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9/10/10

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YouTube video on “International Burn a Koran Day,” featuring Pastor Terry Jones’ Dove church colleague Pastor Wayne Sapp, had already been posted on July 17. (Video)


After Tracking Koran Threat,”Sillier” to Blame Media


“Is the media responsible for having turned an obscure Florida pastor with a flock of no more than 50 people into an international figure by publicising his threat to burn the Qur’an?” Roy Greenslade wrote Friday on his blog for Britain’s Guardian newspaper.


“Up to a point, Lord Copper. To blame the media for the message is easy enough. It was certainly the view of many callers from across the globe to a BBC World Service phone-in yesterday evening.


“But once we see how the story emerged, bit by bit, it becomes less tenable – and much sillier – to accuse ‘the media’ of giving Terry Jones a public stage for his absurd stunt.


“Jones, who runs a church called the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville (population 115,000; home of the University of Florida), originally announced his plan for ‘International Burn a Koran Day’ back in July.


“In trying to trace the story’s exact origins, I came across several references on the web in late July. One example – posted on an atheist site – also referred to the setting up of a Facebook page announcing the event.


“But the above YouTube video, featuring Jones’s Dove church colleague Pastor Wayne Sapp, had already been posted on 17 July. And there had been immediate reactions to that, from inside and outside the US. . . .”



Elvis Mitchell to Co-Host Revival of “At the Movies”


Roger Ebert is bringing back “At the Movies,” the landmark film review program that he created with Gene Siskel in 1975, William Yelles reported Friday for TheWrap.com.


The new version, “Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies,” will be co-produced by Ebert and his wife Chaz at the original series’ birthplace, WTTW Chicago, and broadcast on PBS stations nationwide beginning in January, he announced on his website Friday.


“The trademarked ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ format will be revived as well. Principal critics will be Christy Lemire of the Associated Press and Elvis Mitchell of KCRW. Bloggers Kim Morgan and Omar Moore will be featured contributors.


“Ebert, who lost his ability to speak after a bout with thyroid cancer, will appear in every episode, with segments titled ‘Roger’s Office.’ He will use his computer voice to discuss classic, overlooked and new films. But he will not debate with the two co-hosts, he said. ‘They’ll be awarding the Thumbs, and you can’t have three Thumbs.’ “


Mitchell, host of ‘Under the Influence’ on Turner Classic Movies, reviewed films for The New York Times, hosted a half-hour-long interview show called “The Treatment” at KCRW-FM in Santa Monica, Calif., and was entertainment critic for NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday” until 2005.


in 2008, he co-produced “The Black List” for HBO Documentary Films, dramatic portraits of such contemporary African American icons as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Sean Combs.


Columbia Pictures announced in 2005 that Mitchell would jointly head a production office in New York, and “Weekend Edition” told Journal-isms then that Mitchell would not review films for NPR while he held a post at Columbia Pictures. He has not returned to “Weekend Edition,” but it could not be learned whether he still has ties to movie studios.


A WTTW news release added on “At the Movies”: “Occasional contributors will be Kim Morgan of Los Angeles and Omar Moore of San Francisco both respected and popular film bloggers. Morgan specializes in her love of film noir and classic cinema at www.sunsetgun.com and writes for MSN and the Huffington Post. Moore, an attorney, publishes reviews, essays and video essays on his site, www.popcornreel.com. He is also a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. Lemire, Mitchell and Morgan were guest co-hosts after the death of Siskel.”


 


Terence Samuel Joins National Journal as a Managing Editor


“Terence Samuel, former chief congressional correspondent of U.S. News and World Report and national correspondent and New York bureau chief of the Philadelphia Inquirer, joins the National Journal as managing editor of congressional coverage,” showall Keach Hagey of Politico reported on Friday.


“He is also a former director of editorial programming at AOL Black Voices and helped launch The Root, the Washington Post‚Äôs online magazine of at opinion and analysis aimed at African American readers. He wrote for the American Prospect for six years.


“He is also the author of The Upper House: A Journey Behind The Closed Doors of the U.S. Senate.”


In 2006, National Journal Group expanded its influence with an editorial partnership with “Washington Week and Gwen Ifill,” the longest running PBS public affairs program. It was renamed, “”Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal.”


The level of diversity at National Journal was criticized this week by Holly Yeager in the Columbia Journalism Review.


“Since June, when the Atlantic Media Group hired Ron Fournier, the AP‚Äôs Washington bureau chief, to be editor in chief of the National Journal Group, I count just four women among 20 high-profile hires. Let‚Äôs see‚Äîquick back of the envelope calculation here. That looks like 20 percent to me. Not good,” she wrote.


Journalists of color at the publication seemed to be even more scarce.



Pacifica Radio in Talks With Al Jazeera


“Pacifica Radio, the nonprofit organization that runs the nation’s oldest public-radio network, is in talks with the Al Jazeera Network to put the Persian Gulf-based news service on its five stations, including WPFW-FM in Washington,” Paul Farhi reported Thursday in the Washington Post.


“If an agreement is reached, Pacifica would become the biggest American broadcaster to air Al Jazeera, whose news reports have at times drawn criticism from Western governments, including the Bush administration during the early days of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Al Jazeera is perhaps best known for being the first network to broadcast video communiques from Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.


“Pacifica’s parent organization, the Pacifica Foundation in Berkeley, Calif., has been negotiating with Doha-based Al Jazeera to carry the audio portion of its English-language TV channel, according to people familiar with the discussions.


“Closing a deal with Pacifica, which is known for its liberal-leaning programming, would be a boost for Al Jazeera. The network, owned by the emir of the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, has struggled to gain a foothold in the American market.”


 


Politico Starts Opinion Columns, Hiring Two More White Guys


Despite its editors’ proclamations that they appreciated the need for diversity, Politico sent the opposite signal when it launched in 2007 with 19 journalists, only one of whom was African American. It unveiled a list of big names, but all of them were white.


The online-and-print operation seems to be repeating itself.


“Politico has built a successful enterprise on the idea that there is no such thing as too much information when it comes to political news. Now it is going to apply that concept to political opinion,” Jeremy W. Peters reported Thursday for the New York Times.


“Starting on Oct. 1, Politico will run weekly opinion columns by Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC host and former United States representative, and Michael Kinsley, a columnist for The Atlantic.”


Scarborough and Kinsley add two more white guys to the list.


 

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