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Journalisms Feb. 2

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Ebony-Jet Won’t Release Details on Reorganization

After volunteering to answer questions about the shakeup under way at its Chicago headquarters, Johnson Publishing Co. sent back word late Monday that, "Specific details of our ongoing multi-phase reorganization will not be released."

Staci R. Collins Jackson, assistant vice president and director of corporate affairs for Johnson Publishing, had received a list of questions for the company’s president and its chief operating officer. She had asked for the list in light of Sunday’s column reporting from Johnson employees that a major reorganization was under way at the privately owned company. She offered to shed more light on the situation.

Meanwhile, David Carr reported in the New York Times on Sunday that like those from Johnson, reporters at the New Yorker magazine also drove to Washington for the inauguration and stayed with friends, though it was only from New York, not Chicago.

"When the current editor, David Remnick, ordered up a bunch of articles for the magazine’s formidable presidential inauguration issue, some of the reporters drove to Washington and stayed at friends’ houses," Carr wrote in a story about Conde Nast magazines. "Mr. Remnick, who was among those who bunked with a friend in Washington, declined comment, beyond suggesting it was just common sense to preserve assets for other articles. ‘Steve Coll can’t stay at a friend’s house in Afghanistan,’ he said.

Sportswriter Larry Fitzgerald Sr., father of the Arizona Cardinals’ Larry Fitzgerald Jr., with Cardinals wide receiver Anquan Boldin. (Credit: David Kadlubowski/Arizona Republic)

Dad Made Super Bowl History, Even if Son Didn’t

Larry Fitzgerald Sr. became the first journalist to cover a Super Bowl with his son playing in the game, the Ledger in Lakeland, Fla., noted on Monday.

"Fitzgerald Sr. said he wasn’t going to cheer, and he wasn’t lying. Granted, there wasn’t much for the Arizona receiver’s dad to cheer about in the first half of Super Bowl XLIII," Katherine Smith added Monday in the Tampa Tribune.

"But the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder reporter had plenty of opportunities in the fourth quarter, and he didn’t."

Fitzgerald Sr. and his Minnesota weekly were the subjects of a number of articles in the days leading up to Sunday’s game. He wrote his own story in the New York Times, saying, "it’s been uncomfortable lately when other reporters start challenging my objectivity or my organization’s credibility on football’s biggest stage. I have had my parenting questioned and second-guessed."

In an online chat last week with Bill Simmons, known as the Sports Guy on ESPN.com, Pete of Minneapolis wrote, "Most overrated SB story??" referring to the Super Bowl. "All of articles of Larry Fitz Sr. not cheering from the press box. I’m 45 yrs old, have lived in the Twin Cities all my life and have never seen or heard of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, the newspaper Larry Sr. writes for. The real story is how Larry Sr. has been able finagle 28 straight SB trips out of this gig."

Simmons responded, "I’ve gotten multiple e-mails about this. What the hell is the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder? It sounds like one of those fake newspapers that Tom Hanks would work at in a romantic comedy or something. . . and all you need to know about why newspapers are going out of business is that the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder has sent someone to cover 28 SB’s. Good business plan!"

The Spokesman-Recorder says on its Web site that it celebrated 75 years of serving the black community in August, declaring it to be the oldest minority-owned business in Minnesota.

On Sunday, the Tampa Tribune wrote, "Larry Fitzgerald Jr. was pretty much a non-factor throughout most of the game, picking up just one reception for 12 yards in the first three quarters, but he got heavily involved in the fourth. With Arizona trailing 20-7 heading into the final quarter, the wideout came alive with two touchdowns to put the Cardinals ahead with a 64-yard touchdown catch and run with 2:37 remaining in the game.

"Sitting in the auxiliary press box, Fitzgerald Sr. calmly kept notes throughout the game. When Fitzgerald scored his first touchdown of the game, a 1-yard pass from Kurt Warner midway through the fourth quarter, the elder Fitzgerald wrote in his reporter’s notebook: Warner to Larry. No exclamation point or even a smiley face.

"He wrote the exact same note when Fitzgerald scored his second touchdown."

Cartoonist Says Characters Didn’t Take Any Lip

Cartoonist Ken Catalino of Creators Syndicate has responded to criticism of a political cartoon he drew depicting President Obama with large lips and a white character without any,

"For every Steve Benson or Mike Luckovich who is zeroing in on a swell, spot-on Obama, there seems to be a cartoonist who invokes ‘caricature’ in the most grotesque sense of the word. Obama’s lips have been rendered in such unnatural tints, and at such dimensions, that somewhere, even R. Crumb would blush," Michael Cavna, who writes a column called "Comic Riffs" for washingtonpost.com, wrote Wednesday.

As one example, he cited Catalino’s cartoon.

"At first glance, this Obama caricature didn’t immediately stop me ‚Äî but then my eye wandered over to the ‘non-lipped’ figure speaking to Obama. Looking at them side-by-side, suddenly Obama’s mouth seems utterly out-of-whack in its conspicuous prominence. We’re left to wonder: Why?"

Catalino replied to Journal-isms on Monday:

"I believe that if you take a look at a sample of my other cartoons, with or without President Obama, you’ll see that the characters who are not depicting any known person and who usually represent the person on the street. are, most unilaterally, depicted the same way ‚Äî lipless. I’ll keep that in mind going forward, though, to give people with lips (who include me), their due. As far as the purple hue observation, it didn’t look that way on my computer ‚Äî if that really is the case, I may have to use a different color palette. Without being facetious, drawing a new political figure is usually an evolutionary process, especially for me. In time, you may like my rendition of the president and the fuller lipped characters who populate my cartoons."

No African Americans Yet in White House Press Office

There are no African Americans assigned so far to President Obama’s press office, according to a memo distributed Monday by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

The memo, providing reporters with contact information, listed the White House press office staff as Gibbs; deputy press secretaries Bill Burton and Josh Earnest; assistant press secretaries Jen Pskaki, Tommy Vietor, Reid Cherlin, Nick Shapiro and Ben LaBolt; press assistants Ben Finkenbinder, Priya Singh and Katie Hogan; Marissa Hopkins, special assistant to the press secretary; and Katie Lillie, deputy director of advance for press.

The vice president’s press staff includes Elizabeth Alexander, press secretary (no relation to the inaugural poet of the same name); communications director Jay Carney (formerly Washington bureau chief of Time magazine); communications director Courtney O’Donnell; and Annie Tomasini, deputy press secretary.

First lady Michelle Obama’s press staff includes Camille Johnston, communications director; Katie McCormick Lelyveld, press secretary; and Semonti Mustaphi, deputy press secretary.

While African Americans are so far absent from the press office, there are still slots to be filled, as Ben Smith pointed out Jan. 19 in a piece on the press office for Politico.

In addition, there are press aides in the media affairs and communications offices, including those assigned to the ethnic press.

Coincidentally, at least two black women journalists covered the first lady on Monday: Darlene Superville for the Associated Press and Nia-Malika Henderson of Politico, who filed the pool report.

Deputy campaign communications director Dan Pfeiffer did not respond to requests for comment.

Robert Churchwell Dies, Pioneer in Southern Journalism

"Robert Churchwell Sr., the first African-American journalist at a major white-owned newspaper in the South, died early Sunday morning in Nashville," Colby Sledge reported Sunday in the Tennessean.

"He was 91.

"Mr. Churchwell came to the Nashville Banner in February 1950 to cover the African-American community, and later became the paper’s education writer. He often referred to himself as "the Jackie Robinson of journalism," and worked for the Banner for 31 years before retiring in 1981."

Dwight Lewis, the Tennessean’s editorial page editor, wrote¬†in a column Sunday, "In journalism, I don’t know that I could have put up with some of the things he had to go through. For instance, Mr. Churchwell told me about the time, about 1956 or 1957, when he was in his office writing a story and a political reporter sitting not far from him ‘yelled up to the city editor, Bob Battle. He was asking about a black man from Memphis who had been appointed to a relatively high position by the governor at the time.

"’But he yelled, ‘Hey, Bob, what’s that n ‚Ķ. r’s name from Memphis?’ I stopped what I was doing and just looked at him. Then, he got up from his desk and walked up to the city editor. When he sat back down, I rolled my chair over to him and told him I was surprised he would do something like that.

"’At first, he wanted to know what I was talking about, and then he apologized. He told me he had a lot of ‘colored’ friends, and I could ask them what type of person he really was.’

". . . Yes, Mr. Churchwell, I stand on your shoulders, and I will never forget it. But so do so many others, and I am sure they are just as proud of the hero in you as I am."

Marilu Lozada, 42, Florida Producer, Dies of Cancer

Marilu Lozada, an Emmy award-winning producer for WPBT-TV, a Miami public television station, and for Univision. died Wednesday in Miami after a 22-month battle with cancer, two days after her 42nd birthday.

"She is Coordinating Producer at Channel 2, where she’s written and produced a wide variety of feature and public affairs programs and specials. Her recent documentary ‘Mi Colombia,’ which depicts the colorful traditions of the Colombian people, was broadcast nationally on public television. Marilu has also worked as producer of the 11:30 p.m. live national newscast at Univision Network. Currently she is producing a second documentary on Colombia, which highlights that country’s rich musical heritage," according to a bio.

Her brother, Carlos Lozada, an editor at the Washington Post, and his family asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in her name to the Cancer Research Institute, One Exchange Plaza, 55 Broadway, Suit 1802, New York, N.Y. 10006 (attention Devi Sharma). Donations may also be made online at www.cancerresearch.org.

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