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Oct. 4th Journal-isms

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Desiree Rogers Brings “Rock Star” Persona to Johnson


Blogger Wonders Whether Democrats Are Engaging or Pimping


NBC Networks Lead in Interviews With Obama


NABJ Finds Fewer Black Journalists in Middle Management


Reporter Says Filmmaker in ACORN Case Planned to Seduce Her


Desiree Rogers Brings “Rock Star” Persona to Johnson


Desiree Rogers, “elegant and seemingly unflappable, is certainly relishing her newfound liberation,” Jeremy W. Peters wrote in a feature-story spread in Sunday’s New York Times. ‘


“During New York Fashion Week, she watched shows by Jason Wu, Thakoon and Rodarte from front-row seats, blogging about her experience. Since taking over in her new role, she has consulted the Vogue editor Anna Wintour and the Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter for advice on navigating the magazine business. ‘Desirée is a rock star,’ Ms. Wintour said when asked about Ms. Rogers’s prospects as a magazine executive.”


In August, Rogers, 51, former White House social secretary, became CEO of Johnson Publishing Co., publishers of Ebony and Jet magazines and owner of Fashion Fair cosmetics.


“She has dined and mingled at fashion show after-parties with her good friend Francisco Costa, Calvin Klein’s top designer. In her capacity as Johnson Publishing’s top saleswoman, she has taken meetings with executives at the nation’s leading corporate institutions, part of a new advertising strategy that has brought the likes of Citigroup and J. P. Morgan Chase into the pages of Ebony for the first time. . . .


“Ms. Rogers’s profile and her connections are precisely why Ms. Rice, Johnson Publishing’s chairwoman, hired her despite her lack of experience in publishing,” Peters wrote, referring to Linda Johnson Rice, daughter of company founder John H. Johnson. “Before the White House, Ms. Rogers was director of the Illinois Lottery and president of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, utility companies servicing the Chicago area.


“ ‘It does help to have someone that has a certain presence,’ Ms. Rice said in an interview from her ninth-floor office in the downtown Chicago high-rise that her father built in the early 1970s — at the time one of the city’s only office buildings built by a black man. ‘It takes you up another level. And we’ve got to be out there more.’”


“Ms. Rice said she has no plans to keep Ms. Rogers under tight control. ‘I will let Desirée be Desirée, and all that goes with that,’ she said. ‘The marketing, the leadership skills — all of that, plus the glamour and the style. Come on! We’re in the media business. We’re in the beauty business. This is perfect.’”


 


Blogger Wonders Whether Democrats Are Engaging or Pimping


“Yes, I understand that ‘CHANGE’ has to be done sometimes incrementally,” Leutisha Stills aka “The Christian Progressive Liberal,” wrote last week for the Jack & Jill Politics blog. “But, why aren’t the Democratic Leadership explaining that the same way leaders like DNC Chair Tim Kaine and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn did in person and on conference calls with Black Bloggers? Why did I feel like I was being chastised for not doing enough?


“Why did I feel like I was being PIMPED, as opposed to being ENGAGED in the process?


“Two weeks ago, I was one of 20 or so bloggers who attended the meeting with DNC Chair Tim Kaine. He didn’t make me feel like I was being disciplined for not getting the word out about what President Obama has managed to accomplish in the first two years of his presidency. In fact, he readily acknowledged the influence of bloggers on the debate of public policy and legislation. I got the sense he wanted to engage us from 2010 and onward. My colleague, Debbie Hines of LegalSpeaks, hit a home run when she advised Gov. Kaine that the problem in getting the voter enthusiasm of two years ago, is that you need to learn how to ‘tell the story.’ ”


Derrick L. Plummer, regional press secretary for African American media for the Democratic National Committee, said the outreach by Kaine and Clyburn demonstrates the importance the Democrats place on the Internet and the blogosphere in getting the Democrats’ message out. An ad from the committee also appears on the website of the Black Snob.



NBC Networks Lead in Interviews With Obama


“Earlier this week, President Obama sat down to chat with NBC’s Matt Lauer, marking the president’s 25th interview with a peacock property,” Nikki Schwab and Katy Adams wrote last week for the Washington Examiner.


“We looked at how many interviews the networks have been given since Obama took office and, not surprisingly, Fox came in last. Here’s how they fared:

“25 — NBC (including CNBC, MSNBC)

“16 — ABC

“15 — CBS

“8 — CNN (including CNN Espanol)

4 – Fox



NABJ Finds Fewer Black Journalists in Middle Management


A census of top managers in print-journalism newsrooms by the National Association of Black Journalists “found that there are few black journalists in the middle-management ranks who are being groomed for top jobs because of the recent exodus of journalists of color as documented by NABJ’s studies and the annual report by the American Society of News Editors,” the association reported on its website.


“There are more top editors, but the publisher and managing editor ranks are down from 2004, the last time a count was done on African-American print executives in the newspaper industry,” the notice said.


“There are 17 blacks heading newsrooms around the country, up from 13. Some of those joining the top ranks were Hollis Towns in Asbury Park, N.J., Robin Washington in Duluth, Africa Price in Shreveport, La., Glenn Proctor in Richmond, Va., David Blount in Stockton, Calif., and Martin Reynolds in Oakland, Calif.


“The most significant drop came at managing editor. There are 11 Managing Editors nationally; there were 17 in 2004. There are nine publishers; there were 14 in 2004.


“There are one-two punches (African-American editor-managing editor) in three cities: Oakland, Shreveport and Jackson, Miss.


“The study was compiled by Don Hudson of the Clarion Ledger and Nisa Muhammad of the Final Call under the direction of Vice President-Print Deirdre M. Childress.”


Reporter Says Filmmaker in ACORN Case Planned to Seduce Her


“Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe says that a CNN reporter who exposed his alleged plot to seduce her on a boat ‘was never going to be placed in a threatening situation,’ ” Michael Calderone wrote Monday on his Yahoo News site.


“O’Keefe offered his explanation of events Monday on Big Government and Big Journalism, two right-leaning websites run by publisher and provocateur Andrew Breitbart. . . .


“Last week, CNN investigative correspondent Abbie Boudreau said she learned of the boat plot while working on ‘Right on the Edge,’ a documentary about young conservatives. ‘Recently, I was the target of a failed punk,’ Boudreau wrote. ‘James O’Keefe, the so-called ‘pimp’ in the ACORN exposé videos, was participating in a detailed plan to “faux” seduce me on his boat.’


“Boudreau reported that Izzy Santa, one of O’Keefe’s colleagues, warned her that a scheduled face-to-face meeting with O’Keefe was really a setup for a prank.”


 


Boudreau aired her documentary, which included a report on the scheme, on Saturday night.


On his “Reliable Sources” media show on CNN Sunday, host Howard Kurtz said of O’Keefe’s intentions, “That is a new low. Even O’Keefe’s biggest backer, conservative crusader Andrew Breitbart, demanding an explanation, calling O’Keefe’s plan patently gross and offensive.”


In September 2009, Breitbart’s website BigGovernment.com posted videos, made by O’Keefe and Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, supposedly showing ACORN employees counseling the pair, ostensibly pretending to be a prostitute and a pimp, on how to avoid paying taxes and other illegal activities. The community organizing group lost its federal funding in the fallout.


 


 

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