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Barack and Michelle, Vintage 1996

richard

Updated January 25

 

New Yorker, Photog Pleased With Reaction to Photos

Photographer Mariana Cook says, "There’s been a fantastic response to the photographs" she took 13 years ago of Barack and Michelle Obama, before the world knew who they were. The photos never made Cook’s book on couples, but they were featured in the Jan. 19 issue of the New Yorker magazine and remain on the magazine’s Web site.¬†

"The one of him alone shows an intelligence, thoughtfulness and warmth that is true to him as a person," Cook told Journal-isms. "And the couples photograph shows two very different individuals who are entirely comfortable with one another. All of this is consistent with who they are today and for that reason, it is gratifying to think I was fortunate to reveal something genuine and lasting."

The interview took place in May 1996, when the future president and first lady were married just four years, and he was a lawyer and writer.

Michelle Obama begins, "There is a strong possibility that Barack will pursue a political career, although it’s unclear. There is a little tension with that. I’m very wary of politics. I think he’s too much of a good guy for the kind of brutality, the skepticism.

"When you are involved in politics, your life is an open book, and people can come in who don’t necessarily have good intent. I’m pretty private, and like to surround myself with people that I trust and love. In politics you’ve got to open yourself to a lot of different people. There is a possibility that our futures will go that way, even though I want to have kids and travel, spend time with family, and like spending time with friends. But we are going to be busy people doing lots of stuff. And it’ll be interesting to see what life has to offer. In many ways, we are here for the ride, just sort of seeing what opportunities open themselves up."

The future president begins, "All my life, I have been stitching together a family, through stories or memories or friends or ideas. Michelle has had a very different background – very stable, two-parent family, mother at home, brother and dog, living in the same house all their lives. We represent two strands of family life in this country – the strand that is very stable and solid, and then the strand that is breaking out of the constraints of traditional families, travelling, separated, mobile. I think there was that strand in me of imagining what it would be like to have a stable, solid, secure family life."

The "reaction I saw was very positive," New Yorker spokeswoman Alexa Cassanos told Journal-isms, speaking of the piece.

Obama Praised for Order on Open Government

"Broadcasters, newspapers and others were quick to heap praise on the president for his pledge to be more responsive to Freedom of Information Act requests than his predecessor, who was much criticized on that front," John Eggerton reported Wednesday in Broadcasting & Cable.

Those praising President Obama’s actions included the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

"It’s wonderful that Priority One on Day One for this administration is transparency and restoring public trust," said Rick Blum, coordinator of the Sunshine in Government Initiative, Eggerton reported.

"The initiative was created by AP, the American Society Of Newspaper Editors, the National Association of Broadcasters and others to lobby for more open government and in the face of the Bush administration’s invocation of national security to overclassify documents as well as its foot-dragging on complying with FOIA requests.

"President Obama has made strong statements that should have lasting impact on how the government operates," Blum said. "Yesterday’s policy of ‘when in doubt, leave it out,’ today became, ‘when it doubt, let it out,’ and this policy will help keep the public informed in our technology-driven, connected society. On open government, the dawn is breaking."

The IRE board encouraged journalists to commence new public record initiatives.

New President Visits White House Press Room

"President Obama made an unannounced visit to the White House press room Thursday, engaging in some friendly banter that centered more on basketball and Blackberrys than Guantanamo and the global economic collapse," as Mark Knoller reported for CBS News.

April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks can be seen in one video of the event, introducing herself to Obama, and Darlene Superville of the Associated Press in another, but there was little evidence of other journalists of color.

"When a reporter tried to ask him a serious question about his nomination of a former lobbyist to be deputy defense secretary, Mr. Obama didn’t want to get serious," Knoller reported. "’I can’t come in and shake hands if I’m gonna get grilled every time,’ he said. He promised to hold a press conference soon, but didn’t commit to a date."

Meanwhile,"News organizations that cover the White House sparred with the Obama administration on Thursday over access issues for photographers and rules for briefings," David Bauder reported for the Associated Press.

"Representatives from Obama’s press office held a conference call with photo editors, who are concerned that the administration prefers distributing photos taken by a White House photographer in cases where photojournalists have been permitted access in the past. It was unclear whether the two sides had reached any accommodation.

"The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse refused to distribute photos taken by the White House of the new president on his first day in the Oval Office because of the dispute. Still photographers were also not given access to Obama’s do-over oath of office administered Wednesday night by Chief Justice John Roberts and an economics meeting on Thursday."

Washington Post Sorry for "Dark Brown Masses"

The Washington Post is apologizing for a caption on an Inauguration Day satellite image that ran in a slide show on its Web site that said:

"Image taken at 11:19 am. Dark brown masses have already gathered over much of the mall . . ."

"This unfortunately worded caption was a poorly executed attempt to describe an image taken from a satellite, which showed spots on the Mall where crowds had gathered in the morning. We should have chosen our words more carefully and we apologize to our readers for that," Scott Vance, assistant managing editor/news for washingtonpost.com, told Journal-isms. 

Film Based on Aarons Book Debuts This Weekend

"In 1989 Roy Aarons saw a newspaper story about a young man’s suicide. Particularly striking to him was the mother, Mary Griffith, who had tried throughout her son’s adolescence to ‘pray away’ his gay nature," the description reads on the new Web site devoted to Leroy Aarons, a co-founder of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

"Bobby Griffith suffered enormously from his family’s lack of support and acceptance and the condemnation of his church. Even leaving home couldn’t dispel his sense of worthlessness; at age 20, he jumped to his death from a freeway bridge. Remarkably, Mary was transformed by her loss and eventually renounced the rigid religious beliefs that had kept her from fully accepting Bobby."

Aarons, an editor at the Washington Post and Oakland (Calif.) Tribune who went on to found the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, wrote about Griffith in 1995 in his book "Prayers for Bobby." This weekend, it debuts as a motion picture on the Lifetime cable network, airing Saturday at 9 p.m., and shown again on Sunday at 8 p.m. and Tuesday at 9 p.m.

The film stars Sigourney Weaver as Mary Griffith, but was first optioned by Ricki Lake, Aarons’ life partner, Joshua Boneh, told Journal-isms. It finally went into production a year ago. Aarons died in 2004; Boneh is listed as a co-producer of the film.

A study from San Francisco State University released in December found that, "Young gay people whose parents or guardians responded negatively when they revealed their sexual orientation were more likely to attempt suicide, experience severe depression and use drugs than those whose families accepted the news," as the Associated Press reported then.

Lionel Barrow, Ex-Howard University Dean, Dies at 82

Dr. Lionel Barrow Jr., dean of Howard University’s School of Communications from 1975 to 1985, Morehouse College classmate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and outspoken advocate for news media diversity, died Friday at a Tampa, Fla., hospice, his family announced on Sunday. He was 82 and died of prostate cancer, his wife,¬† Frederica H. Barrow, said.

Jannette L. Dates, current dean of the communications school, told Journal-isms that Barrow brought "stability to the young school, introducing a strong graduate and research focus and establishing a strong linkage between the school and the radio and television stations owned by the University. In his work in national communication associations, he was a pioneer in developing initiatives that focused on diversity concerns." She cited his "candor and courage." 

Barrow had a varied career as a political activist and journalist. As a youth he picked asparagus on Long Island, N.Y., and tobacco in Connecticut, and later worked as a reporter for several weeklies, including the Richmond Afro-American. He was a radio announcer and worked as a college professor at Michigan State University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Howard.

In the 1960s, Barrow worked in research departments in the advertising industry, in 1968 becoming vice president and associate director of research for Foote, Cone and Belding Advertising Agency in New York.

As dean of Howard’s School of Communications, he led a movement that resulted in accreditation of the school’s journalism and radio, television and film programs.

According to his biography, after King’s 1968 assassination, Barrow urged the then-Association for Education in Journalism to do whatever was necessary "to end its totally white, virtually all male constituency in its own association and in the media to which it sends its graduates.

"This led to the establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee on Minority Education, which he chaired, and to a program to recruit, train and place an increasing number of minorities in the [journalism and mass communications] schools and departments and in the media. In 1970 he founded and became the acting head of AEJ’s Minorities and Communication Division. . . . The AEJMC established the Lionel C. Barrow Scholarship in his honor in 1970 to support graduate education for women and minorities seeking to become professionals in the communication field."

The bio continues, "While at the Melech LifePath Hospice, Dr. Barrow celebrated with pride, tears and applause the inauguration of Barack Obama," while reflecting on his classmate, King. His involvement in the 1960s with the Unity Democratic Club in Brooklyn, N.Y., resulted in the election of Rep. Shirley Chisholm to Congress, and he campaigned to be a super delegate for Obama.

During his tenure at Howard, Barrow spoke out on issues of race and media. After the Washington Post returned a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 and reporter Janet Cooke resigned from the paper after acknowledging that her story about an 8-year-old heroin addict was a fabrication, Barrow called Post ombudsman William Green’s lengthy reconstruction of the fiasco inadequate. At a conference of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Barrow urged an "independently mounted investigation" to determine how much of the story was written by Cooke, who is black, and "how much by her editors," as well as "whether she is staying quiet by choice."

In 1976, Barrow published a "Code of Ethics for Blacks in the Newsroom." It said, "Racism, male supremacy and other beclouding ideologies are still rampant in our news rooms. Their ideologies affect our judgments regarding coverage and placement of stories and must be faced and eliminated if the press is to approach its ideal of unbiased reporting."

A memorial is scheduled for Grace Episcopal Church in Tampa on Feb. 8 at 1 p.m. A second is planned in the Washington area the weekend of Feb. 14. [Added Jan. 25] 

Oakland Police Official Suspended as FBI Investigates

"The FBI is investigating allegations that the head of the Oakland Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division nearly nine years ago beat a drug suspect who later died and then ordered subordinate officers to lie about it, according to police sources, some of whom federal agents have recently interviewed." Thomas Peele and Bob Butler reported Friday for the Chauncey Bailey Project.¬†

"The beating allegations are just one aspect of a wide-ranging FBI probe, covering many of the department’s recent high profile problems, including the handling of the 2007 slaying of journalist Chauncey Bailey, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of workplace reprisals.

"Capt. Edward I. Poulson, who heads Internal Affairs, was suspended by the department Thursday."

Gaza Strife Prompts Media War in Arab World

"Surf the blogs in the Arab world and you find a common theme: the Bush administration has blindly supported Israel’s Gaza war and the U.S. media has been shilling for ‘the aggressors," Lawrence Pintak wrote Friday from Abu Dhabi for the Columbia Journalism Review.

"Ask the average American and it’s a good bet that you will hear the opposite view: Arab governments all support Hamas and the Arab media is militant group’s mouthpiece.

"The truth is somewhat more complex. Neither the Arab world, nor the Arab media, is a monolith. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have sought to prevent Hamas from scoring political gains at the expense of the more secular Palestinian authority led by Fatah, while Qatar is leading a Gulf bloc that equates support for Hamas with support for the Palestinian people. The fault lines have produced a media war in the Arab world."

Ebony-Jet "Executing Multi-Phase Reorganization"

Eleven days after being asked for comment about the buyouts taking place at Johnson Publishing Co., publishers of Ebony and Jet magazines, spokeswoman Staci R. Collins Jackson Friday sent this response:

"For over 6 decades, Johnson Publishing Company has been the No. 1 African-American-owned publishing company in the world. We remain committed to our incomparable legacy. As the industry leader, we will take the steps necessary to continue our long-term success and ensure our future as the entire publishing industry navigates the tumultuous economic climate. We are executing a multi-phase reorganization by adding new capabilities to service the changing media environment and expand the presence of our iconic brands while strategically improving our operational efficiencies. Johnson Publishing Company is laser-focused on forward thinking and will continue to be the pulse of Black America."

She would not deconstruct the statement.

Politico.com produced this video of the pre-inaugural reception held in Washington Monday by the National Association of Black Journalists. Politico was a co-sponsor. (Click picture to view). If you have any problems playing this video, please visit the original site at http://www.politico.com/video.html?id=8556280001.

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