment, the person can use the CitySeed app to ‘geotag’ the idea, which links it to an exact location. Others can look at the place-based ideas, debate and hopefully act on them. The project aims to increase the number of people informed about and engaged with their communities by breaking down community issues into bite-size settings."

The winners receive $2.74 million as part of the fourth round of the five-year international contest, the foundation said. Another project, Tilemapping, was field-tested in Haiti, to map where aid was needed after the earthquake.

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