NAHJ President Ricardo Pimentel listens to members during a business meeting at the Denver Convention Center on Thursday. (Kristopher Fortin/Latino Reporter)
Hispanic Journalists Ask U.S. to Block Ariz. Law
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists Friday called on the U.S. Justice Department to take legal action to block the new Arizona law that NAHJ said invites racial profiling of immigrants and Latinos because of its standard of ‘reasonable suspicion.’
"We speak out today as journalists in both this call for action by the Justice Department and our call for comprehensive coverage. We believe that our members, Latino journalists, are as prone to be subjected to the requirements of SB 1070 as are immigrants or other Latinos," the organization, meeting in Denver at its annual convention, said. "It is difficult enough for journalists to do their jobs, often in already intimidating situations, without being asked to produce ‘papers’ proving citizenship or legal residency.
Jake Tapper reported Tuesday for ABC News, "Administration officials tell ABC News that they expect Attorney General Eric Holder to file a lawsuit against the state of Arizona for its immigration law soon, likely even next week." He said the grounds would be "One, that it is the constitutional obligation of the federal government to set immigration policy, not the states.. . . And two, that this law will be applied, they fear, in a discriminatory fashion, although they’ll have to prove that on its face since the law has not actually been enacted yet."
NAHJ continued on Friday, "We have another fear. Because of the passions provoked by this debate, it might be tempting for news organizations to shy from allowing Latino journalists from taking the lead or participating in such coverage. However, Latino journalists, who work under the same rules of ethics and standards as do other journalists, often offer an understanding and expertise that might otherwise go lacking. In any case, a reputable news organization would not remove someone with an expertise in legal or health matters from reporting on those issues because ‘they are too close to the issue.’ ‘
The organization also called for "comprehensive, nuanced coverage that helps readers, viewers and listeners make the most sense of what is undeniably a complex issue,’ and offered its expertise.
It also restated its position that "Using terms like ‘illegal alien’, ‘illegals’ as a noun, and ‘anchor babies’ is dehumanizing and by their bias and loaded nature, eliminate any semblance of fairness when covering the debate."
Immigration was among the topics as the convention opened with a town hall meeting that brought together about a hundred community members and journalists Wednesday night at the Colorado Convention Center, Yesenia Robles reported Thursday for the Denver Post.
"Seeing a broad range of people here speaks to the challenge: How do we cover a community as complex as this one?" said Denver Post columnist Tina Griego, moderator for the panel discussion that was part of the opening for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention.
Panelists included former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm, lawyer Amber Tafoya, former state Sen. Polly Baca and assistant professor Celeste Gonzalez de Bustamantes of the University of Arizona.
- Manny Lopez, Detroit News: Labor Dept. aids and abets crime of illegal immigration
- Ruben Navarrette Jr., cnn.com: Arizona law heading for court showdown
NAHJ Board Members Insist Group Is Not in the Red
"NAHJ’s members – tempers flaring and emotions running high – packed the general meeting this week, demanding answers to concerns about the organization’s financial woes and dwindling membership," Ernesto Lopez wrote Friday for the Latino Reporter, student project at the Denver convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
"Board members tried to allay their fears, insisting the organization is not in the red, despite raiding the scholarship and reserve funds to make ends meet.
"They acknowledged that if $125,000 is not raised by year’s end, NAHJ will be in the red. They are looking for members to dig into their pockets – even in this recession in which many have lost or are in fear of losing their jobs – in order to sustain NAHJ’s future. They also promised to move the organization forward to adapt to the changing media environment which sees fewer corporate dollars coming into the coffers."
NAHJ announced it "will join 13 other journalists groups in sharing $875,819 in grants from the Challenge Fund for Journalism GLEFI (CFJ), a consortium of the Ford, McCormick and Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundations. NAHJ will receive a $25,000 challenge grant which also will be matched by individual supporters of the organization."
Ivan Roman, NAHJ executive director, told Journal-isms Wednesday that total registration for the conference was about 700, "a slight drop from the 800 people who attended last year’s event in San Juan, Puerto Rico," Lopez reported earlier.
Registration for the National Association of Black Journalists convention, scheduled July 28 to Aug. 1 in San Diego, is "close to our budgeted projection" of 1,060, NABJ President Kathy Times told Journal-isms. Last year’s gathering in Tampa, Fla., drew 1,924 registrants, then-Executive Director Karen Wynn Freeman said at the time.
- Veronica Villafane, Media Moves: Grim outlook for NAHJ
President Obama greets residents in Grand Isle, La. on June 4. (Pete Souza/White House)
Caution Urged on Reporting Obama Poll Numbers
"Last week, Campaign Desk flagged a New York Times item that reported a surprising finding: for all the criticism about the government’s response to the Gulf oil spill, Barack Obama’s public approval ratings had remained basically steady," Greg Marx wrote Friday for Columbia Journalism Review.
"But times have changed. On Wednesday evening, a joint NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (PDF) was released, finding that fewer respondents approved of Obama’s performance (45 percent) than disapproved (48 percent).
" . . . To begin with, the NBC/WSJ poll, conducted by Bill McInturff and Peter Hart, is a good one. But there are other good polls out there too, and they don‚Äôt necessarily tell the same story. On Thursday, Pew released its latest numbers. The headline? ‘Obama‚Äôs Ratings Little Affected by Recent Turmoil.’
". . . The point is not that Pew is right and the NBC poll is wrong, but that both data sets are legitimate ‚Äî so journalists should include both, and be circumspect about sweeping conclusions. Any given poll contains uncertainty, so ‘until we see several of them moving in the same direction, it‚Äôs pretty hard to be sure that you‚Äôre picking up true change,’ said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin and co-founder of the polling aggregation site Pollster.com.
"Media institutions have an obvious incentive to play up the polls they pay for. But “a story written entirely from the point of view of either of those two polls would be misleading to readers,” Franklin said. A more accurate story would present the fuller range of data — which remains, at the moment, ambiguous."
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Alex Alvarez, FishBowlNY: Slick Move: BP Creates Its Own Online Magazine
- Ryan Chittum, Columbia Journalism Review: Covering the “Historic” Financial Reform Bill
- Askia Muhammad, Washington Informer: Barack Obama as Abe Lincoln, etc.
- Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Rolling Stone digs news surprisingly well
- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: Nation building in Afghanistan? That’s Afghans’ job
- Terence Samuel, theRoot.com: Obama Makes It McChrystal Clear
Ken Bunting Surfaces as Director of New FOI Coalition
Bunting was associate publisher after serving seven years as the Post-Intelligencer’s executive editor and the only African American editor at Hearst Corp. newspapers.
In his new position, "Bunting will oversee all daily operations of the NFOIC, including fundraising, coalition building, and managing the Knight Freedom of Information Fund, a new initiative created by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to support FOI litigation," the announcement said.
He "will administer funds for the Knight FOI Fund and oversee pass-through grants to state freedom of information groups, work daily to strengthen the work of its member coalitions, coordinate an annual conference, publicize the efforts of the NFOIC and its affiliates, and collaborate with a board of directors to chart the future of the organization." Bunting officially assumes the job on July 1.
Press Group Wants Better Protection at World Cup
The International Federation of Journalists on Friday called on the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) to ensure the safety of the journalists accredited to cover the tournament.
"According to press reports, on June 21st, 2010, at the end of the training session, the Cameroonian player Alexandre Song threatened Jean Robert Fouda, Journalist of the Rep?®res newspaper and the online newspaper Camfoot.com, accusing him of propagating false reports in exchange of money. According to witnesses, the player told the journalist that ‘I swear you on the tomb of my children that you will pay dear for what you said’.
"IFJ deplores another incident which occurred on June 22nd when, following the elimination of his team, Algerian Rafik Sa?Øfi slapped a female journalist, Asma Halimi of the Algerian newspaper Comp?©tition. She has announced her intention to press charges for the assault and indicated that she had recently published an article about the player, adding that ‘perhaps, he was not satisfied’.
"A few days before the beginning of the world cup, nearly eight foreign journalists and media workers (Portugal, Spain and China) were attacked, sometimes by armed men, and robbed in their hotels."
Meanwhile, "ESPN on Wednesday morning drew the largest audience for a soccer telecast in its history, as 6.16 million viewers tuned in to watch the United States top Algeria 1-0 in a crucial 2010 FIFA World Cup match," Anthony Crupi reported Thursday for MediaWeek.
"Through Wednesday, June 23, ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 are averaging 2.66 million World Cup viewers, up 49 percent from 1.79 million viewers four years ago.
"ESPN said the Group C clincher now stands as the most-viewed broadband sporting event ever, drawing 1.1 million unique viewers to ESPN3.com. The average time spent viewing the match was 43 minutes."
As reported on Wednesday, Univision, which is broadcasting the games in Spanish, said that "Univisiion Interactive Media continues to set record traffic every day since the start of the World Cup across the board – site wide on Univision.com, on UnivisionFutbol.com, during live video streaming, and across mobile offerings."
- ESPN.com: ESPN’s World Cup Bump
Caption: Print edition is available Sunday.
Boston Globe Diversity Magazine Confirms Setback
"Workforce diversity along racial and ethnic lines likely took a big hit during the recession that began in 2007, economists and human resources professionals said," Ann Carrns wrote for the Boston Globe in the Globe’s semiannual magazine, Diversity Boston.
‚Äú ‘The labor force is less diverse, simply because of the sharper job losses among African-Americans and Latinos,‚Äô said Christian Weller, a professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Diversity Boston went online at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Friday and the print edition will be available in the Sunday Globe, Shirley Leung, its editor, told Journal-isms.
As Alex Alvarez wrote for MediaBistro, it features a cover story on how Boston-based companies are fostering workplace diversity by supporting programs that attract or retain "workers of different ethnicities, ages, religions, sexual orientations and physical abilities," as well as military personnel."
Leung, the Globe’s assistant managing editor for business, oversaw a redesign of the magazine and told Alvarez, "We as a region don’t talk enough about diversity, and that’s why I jumped at the opportunity to work on a magazine dedicated to exploring diversity, whether in the workplace or where we live."
In addition to featuring the print edition’s content, the online edition of Diversity Boston includes video and other multimedia extras.
Bob Johnson Announces Plan for Factories in Haiti
"The founder of the U.S. cable TV company Black Entertainment Television has announced a project for factories that will build construction materials in Haiti," the Associated Press reported Wednesday from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
"A press release from Robert L. Johnson says the two factories will build earthquake- and hurricane-resistant panels for housing in Haiti’s quake-battered capital and the city of Cap-Haitien.
"Johnson announced the project Wednesday during a visit to Port-au-Prince, where he met with Haitian President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.
"The factories will be developed through a company jointly owned by Johnson’s RLJ Companies and South Carolina-based Global Building Solutions. The partnership has built a resort in the West African nation of Liberia."
Short Takes
- "As for the well-publicized shoplifting arrest this week that even made the Huffington Post, WTNH-8 issued a statement saying that, ‚ÄúDesiree Fontaine is currently out on personal leave. Steve Parker will be hosting Connecticut Style and Tom Michaels will be covering traffic on a temporary basis while Ms. Fontaine is attending to personal matters,‚Äù Joe Amarante, television editor of the New Haven (Conn.) Register wrote on Friday, regretting "ignorant comments on this and many other stories." Roger Catlin, Hartford Courant television columnist, wrote, "This kind of self-destructive behavior makes no sense, just as it didn’t for Winona Ryder. It could be the sign of deeper behavioral problems. Still, when it comes to a media sideshow, you couldn’t ask for much more."
- Media organizations filed briefs with the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City (2nd Cir.) to deny Chevron’s request that filmmaker Joe Berlinger turn over 600 hours worth of unused film from his documentary "Crude: The Real Price of Oil," which depicts rain forest damage in Ecuador that was allegedly caused by the oil company Texaco, which was later bought by Chevron, Ellen Biltz wrote Thursday for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
- "Malaysia banned three works of political cartoons that criticize the government, but one of the artists said Friday he was obligated to highlight issues other cartoonists would not," Julia Zappei wrote Friday for the Associated Press. "The government said the cartoons in two books and a magazine posed a security threat."
- "Coverage of the death of child TV star Gary Coleman and its aftermath gave the entertainment magazines a summertime boost in the week ended June 13," Paige Albiniak reported Tuesday for Broadcasting & Cable.
- According to News Director Jim Turpin of KMPH-TV in Fresno, Calif., a Fox affiliate, "and his colleagues at some other Fox affiliates, disassociating their local news casts from Fox News Channel’s conservative slant is often a challenge," Joe Strupp wrote Monday for Media Matters for America. "Several news directors say Fox’s reputation for right-leaning broadcasts often misleads viewers into thinking their local news reports follow the same approach."
- "Activist Al Sharpton, keynote speaker at a kickoff prayer breakfast at the National Newspaper Publishers Associations 70th Anniversary Convention last week, warned the more than 215 Black publishers to stay in control of the definition of the Black struggle and to not back down from demanding their fair share of advertising dollars," Hazel Trice Edney reported for the National Newspaper Publishers Association.
- "The size of Western Europe, with almost no paved roads, Congo is the sucking vortex where Africa’s heart should be. Independent Congo gave the world Mobutu Sese Seko, who for 32 years impoverished his people while traveling the world in a chartered Concorde," Alex Perry wrote on the July 5 issue of Time magazine. But Julie Hollar of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting notes, "Independent Congo didn’t give the world Mobutu; that gift belongs to the U.S. and Belgium, who supported the overthrow and assassination of democratically-elected Patrice Lumumba and helped prop up the horror that was Mobutu for decades afterward."
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