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Journal-isms 12/22

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Editor Says Givhan, Wilbon Exits Point to Diversity “Priority”


Did Victorious Obama Raise Hopes on Immigration?


Obama Promises Pro-Gay Administrative Actions


The “Story” on Net Neutrality Decision Varies by Outlet


Right-Wing Media Said to Rush to Barbour’s Defense


So You Want to Be a Journalist?


Vegas TV Critic Decries “Hispanic-Free” Anchor Teams


Editor Says Givhan, Wilbon Exits Point to Diversity “Priority”


When the Washington Post announced that Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic Robin Givhan was leaving the Style section for Newsweek and the Daily Beast, a Twitter follower messaged Journal-isms, “Who’s replacing her? Wiltz is gone, Robin is leaving…what fabulous Black girl writers are left in Style?”


The reference was to Teresa Wiltz, one in a line of long-form writers who have labored in the paper’s marquee features section. Wiltz took a buyout and went to theRoot.com, a Washington Post Co. property that focuses on African Americans.


One message from Givhan’s departure and that of sports columnist Michael Wilbon — black journalists with large followings — is that “we very much need to have more columnists who represent different communities,” the Post’s executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, told Journal-isms on Wednesday.


“We absolutely consider that a priority.”


Wilbon co-hosts ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” and left the Post this month after 31 years to expand his role at the sports network, online and on the air.


“His departure leaves us with four columnists: two women, two men, all white. And we will be filling the position,” Sports Editor Matt Vita told Journal-isms this month.


Brauchli, who has presided over a shrinkage of the newsroom staff since he arrived in 2008, said, “I worry that we do have some diminishing of diversity. Every manager in this building knows that that’s important.”


When a section editor recently displayed an all-white array of political prognosticators on his Sunday section front, the editor heard about it the next day, Brauchli said. “We don’t do everything as well as we should,” he conceded, but noted that news managers of color were in the chain of command when such omissions have occurred.


The departure of Givhan, who had been at the Post for 15 years, leaves the paper’s daily Style section with one African American reporter, Jacqueline Trescott, who writes on a contract basis after having taken a buyout in 2006. Wil Haygood went to the paper’s National news staff, and over the years such other African American writers as Joel Dreyfuss, Dorothy Gilliam, Lynne Duke, the late David Mills, Hollie I. West, Lonnae O’Neal Parker and DeNeen L. Brown have worked there.


Just five years ago, the Style department was headed by two black journalists, Eugene Robinson, now a Pulitzer Prize-winning op-ed columnist, and his deputy, Deborah Heard, who succeeded him as top Style editor, then took a buyout.


Brauchli said the Style section had been reconfigured, and that Brown, who has been reassigned to the Washington Post Magazine, should be considered part of the mix.


Still, Brauchli said those who know of good candidates for the section should come forward.




“Annual spending by Freedom Forum and the museum has skyrocketed,” Jim Hopkins writes, referring to the Newseum, “contributing to $224 million in foundation overspending during 2007-2009 alone . . . The museum is the culprit.”


Reports From Freedom Forum Reveal “Extraordinary Spending”


“This is a story about what happened to a glittering fortune — one amassed by generations of Gannett employees, only to be drained from the company’s charitable arm, the original Gannett Foundation,” Jim Hopkins, publisher and editor of the Gannett Blog, wrote on Tuesday.


“Freedom Forum tax documents and annual reports reveal extraordinary spending on construction, interest payments, salaries and bonuses. Coupled with bruising stock market declines, the endowment’s non-real estate assets plunged to $400 million in 2009 from $900 million in 2000, when the Newseum expansion started,”


“Meanwhile, as museum staff got laid off, top executives received six-figure bonuses in 2008 for completing the museum, even though it opened years later than first forecast. Overby, for one, got a $375,000 cash bonus, bringing his total pay that year to $991,044 in wages, benefits and expenses,” Hopkins wrote, referring to Chairman and CEO Charles Overby. “Including expenses over the past decade, Freedom Forum has now paid him $7 million.”


The Freedom Forum considers itself a champion of diversity efforts, with its Freedom Forum Diversity Institute maintaining three initiatives, including the Chips Quinn Scholars program, the American Indian Journalism Institute and the Crazy Horse Journalism Workshop.


Hopkins continued, “These details emerge in nearly 10,000 pages of IRS reports Freedom Forum and the Newseum filed in 2000-2009. The 2009 report was filed Oct. 29. I obtained copies of the documents under federal open records laws. They’re the only comprehensive source of financial information such non-profits are required to make public.


“To be sure, Freedom Forum and the Newseum may have other financial resources to tap, including potentially millions in outstanding donations, plus a smaller endowment held by the museum itself worth $27 million at the end of 2009. Still, barring an exceptional reversal in fortunes this year and in the immediate years ahead, it’s unclear how much longer the two institutions can be sustained.


“I asked Freedom Forum officials about the financial condition of the foundation and the museum, in e-mails last Wednesday and on Dec. 8. They declined to comment, other than to acknowledge receiving my requests.”


Did Victorious Obama Raise Hopes on Immigration?


“In a year-end news conference before heading to Hawaii for a vacation, Obama hailed the lame-duck session of the 111th Congress as the ‘most productive post-election period in decades,’ ” William Douglas reported Friday for McClatchy Newspapers.


“And it comes on the heels of the most productive two years that we’ve had in generations,” the president said.


“Obama’s assessment came on a day of major accomplishments that began with his signing the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and was followed by the Senate’s ratification of the administration’s nuclear arms treaty with Russia and its approval of $4.2 billion to pay for health care for firefighters, police and other first responders who contracted ailments after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on New York’s World Trade Center.


” ‘One thing I hope people have seen during this lame duck, I am persistent,’ he said. ‘If I believe in something strongly, I stay on it.’


“But the president also expressed disappointment over what he didn’t accomplish: getting Congress to pass the DREAM Act, a measure that would’ve allowed a conditional path to citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants, and securing long-term funding of the federal government.


The question about the DREAM Act allowed Obama to sound “like a dad,” and not professorial as he is sometimes viewed, commentators on CNN said afterward.


” ‘Maybe my biggest disappointment was the DREAM Act vote,’ Obama said,” Douglas reported. “‘I get letters from kids all across the country, came here when they were 5, came here when they were 8. Their parents were undocumented. … The kids don’t know. The kids are going to school, like any other American kid.’ “


The DREAM Act question was raised by Juan Carlos López, Washington correspondent for CNN en Español. That he was called on was also seen as a sign that Obama wanted to emphasize the issue.


But Lopez told Journal-isms, “I always expect to be called, like everyone else in the room, if not I wouldn’t go. Good I got the chance today.”


Asked what he thought about Obama’s answer, he said by e-mail, “I found it interesting that he ties immigration reform to Dream Act, could it mean that’s what the WH will fight for during the next two years?”


A second journalist of color asked a question, Dan Lothian of CNN. Lothian asked Obama the status of the “car in the ditch” he mentions in discussing the state of the economy as he found it. “The car is on level ground,” Obama said.




President Obama tells the Advocate’s Kelly Eleveld that the Pentagon is “prepared to implement” repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and it will take months, not years. (Credit: Pete Souza/White House)


Obama Promises Pro-Gay Administrative Actions


President Obama said he was “wrestling” with the issue of same-sex marriage at his news conference Friday, but Obama had already made the same revelation in an interview published Tuesday with the Advocate, a newspaper targeting gays and lesbians.


With repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” accomplished during the lame-duck session of Congress, Obama also was asked about his next priorities for gays and lesbians.


Obama referred to the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. “I have been struck — let me take the former — repealing DOMA, getting [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act] done, those are things that should be done. I think those are natural next steps legislatively. I’ll be frank with you, I think that’s not going to get done in two years. I think that’s — we’re on a three- or four-year time frame unless there’s a real transformation of attitudes within the Republican caucus,” Obama said in an interview with Kelly Eleveld, LGBT journalist of the year of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.


She asked, “I know one of the things that people were interested [in] — especially gay and transgender Americans — was passing employment nondiscrimination protections. But looking forward, it looks like most legislation, pro-LGBT, will be stalled in Congress. . . .


Obama said, “. . . there are still a lot of things we can do administratively even if we don’t pass things legislatively. So my ability to make sure that the federal government is an employer that treats gays and lesbians fairly, that’s something I can do, and sets a model for folks across the board.”


 


The “Story” on Net Neutrality Decision Varies by Outlet


“The Federal Communications Commission voted three to two on Tuesday afternoon to approve a new set of rules governing the practices of broadband Internet service providers. The new policy bans discrimination by Internet companies of any specific online service. But does not go so far as to bar those from charging more money for faster service, leaving open the potential for a ‘tiered Internet’ scenario,” Lauren Kirchner wrote for Columbia Journalism Review.


“The rules differ for ‘wired’ and ‘wireless’ Internet providers, as well; wireless companies are allowed to block certain apps and services so long as they are not in direct competition with their own products. Chairman Julius Genachowski says this differentiation is intended to encourage innovation and growth of wireless services, but that the commission would leave open the possibility of additional regulation in the future.


“So is the new FCC policy good or bad for the American consumer? News readers will be forgiven if they frankly have no idea. The bombast and posturing surrounding the vote is so loud, and its details so foggy and arcane that it’s hard to make out what the ‘story’ of the story is.” She went on to list the various angles news outlets used on the story.



Right-Wing Media Said to Rush to Barbour’s Defense


“In a recent profile in the Weekly Standard, Mississippi Gov. Harley Barbour (R) heaped praise on the white supremacist Citizens Councils for its role in barring KKK activity in his hometown of Yazoo City. After significant criticism, Barbour later stated that ‘the ‘Citizens Council,’ is totally indefensible, as is segregation,’ ” according to Mike Burns, writing Tuesday for Media Matters.


“However, following the Weekly Standard piece, right-wing media rushed to Barbour’s defense, dismissing his remarks as innocent nostalgia and decrying a left-wing smear campaign. For instance, Hot Air’s AllahPundit asserted that ‘maybe [Barbour] was simply naïve about’ the Citizens Councils’ purpose.


“In addition, linking to a National Review Online post defending Barbour, Fox Nation posted the headline ‘”Haley Barbour Fends off Left-Wing Racial Smears with Ease.’ “


Barbour issued a statement Tuesday denouncing the Citizens Council, as Molly Parker reported for the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger.



So You Want to Be a Journalist?



This video, “So You Want to Be a Journalist,” (video) is making the rounds in cyberspace, along with a companion, “So You Want to Be in Television News.” When a link to the latter was posted Wednesday on the e-mail list of the National Association of Black Journalists, members who counsel students said the unrealistic expectations sounded familiar. Both videos are posted on xtranormal.com.

Vegas TV Critic Decries “Hispanic-Free” Anchor Teams


“Just spitballing here, but stats seem to scream for an all-Hispanic anchor team on one of our major affiliate newscasts,” Steve Bornfeld, television writer at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, wrote last week.


“Projections by demographers peg the United States Hispanic/Latino population at 25 percent by 2050. Census Bureau figures have Nevada topping that 41 years early, at 26.5 percent last year. (African-Americans comprise 8.3 percent, and Asian-Americans, 6.6. percent).


“That math — and America becoming a ‘minority-majority nation’ — argue for a bold media move in a state at the vanguard of a coming cultural shift. News departments and the consultants they pay to tell them what they probably already know, probably already know it.


“Local stations hire Hispanic journalists in solid numbers, mostly as reporters, but some serve as anchors in nighttime (Fox-5’s Fierro), midday/late-day (Denise Valdez of KLAS-TV, Channel 8, Marie Mortera of KSNV-TV, Channel 3) and weekend/fill-in (Chris Saldana of Channel 8), among others.


“Yet the marquee anchor ranks here — Nina Radetich, Steve Wolford, Paula Francis, Gary Waddell, Dave Courvoisier, Casey Smith, Lisa Remillard, Jim Snyder, Sue Manteris, the Wagners — are Hispanic-free.”


“. . . perhaps unduly idealistic as it seems, a more integrated community begins with venturing outside your cultural cocoon. That invitation is easier to accept when those from your own community hold the door open to that other world.”


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