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Black Scribes Hopeful for White House Access

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An Ex-Journalist Becomes an F.O.B. (Friend Of Barack)

It was just a few years ago that Crystal Nix was a journalist whose byline graced the front page of the New York Times.

Now, as Crystal Nix Hines, Politico reported this week, she is one "of the folks Obama can call true blue, according to several insiders who worked on his campaign." She is among the select few F.O.B.s РFriends of Barack.

It’s a safe bet that had Nix Hines remained a reporter at the Times, she would be outside that charmed circle: perhaps getting a chance to cover Obama, maybe not; and if she did, treated professionally but warily, like other journalists.

But Nix Hines, a 1985 graduate of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, left journalism in 2001.

This is what Politico’s Jeffrey Ressner wrote about one of "Obama’s real friends in Hollywood":

"Another member of the ‘Harvard Law Mafia’ who stayed in close contact with Obama years after graduation, Hines, who wrote for The New York Times both before and after law school, opted to forgo legal work and instead pursue television writing¬†in Hollywood. She penned and produced several episodes of ‘Commander in Chief’ for director Rod Lurie, who went to the same Hawaii high school as Obama, and also served as executive story editor for the second season of ‘Alias,’ created by sci-fi/fantasy mogul (and longtime Democratic Party activist) J.J. Abrams."

She also clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, wrote a glowing recommendation for Obama on the candidate’s Web site, and, according¬†to the nonprofit group Public Citizen, raised at least $100,000 for her former classmate.

She also has ties to Michelle Obama, having gone to Princeton with the future first lady, becoming the first black editor of the Daily Princetonian. "Mrs. Obama . . . was thrilled that a historic barrier had fallen," Michael Powell and Jodi Kantor wrote this year in the New York Times.

The non-F.O.B.s – the ones who remained in journalism – have differing feelings about Obama’s rise to the presidency.

Some, particularly those in Chicago, remember him when.

"Black reporters who know him, particularly those in Chicago, feel a bit bittersweet about their relationship with him now," Sabrina Miller, a former Chicago Tribune reporter who worked in the Obama campaign this year, told Journal-isms on Friday. "The stakes have changed in an extraordinary way that we’re all still trying to get our heads around.

"I can remember when I was a reporter at the Tribune calling him at home – and him answering the phone himself – for a quote before deadline. I remember him standing alone at the 100 Black Men of Chicago gala and walking right up to him with my father and introducing them. I remember when we were both speakers for the Mikva Challenge (a civic leadership organization for high school students) and there were as many people in my session as there were in his! I lived around the block from him in Hyde Park, I used to see him at church, used to see him at the bookstore . . . lots of us have those kinds of stories.

"So, we still feel like he’s ‘ours’ – and he is, but he isn’t. The reality is, you can’t call him at home anymore and you can’t sit down with him at Valois cafeteria and you’re not just going to bump into him at the Urban League dinner. Chances are slim that he’s going to appear on your local radio show on Sunday afternoon, even if you could get him to do that as recently as a year and a half ago. It’s natural that Chicago wants to feel ‘taken care of’ because we’ve been with him so long but I’m not sure it’s realistic.

"The challenge for those of us who know him and/or have covered him will be to manage our expectations while also still holding him and his communications team accountable for the extent to which Black media continues to have access to the Administration, and to addressing the very issues concerning African-Americans that were made a priority during the campaign."

At the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Las Vegas last year, Cheryl Smith, editor of the Dallas Weekly, asked Obama whether he would continue to reach out to the black press if elected.

Naming three Chicago black newspapers – the Defender, the Crusader and the Citizen – Obama said that when he served in the Illinois Legislature, those papers would cover issues he was working on that the mainstream press would not.

"My attitude is that if you were covering me when nobody wanted to cover me, then they should cover me when everybody wants to cover me. That attitude will continue when I’m in the White House," he said.

The evidence shows that Obama kept his word during the campaign, reaching out to black radio, black Web sites and the black press. Ebony and Jet magazines and BlackAmericaWeb.com both bagged exclusive interviews on Obama’s campaign jet. Essence magazine was there, too.

Black journalists in the mainstream press couldn’t always claim the same access. "Obama doesn’t have lots of long-time relationships with journalists and even fewer with black ones because there were few black reporters covering his campaign," a black mainstream journalist who was on the campaign trail told Journal-isms.

Michael H. Cottman, who took a turn in the press pool for BlackAmericaWeb.com, agrees. He told Journal-isms, "My impressions are based more on intuition than facts because I haven’t seen Obama around many black journalists to make an informed assessment because major media organizations did not send many black journalists on the road to cover him.

"I’d like to think President-elect Obama seriously considers black journalists when requests are made for interviews, but my feeling is that Obama (and his advisers) also look for journalists who are fair and objective. In my observations, it appears that Obama, at least publicly, relates to black journalists in much the same way he orchestrated his campaign: walking a tightrope with regards to race – not overly appealing to voters because they are black or white, and therefore not appealing to journalists because they are black or white."

Still, there will be expectations – particularly among those who knew Obama back in the day.

"I think a lot of us in Chicago still have to remind ourselves to call him ‘Mr. President’ or ‘President-Elect Obama’ rather than just ‘Barack,’" Miller said. "On Election Night right after his acceptance speech, I was waiting in the rope line to offer my congratulations, and when he finally got to me I said ‘Congratulations Barack!’ And then I corrected myself and said, ‘Congratulations, Sen. Obama!’ And then I corrected myself AGAIN and called him Mr. President. He gave me a break – he said, ‘It’s OK, it’s only been a few hours!’"

21 Leave Newseum; Native J-Program Faces Trims

Nineteen staff members at the Freedom Forum, including the Newseum in Washington, took a voluntary buyout package and two others retired, a Newseum representative said on Monday, and "sensible expense reductions" will take place at "Freedom Forum Diversity Institute programs including our three Native American initiatives," a Freedom Forum vice president told Journal-isms on Friday.

The Freedom Forum staff was 38 percent people of color before the reductions and remained at 38 percent afterward, spokeswoman Susan Bennett said. Retiring are Jack Hurley, senior vice president/broadcast, and Rod Sandeen, vice president for administration and publications.

"We may reduce the total number of participants while we work to preserve and improve our core programs," Jack Marsh, vice president of the Freedom Forum and Diversity Institute, said. The three Native American initiatives had 185 to 190 Native students last year, he added.

Patrick W. Gavin, who edits the FishBowl site, wrote on Friday:

"When we asked the Newseum (after their original response), ‘Why, in light of such positive news," about attendance, "19 folks would take the buyout package, or why a buyout package was offered?’, they responded: ‘The Freedom Forum, which is principal funder of the Newseum, has experienced losses in its endowment similar to other non-profit foundations because of the dramatic downturn in the stock market. The endowment is down about 25% and the leadership of the foundation and the museum decided the prudent action to take, sooner rather than later, was a belt-tightening that included some buyouts.’"

Marsh said he sent a letter Friday to prospective mentors at the annual Native American Journalism Career Conference saying, "The size and success of the annual Native American Journalism Career Conference depends on how many qualified mentors like you will volunteer their time and pay their own travel and lodging expenses to help with next year’s gathering, April 14-16, 2009, at Crazy Horse Memorial. . . . The committee needs to estimate the number of mentors before determining how many high school and college students can be accommodated and recruited."

"Freedom Forum is underwriting most of the conference costs and will pay the expenses of student participants and the teachers who accompany them. Mentors donate their time and are responsible for their travel and lodging expenses. Freedom Forum pays for meals during the conference.

"In the past nine years, we have hosted more than 1,000 students and offered special workshops for scores of teachers and journalism advisers." [Updated Nov. 24]

 

Constitution’s Tenets "Actually Apply to Us"

As evidence of how the Barack Obama victory resonated in different communities, Seattle’s Northwest Asian Weekly had this to say in its Nov. 8-14 issue:

"Congratulations to the Black community — many have worked tirelessly for him. Congratulations to the Latino community — a constituency that voted for President Bush in 2004 but turned out Tuesday night voting an impressive two-to-one for Obama. Congratulations to our community. So many of us have stood in the rain urging people to vote. So many of us sacrificed our time for his campaign.

"Our race holds one of the biggest immigrant populations. Many of us are young enough to remember the days of forced segregation and anti-miscegenation laws. Many of us remember when we were expelled from Tacoma, when we were imprisoned in internment camps. Today, all Asian Americans can be confident in finally knowing how it feels to have a voice in the White House that will speak for immigrants. Today, we can believe that the tenets of our Constitution, the ideologies that this country was founded upon ‚Äî that every American is granted the same civil rights, that every individual is equal, that these rights are inalienable ‚Äî actually apply to us. Now we can say that we truly believe that America is the best nation on earth. Now we can believe that America’s best is yet to come."

"Religion Received as Much Coverage as Race"

"Religion played a much more significant role in the media coverage of President-elect Barack Obama than it did in the press treatment of Republican nominee John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign, but much of the coverage related to false yet persistent rumors that Obama is a Muslim," the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life said on Thursday.

"Meanwhile, there was little attempt by the news media during the campaign to comprehensively examine the role of faith in the political values and policies of the candidates, save for those of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

"And when religion-focused campaign stories were covered by the mainstream press, often the context was negative, controversial or focused on a perceived political problem.

"In all, religion was a significant but not overriding storyline in the media coverage of the 2008 campaign. But in a campaign in which an Obama victory would give the U.S. its first black president, religion received as much coverage in the media as race," with each occupying 4 percent of the campaign newshole.

"These are some of the findings of a new study of the coverage of religion in the campaign conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The study examined religion-focused election coverage in 48 different news outlets between June 1 and Oct. 15, 2008."

Americans Divided Over Helping Auto Companies

"The latest Gallup Poll suggests Americans are divided over the federal government’s helping the ‘Big Three’ U.S. auto companies stay afloat," Gallup’s Jeffrey R. Jones reported¬†on Tuesday.

"Republicans and Democrats hold opposing views on the matter, with 60% of Democrats in favor of government assistance to the auto companies and 65% of Republicans opposed. Independents are more likely to oppose than to favor government assistance.

"The vast majority of those who oppose government help for the auto companies ‚Äî 79% (equivalent to 39% of all Americans) ‚Äî say in a follow-up question that they would be opposed to the aid even if one or more of the Big Three were certain to fail without it. But 18% (9% of all Americans) would favor assistance under those circumstances, bringing overall support for government aid to the majority level (56%) ‚Äî assuming government assistance is the difference between the companies’ surviving or going under."

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfobLjsj230]

Andrew Mwenda of Uganda said in 2007 that the media’s focus on war and poverty in Africa covers symptons, not causes. He was honored by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

African Writer’s Office Raided as He Is Honored in U.S.

"Five journalists and an attorney who has long battled for press freedom were cited Thursday for risking their lives and liberty to report the news, often under the pressure of authoritarian regimes," H. Josef Hebert of the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

"The six, who work in Iraq, Afghanistan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Cuba, are recipients of this year’s International Press Freedom Award presented by the Committee to Protect Journalists. At a press conference, Andrew Mwenda, managing editor of the Ugandan news magazine The Independent, said only hours earlier he had been informed that his publication had been raided by security forces in Kampala when employees reported for work at 8 a.m., and documents and computer files were seized.

"’If he had been there ‘I would have been arrested,’ said Mwenda, who plans to report to the police when he returns to Uganda next week. Last April police also raided Mwenda’s offices and detained him and two reporters because of news stories critical of the Army’s role in northern Uganda’s civil war.

"In all, Mwenda is fighting 21 criminal charges, including sedition and
‘promoting sectarianism,’‚Äù Uganda’s newspaper the Independent reported. "He has challenged the constitutionality of the charges
in court."

"Other recipients of the freedom award are Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, released last April after two years in detention by U.S. forces in Iraq; Danish Karokhel, managing editor, and Farida Nekzad, deputy director, of Pajhwok Afghan News, Afghanistan’s leading independent news agency; Hector Maseda Gutierrez, a leader in Cuba’s independent press movement, who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence in Cuba; and Beatrice Mtetwa, who has defended numerous journalists caught up in Zimbabwe’s repressive media laws," the AP saidl.

Journalist Flees Ciudad Juarez for the United States

"Jorge Luis Aguirre, director of the news website La Polaka, has fled Mexico with his family to the United States after receiving death threats in his home city of Ciudad Ju?°rez, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua," Deborah Bonello reported¬†from Mexico City for the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.

"His departure follows the killing of crime reporter Armando Rodr??guez, who was shot to death last Thursday when he was in his car.

"Aguirre told the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics, or CEPET, a nonprofit based in Mexico City, that he was on the way to reporter Armando Rodr??guez Carre??n’s funeral last week when he received a call on his cellphone.

"’They told me, "You’re next," and because of the way things are, I decided to take my family and leave,’ Aguirre said.

"’I left everything: my house, my office. I left my car in a public parking lot. I was very scared. I didn’t ask the authorities for help, I don’t trust them.’"

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