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Journalisms June 18

richard

Memphis Opinion Editor Otis Sanford to Move to Academia

Cameraman Kills Intruder at Dallas Area Poker Game

NAHJ’s Hugo Balta Lands as Managing Editor at WCBS

Lakers Victory Grabs Highest Ratings Since ’88

Essence Reports Advertising Revenues on the Rebound

Obama Meets Pundits in Off-the-Record Lunch

Story on Asian American Poverty Among AAJA Winners

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Memphis Opinion Editor Otis Sanford to Move to Academia

Otis Sanford, editor of opinions and editorials at the Memphis Commercial Appeal, has been recommended for a chair at the University of Memphis’ College of Communications and Fine Arts, the newspaper reported. As things now stand, six black journalists will remain as editorial page editors at mainstream dailies when Sanford leaves in January.

Sanford’s mission "will be hoping to inspire in college students what his own father’s newspaper habit instilled in him growing up in segregated Mississippi — a love of daily journalism," Zack McMillin reported in the Commercial Appeal.

"The University of Memphis’ College of Communications and Fine Arts has recommended that Sanford, The Commercial Appeal editor of opinions and editorials, be appointed to its Helen and Jabie Hardin Chair of Economics/Managerial Journalism, one of the 25 chairs of excellence listed on the university’s website." The approval came Wednesday.

"Since 1975, Sanford has worked without interruption for four newspapers, beginning with The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., but most of his time has been at The Commercial Appeal, where he first began working in college in the early 1970s."

Sanford told Journal-isms he will continue to write a Sunday column for the paper.

Among African American editorial page editors, Joe Oglesby retired from the Miami Herald in the last year and at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cynthia Tucker moved to Washington-based columnist.

Cameraman Kills Intruder at Dallas Area Poker Game

A photographer for KTVT in Dallas/Fort Worth was reported "off for a couple of weeks" Friday after police said he shot and killed a would-be robber shortly after midnight Monday during a poker game in an apartment in Mesquite, Texas.

Speaking of Jerome "Jay" Johnson, the cameraman, station communications director Lori Conrad said, "We are relieved that our employee was unharmed, but we consider this to be a personal matter and have no other comment at this time," Ed Bark, the Dallas area television writer, reported Thursday on his blog.

Bark added:

"The shooting occurred after the alleged intruder shot one of the players, 35-year-old Tracy Moore, who also is deceased.

"CBS11 is reporting the story ‚Äî and identifying Johnson as a station employee ‚Äî on its cbs11tv.com web site under the headline ‘Would-Be Robber Shot Dead At Mesquite Party.’

"According to Lt. Bill Hedgpeth, the gunman at first wanted to join the poker game, but then pulled a gun and demanded money from the players.

"When he fired at the players, Johnson pulled a gun and fatally shot the man, who was identified as 28-year-old Darvis Dervon Young in myfoxdfw.com’s brief report on the shootings.

"Hedgpeth said that Johnson, 34, is licensed to carry a concealed handgun and that "from all appearances at this point it does appear to be self-defense."

"Johnson was questioned and released, and police have no plans to charge him at this time, Hedgpeth said. But the case will be referred to a grand jury."

NAHJ’s Hugo Balta Lands as Managing Editor at WCBS

Hugo Balta, the vice president/broadcast of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists who was laid off last fall as news director for Telemundo’s WNJU-47 in New York, Thursday was named managing editor of WCBS-TV in New York.

"For the last six years, Balta was Vice President of News at Telemundo’s New York station. Prior to that, he was a producer at WNBC and a senior producer at MSNBC," as Chris Ariens noted on FishBowl NY.

"Balta begins the new gig Tuesday, July 6th."

Meanwhile, Balta is running for NAHJ president, facing Michele Salcedo, an editor at the Associated Press and former NAHJ board member, in the first contest for the office since 2002. The election takes place at the NAHJ convention in Denver, June 23-26.

The association announced that it is opening the event with a ‘plenary/town hall, "Latinos, the Newest Demons? The Need for Accurate News Coverage to Abate the Hate." It is to be open to the public, and Latino community leaders throughout Colorado are being invited to attend, the organization said.

Lakers Victory Grabs Highest Ratings Since ’88

"The highly competitive Game 7 of the NBA Finals dunked an 18.2 overnight rating Thursday night, the best performance for an NBA game since 1998  when Michael Jordan was leading the Chicago Bulls over the Utah Jazz," Mike Reynolds reported Friday for Multichannel News.

"The June 17 telecast of Game 7, in which the Los Angeles Lakers edged the Boston Celtics 83-79 to retain their crown and Kobe Bryant was named series MVP, was the highest-rated NBA Finals game ever on ABC, eclipsing the 15.5 overnight mark for Game 5 of the 2004 Finals between the Lakers and Detroit Pistons. (ABC overnight records date back to 2003.)"

The NBA playoffs and then the finals have consistently drawn high numbers, especially among African Americans. For the week of June 7-13, the Nielsen Co. reported that the games held the top three ratings positions. Only the order was different. Overall and among African Americans the top shows were games 5, 4 and 3, respectively. Among Hispanics, games 5, 3 and 4 held the top three positions for English-language programs.

Essence Reports Advertising Revenues on the Rebound

"Consumer magazine publishers have desperately been trying to scratch a profit from any amount of advertising dollars they can get their hands on, especially since the economic recession last year. One group that was hit particularly hard in the marketing pullback was African-American magazines," Jason Fell wrote Thursday for Folio.

According to the Publishers Information Bureau, "Black Enterprise, Ebony, Essence and Jet were down a collective 18 percent in ad pages through the first quarter — about double the industry average. Ad pages slipped 8.2 percent at Black Enterprise while Johnson Publishing’s Ebony and Jet saw dramatic declines of 30.6 percent and 33.1 percent respectively (Johnson points out, however, that Ebony and Jet both published one fewer issue during the quarter compared to last year).

"Time Inc.’s Essence, meanwhile, reported the smallest decline: -0.3 percent. Since then the magazine been taking advantage of the ad rebound, and says ad pages have been on the rise since its March issue. The magazine estimates that ad pages were up 31 percent for May, 14 percent for July and 21 percent so far for August. On the digital side, online ad revenues are up 32 percent during the first half of 2010 versus the same period in 2010.

‚Äú ‘Beauty, retail, food and pharmaceutical are resilient categories for Essence,’ Michelle Ebanks, president of Essence Communications, tells FOLIO:. ‘In addition, Ford has emerged as a powerful partner, having supported our signature red carpet programs such as ‚ÄòBlack Women in Music‚Äô and ‚ÄòBlack Women in Hollywood.‚Äô‚Äù

‚Äú’We‚Äôre reaching new consumers online and with our live events such as the Essence Music Festival,’ Ebanks says. ‚ÄúWe have been successful at converting these audiences to subscribers.’‚Äù

Obama Meets Pundits in Off-the-Record Lunch

President Obama held an off-the-record lunch Thursday at the White House with several prominent political writers and pundits: the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, the Wall Street Journal’s Jerry Seib, the New York Times’ Gail Collins and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Michael Calderone reported Thursday for Yahoo News.

"Arianna Huffington was also invited, but according to her own White House reporter, she couldn’t attend because of a scheduling conflict," Calderone wrote.

"Yahoo! News confirmed the journalist guest list and also learned that the meeting was staffed by a trio of top White House officials: David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett.

Presumably, the Gulf crisis was a major topic of discussion, but little has leaked out so far about specifics of the hourlong lunch. Even though White House reporters noticed the group leaving — and tweeted about it! — attendees are sticking to the off-the-record ground rules and keeping quiet.

"It’d be interesting to know what Obama may have thought of Maddow’s fake presidential address Wednesday night, in which the MSNBC host laid out what she thinks he should have said on Tuesday. But when reached by Yahoo! News, Maddow declined to comment.

"Reached by phone, Robinson and Seib also declined to comment. Collins did not immediately reply to a request for comment."

 

Story on Asian American Poverty Among AAJA Winners

Ti-Hua chang of WNYW, the Fox station in New York, told viewers, "Many Americans think of Asians here as a model community with money. Some are but many Asian Americans are truly the working poor.

"A New York City study found the poverty rate among Asian Americans was higher than African Americans. That study included government programs as income.

"The Asian American Federation also did a similar study. The federation found that many of the Asian poor worked — and on average worked longer hours. One reason is dead-end service jobs in hotels or restaurants. Recent Asian immigrants are, according to the study, often unaware of programs such as unemployment, Medicare and housing."

Chang’s report, "Asian Americans and Poverty" won in the "Television ‚Äî Asian American-Pacific Islander Issues" category in the Asian American Journalists Association’s national journalism awards, AAJA announced on Friday. Other winners, to be presented at the AAJA convention Aug. 7 in Los Angeles.

Other winners:

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