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Sherrod Debacle: Will Media Feel Backlash?

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Right-Wing Assault Reiterates Need for Gatekeepers

“Biggest Gift of Spectrum” Could Make You a Station Owner

John X. Miller, Ousted at Nonprofit, Returns to Journalism

ESPN Ombudsman Faults Handling of LeBron’s “Decision”

Haiti Station, Anderson Cooper Honored by Columbia U.

CBS Launching Daytime Talk Show With Six Women

Short Takes

Right-Wing Assault Reiterates Need for Gatekeepers

The firing of Agriculture Department staffer Shirley Sherrod – over racial remarks that were taken out of context – raises judgment questions not only about the Obama administration and the NAACP, whose president is a former journalist, but about the news media.

“This whole saga confirms, as if it needed confirmation,” veteran journalist Paul Delaney told Journal-isms by e-mail on Wednesday, “sloppy ‘journalism’ is the thing this year & it can be toxic, sometimes [irreparably] so. what are we going to do about it???”

Delaney, a retired senior editor at the New York Times, picks up a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Black Journalists next week.

The need for unsloppy journalism couldn’t be clearer in an era when right-wingers with an agenda have set their targets on the news media and come back with victories obtained by questionable means – from edited video sound bites of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright during the 2008 presidential race to the successful campaign to discredit ACORN, the agency designed to help low-income people.

“Despite long-standing charges from conservatives that the news media are determinedly liberal and ignore conservative ideas, the news media agenda is easily permeated by a persistent media campaign, even when there is little or no truth to the story,” two professors warned after studying the 2008 race.

“In the instance of the 2008 presidential election, the conservative echo chamber’s allegations about ACORN, mostly unfounded, became one of the news media’s major stories of the campaign.”

Last week, it was the New Black Panther Party, a fringe group alleged by conservatives to be the beneficiary of racial solidarity from President Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The group allegedly sought to escape responsibility for supposedly intimidating black voters in Philadelphia nearly two years ago. The detractors won an acknowledgment from Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander that the Post should have been faster on the story. Wednesday’s report on the Sherrod case went on the front page.

The White House formally apologized Wednesday to Sherrod, who until Tuesday was the rural development director for the Agriculture Department’s state office in Georgia. “The apology capped what had been a humiliating and fast-paced turn of events for the White House, the national media and the N.A.A.C.P., all of whom, Mr. Gibbs said, overreacted to a video that appeared to show Ms. Sherrod saying that she had discriminated against a white farmer.

“The remarks were taken out of context,” as Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Sarah Wheaton reported for the New York Times. Their reference was to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, who fielded questions about the debacle at his media briefing. Benjamin Jealous, a former journalist who heads the NAACP, apologized earlier for denouncing Sherrod without having seen the full video.

“Snippets of that speech – a heavily edited version – made their way through the Internet and were played by Fox News on Tuesday, which used them in the context of reporting about the N.A.A.C.P. last week accusing parts of the Tea Party movement of being racist.”

[There was disagreement over Fox News’ role. In the Washington Post on Thursday, Howard Kurtz wrote, “But for all the chatter – some of it from Sherrod herself – that she was done in by Fox News, the network didn’t touch the story until her forced resignation was made public Monday evening, with the exception of brief comments by [Bill] O’Reilly.”

[But Fox’s own website story Tuesday said, “The Agriculture Department announced Monday, shortly after FoxNews.com published its initial report on the video, that Sherrod had resigned.]

To Sherrod at least, Fox News is clear in its agenda.

“They were looking for the result they got yesterday,” she told Joe Strupp of Media Matters for America, referring to her firing. “I am just a pawn. I was just here. They are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to where we were many years ago. Back to where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person.”

Meanwhile, instead of deploying more gatekeepers to keep such influences – real or perceived – in check, the migration of news to the Internet has meant the mainstream media are giving us fewer.

In Washington, for example, the deep-pocketed Robert Allbritton, whose company funds Politico as well as the local ABC affiliate and an all-news cable outlet, is preparing to launch a hyperlocal website, TBD, led by General Manager James M. Brady, formerly executive editor of washingtonpost.com, and Erik Wemple, former editor of the Washington City Paper.

“TBD at its inception will employ no editors whose sole function is copy editing,” Wemple told Journal-isms by e-mail on Wednesday, speaking of those once called “the last line of defense.”

“We screened our editors for copy skills by administering a copy-editing test to each one. Those whom we hired did quite well on it. We’ll rely heavily on those skills from the start, but as with any web-first or web-only operation, we’ll need our reporters to deliver clean copy in every blog post and article. Would we prefer to have a squadron of copy editors? No doubt. Faced with a choice between hiring copy editors or reporters, though, we went with the latter. We’ll leave it to you and others to judge how smart an idea that was.”

Eric Deggans, media critic for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, wrote on Wednesday, “Sherrod’s case shows exactly why fair-minded news outlets should be careful – taking time to make sure these stories trumpeted by media outlets with clear political agendas are examined carefully. 

“It’s time to put the brakes on a runaway media culture open to manipulation and subversion; outlets moving slowly on stories shouldn’t necessarily be penalized.

“Reporting on Sherrod’s case without looking closely at media’s role in amplifying it misses the biggest aspect of the story, moving the incident into the more comfortable confines of politics rather than news [outlets’] own conflicted values and compromised news judgments.”

Later in the day, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza agreed: Referring to Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger who posted the misleading video, Cillizza wrote, “The story being played out in the press is now entirely focused on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of the White House – a process story about who knew what when – rather than on where Breitbart got the video and whether he knew it was edited in such a way as to make Sherrod look bad. (For his part, Breitbart isn’t revealing where the video came from and insists that he does not have the full-length video of Sherrod’s full remarks.)

In his new book, “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” Jonathan Alter told how media mogul Rupert Murdoch wanted to endorse Barack Obama during the 2008 election campaign. But Roger Ailes, who heads Murdoch’s Fox News Channel, insisted that such an endorsement would be bad for business. Murdoch capitulated and endorsed Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican.

In today’s environment, more media outfits are willing to tailor the news to appeal to what they consider the most profitable political demographic. Perhaps as cynically, more Internet news startups seem to be more about achieving business objectives than journalistic ones.

News consumers must demand better, but will they? Will news media feel any heat over their roles in the Sherrod debacle?

A sponsor at WLCC-AM in the Tampa market threw a celebration in May, with the station’s “La Ley” logo prominently featured. The station, owned by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, could be a model for transferring more stations to minority ownership.

“Biggest Gift of Spectrum” Could Make You a Station Owner

Trinity Broadcasting Co., which calls itself the world’s largest religious network, is donating up to 155 television stations to a group devoted to increasing broadcast ownership for people of color, the company announced on Tuesday.

In addition, the radio giant Clear Channel is offering the group two AM stations, one in Minneapolis and the other in New Jersey.

David Honig accepted the donated stations on behalf of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, of which he is president and executive director. He said the stations would be used to train potential owners of color and that his group would then sell them for 50 percent of fair market value.

Honig, speaking at the MMTC’s eighth annual Access to Capital and Telecommunications Policy Conference, held in Washington, called the donations “the biggest gift of spectrum in history.”

Asked whether readers interested in becoming station owners should contact him, he said yes.

Trinity Broadcasting calls itself the world‚Äôs largest religious network and America‚Äôs most watched faith channel. It “offers 24 hours of commercial-free inspirational programming that appeal to people in a wide variety of Protestant, Catholic and Messianic Jewish denominations.”

Colby M. May, counsel to the network, said that when the nation last year completed a decade-long, $2 billion effort to convert its television signals to digital, Trinity found it was not cost-effective to transform all of its stations.

“The number of stations is potentially 155,” May told Journal-isms via e-mail. “MMTC is completing its due diligence and will select some or all of the stations. All of these stations are satellite fed TV Translators,” meaning they originate very little local programming. “When picked-up by MMTC they will become LPTV stations,” he said, referring to low-power television stations.

Clear Channel is donating KFXN-AM in Minneapolis and WTOC-AM in Sussex County, N.J.

“Last year at MMTC’s conference, the company donated a transmitter to the MMTC, as well as four AM stations: WHJA AM (Laurel, MS), KYHN (Fort Smith, AK), KYFX (Wabasha, MN), and WYNF AM (North Augusta, SC),” Clear Channel said in its announcement.

“Also today, Clear Channel and the MMTC announced that two of four AM stations previously donated to MMTC along with other equipment will be re-launched with new minority operators and executives. The rigorous screening process, determined by the MMTC, focused on candidates who could best serve their respective communities,” the announcement said.

Clear Channel was the subject of a $24 billion takeover by two private equity firms, Bain Capital and THL Partners. “Since that leveraged buyout was completed last year, the company has undertaken a restructuring program to cope with the billions of dollars in debt it incurred in the deal,” the New York Times reported in October.

In that financial climate, Steve Davis, senior vice president for engineering and capital management, told Journal-isms, Clear Channel was “not able to donate as much cash as we have in the past” to MMTC. “Some stations weren’t top performers for us,” he said, and “the goodwill will help Clear Channel more than if we kept the stations.” Moreover, Davis said, Clear Channel CEO John Hogan has been a supporter of the group.

MMTC already owns and operates WLCC-AM in the Tampa Bay area, which Honig said would be used as a model for the new stations.

WLCC was donated in 2008 by Mega Communications, which was divesting itself of its broadcast properties. Eran Schreiber, who was part of Mega, was brought in to rent the station from MMTC and to operate it, Schrieber told Journal-isms. It retained its regional Mexican format. The general manager, Maria Navarro, and controller, Angela Cotto, its only employees, are Hispanic.

“We proved the model works,” Schreiber said.

John X. Miller, Ousted at Nonprofit, Returns to Journalism

John X. Miller, a veteran journalist who left the news business to become CEO of a Detroit nonprofit, has returned to newspapering. According to published reports, he was ousted at the nonprofit in November.

Miller started June 21 as editor of the Hickory (N.C.) Record, a 22,000-circulation paper with eight newsroom employees owned by Media General.

George Hunter reported in the Detroit News on Nov. 17 that “John X. Miller was released Friday from his position as CEO of THAW (The Heat and Warmth Fund), following an internal investigation into fiscal improprieties, said Dianne Bostic Robinson, president of the agency’s board of directors. ‘He was let go on Friday. As it relates to specifics, I can’t talk about that because those are personnel-related issues,’ Robinson said. ‘I can say it was a unanimous decision by the board.’ “

Miller, 54, told Journal-isms he was advised by his lawyer not to comment on his experience at THAW.

However, he said, “What happened at THAW has nothing to do with what I’m doing here” and added that he was glad to be performing community journalism, which is “what I was trained to do for many years.”

Miller took a buyout from the Detroit Media Partnership, which runs the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, in 2007. He had been public editor of the Free Press and its director of community affairs and then vice president of Detroit Free Press Charities. He had also been a board member of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

He said he was happy to be back in the state in which he was born and reared, and that the paper had lost staffers as Media General consolidated editing functions. The company also owns the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, television outlets and  other smaller papers, including some in North and South Carolina.

Miller also said he was glad to return to journalism. “We have a higher calling to sustain what we do,” he said. “Our democracy depends on it.”

ESPN Ombudsman Faults Handling of LeBron’s “Decision”

“It was billed without irony as ‘The Decision.’ But for those who thought ESPN could agree to televise live LeBron James’ announcement that he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat ‚Äî ultimately served up with ample hype in the form of an awkward, uncomfortable, staged one-hour network special ‚Äî and still be free from public controversy, “it might as well have been called The Delusion,” Don Ohlmeyer, ombudsman at ESPN, wrote on Wednesday.

 “As has been well documented, Team LeBron proposed the exclusive special to ESPN with the following conditions: (1) Veteran broadcaster Jim Gray, who has no current association with ESPN, would host the segment in which James announced his plans; (2) The network would yield the hour of advertising inventory to be sold by James’ team with the proceeds directed to the Boys & Girls Club of America; (3) The network would produce the entire show and pay for all production costs.

“Notwithstanding the noteworthy audience for the July 8 special ‚Äî it peaked at more than 13 million viewers, giving ESPN its second-highest rating of the year -‚Äî I think ESPN made some major mistakes handling the entire affair. In fact, in many ways, the network’s decisions in airing the James’ special ‚Äî and its justification for making them ‚Äî are a metaphor for what ails the media today. . . .”

“Just more than two years ago, ESPN’s then-ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber wrote the following: ‘Clearly, ESPN’s many layers of editors and producers are not all on the same page, not even about some basic principles that define the nature of a journalistic enterprise. Without a formal, written handbook of guidance and policy, there is not much chance they ever will be, and the price for that will be paid in avoidable suspensions, apologies and erosion of credibility.’

“I asked Patrick Stiegman, vice president/executive editor and producer for ESPN.com, about these written policies. ‘We are in the process of codifying many of the standards and practices for our newsgathering organization,’ he said, ‘but one of the tenets of that exercise is that ESPN prohibits payment to a source for a story or news interview. Even while not formalized, that is the guideline under which we have operated.’

“Two years later, and they’re still in the codifying process. Either this is a far more complex exercise than it appears, or ESPN is reluctant to fully embrace formalized editorial and operating standards.” 

An engineer adjusts the sound for journalists on the air at Haiti’s Signal FM 90.5 radio station in January. Signal FM was Port-au-Prince’s lone surviving radio station. (Credit: Lannis Waters/Palm Beach Post)

Haiti Station, Anderson Cooper Honored by Columbia U.

“The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has announced the 2010 winners of the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes for outstanding reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean,” the school said on Wednesday. “The oldest international award in journalism, now in its 72nd year, the Cabot Prize honors journalists who have covered the Western Hemisphere and, through their reporting and editorial work, have furthered inter-American understanding.

“The 2010 gold medalists are freelance reporter Tyler Bridges; Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director of Esta Noche and Confidencial; Norman Gall, founder and editor of Braudel Papers; and Joaquim Ibarz, blogger and correspondent for La Vanguardia. Special Citations are awarded to Haiti‚Äôs Signal FM radio station, and to CNN and the program ‘Anderson Cooper 360¬?’ for coverage of January‚Äôs earthquake in Haiti.”

CBS Launching Daytime Talk Show With Six Women

“CBS will take a new view of daytime after the end of ‘As the World Turns,’ ” Lynn Elber reported Wednesday for the Huffington Post.

“When the soap opera concludes its 54-year run in September, it will be replaced by an hour-long daily talk show with six celebrity co-hosts ‚Äî all women, an echo of ABC’s popular ‘The View’ series.

“CBS announced Wednesday that the hosts of the as-yet untitled daytime show include Sharon Osbourne; Sara Gilbert of TV’s ‘Roseanne’ fame; Holly Robinson Peete from ‘Celebrity Apprentice;’ Broadway actress Marissa Jaret Winokur; Leah Remini of ‘The King of Queens;’ and Julie Chen, who hosts CBS’ ‘Big Brother’ and ‘The Early Show.’

“Gilbert developed the program, which will be the network’s only daytime talk show, and is its executive producer. It’s set for a fall debut, but a specific date was not announced.

“The show will take a moms’ view of entertainment and news stories. The hosts all have children, ranging in age from infants to adults.

“Chen will give up her ‘Early Show’ co-anchor role but will continue to appear on the morning program, CBS News said. Chen, who is married to CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves, will remain as ‘Big Brother’ host.”

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