Maynard Institute archives

Getting It Right on Lincoln

by richard0453

Black Press Said to Feel Like "Window Dressing"


Henry Louis Gates Jr. drives to the Gettysburg battlefield in pursuit of material on Abraham Lincoln. His two-hour "Looking for Lincoln" debuts Wednesday on PBS.

Reminder for Journalists in Gates Documentary

If the essence of journalism is getting it right, then Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. deserves props for his excellent PBS documentary, "Looking for Lincoln." Supported by a top-of-the-line budget, Gates travels the country seeking to separate the real from the mythical Abraham Lincoln most of us grew up learning about.

Gates’ cachet has become such that he is accorded access to Lincoln’s most recent successors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the latter interviewed right in the White House. Barack Obama hadn’t been elected when the film was completed.

The two-hour documentary arrives on the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth and after the election of the nation’s first African American president, an Illinoisan who was sworn in on the Bible Lincoln used, was elected to the same U.S. Senate seat and has professed his admiration for Lincoln as a role model.

Yet few if any journalists have questioned Obama about the irony of his exaltation of a man who believed that African Americans were inferior, told "darky" jokes, used the "N" word, and for a time, believed blacks should be shipped to Africa in a colonization project. Not even Gates.

That contradiction – between the Lincoln of myth and the Lincoln as a man of his time, particularly on race – provides the centerpiece of Gates’ documentary.

"Lincoln’s myth is so capacious that each generation of Americans since his death in 1865 has been able to find its own image reflected in his mirror. Lincoln is America’s man for all seasons, and our man for all reasons," Gates wrote on Monday on theRoot.com, of which he is editor in chief.

"In fact, over and over again through the past century and a half, we Americans have reinvented Abraham Lincoln in order to reinvent ourselves. The most recent example, of course, is captured in the journey of our 44th president, Barack Obama, who launched his presidential campaign in Lincoln’s hometown, Springfield, Ill., cited Lincoln’s oratory repeatedly throughout his campaign, retraced his train route to Washington from Philadelphia and even used Lincoln’s Bible for his swearing-in ceremony.

"On the eve of the 200th anniversary of his birth, the Lincoln fable is as vital today as ever. For my PBS series, I filmed all over the country, from a Sotheby’s auction where an obscure letter of his sold for $3 million, to the annual convention last summer of the Sons of the Confederacy, where one official told me that Lincoln is the biggest war criminal in the history of the United States, that his face should be chiseled off Mount Rushmore and that he should be tried posthumously for war crimes under the Nuremberg Conventions!

"In the black community, despite strident critiques of his attitudes about blacks by historians" such as Lerone Bennett Jr., the retired editor at Ebony magazine, "Lincoln continues to occupy a place of almost holy reverence, the patron saint of race relations.

"But the truth is that until very late in his presidency, Lincoln was deeply conflicted about whether to liberate the slaves, how to liberate the slaves and what to do with them once they had been liberated. Whereas abolition was a central aspect of Lincoln’s moral compass, racial equality was not."

"Looking for Lincoln" also interviews Bennett, whose 2000 book, "Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream," argues that Lincoln was a white supremacist, and the film shows a black family proudly attending a Sons of the Confederacy convention because an ancestor fought with the South.

The documentary reminds us in a brief mention that Lincoln curbed press freedoms while suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is shown reminding Gates, feeling deceived, that Lincoln didn’t mythologize himself – other Americans did.

In the end, Gates admires the human Lincoln more than the mythologized one.

The show airs Wednesday in most markets and closes on a profound note: Gates wonders whether the nation would have had to endure Jim Crow or even needed Martin Luther King’s "I Have a Dream" speech had Lincoln not been assassinated.

In a profession that often uses the nation’s 16th president as a reference point, it’s useful for journalists to have a "Looking for Lincoln." Reminders that "getting it right" is a continuing, evolutionary process are never in great enough supply.


Black Press Said to Feel Like "Window Dressing"

Barack Obama called on 13 reporters at his first prime-time news conference as president."After the first black president completed his first prime-time press conference, the black press was red hot," according to Joseph Curl, writing for Tuesday’s editions of the Washington Times.

"’We were window dressing,’ said Hazel Edney, a reporter with the National Newspaper Publishers Association, also known as the Black Press of America. ‘We were nothing more than window dressing.’

"As the media filed into the stately White House East Room on Monday night, the reporter was shocked to find herself in the front row. Alongside her were the top news agencies, Associated Press, Reuters; also up front, 86-year-old Helen Thomas, who started covering presidents 50 years ago.

Hazel Trice Edney"Alongside the most prominent journalists in America was Tiffany Cross from Black Entertainment Television. Like Miss Edney, she didn’t know why she was in first-class while all the television networks ‚Äî every single one ‚Äî was exiled to the steerage compartment.

"’I really don’t know why I’m up here,’ Miss Cross said with a shy smile.

"While most on the front row got to pose a question to President Obama, the two reporters from the black press
did not. Nor did any other black-press reporter, for that matter.

"’This was like Reagan, when he’d put all the blacks up front,’ said another prominent but visibly peeved black-press reporter who asked to remain anonymous. ‘He oughta’ be ashamed.’

" . . . Seated in that prime front row, though, were some newcomers. Along with reporters from NNPA and BET were Sam Stein of the archly liberal Huffington Post andEd Schultz, star of the ‘Ed Schultz Radio Show,’ an unabashedly liberal talk-show host, who boasts 3 million listeners dubbed ‘Ed Heads.’"

[On Tuesday, Edney said of the Washington Times story, "Yes, the quote is accurate. I said it. But the article is rogue. It gives the appearance that I gave an interview to the Washington Times reporter. I did not. The comment was made during a private conversation with my colleagues, also from the Black Press. I didn’t know I was quoted by a reporter until the White House called me the next day to ask me about it. Therefore, the reporter either overheard me talking or eaves dropped on our conversation," she told Journal-isms.

["Notwithstanding, the truth is that what he wrote is exactly what I said, what we felt and what we in the Black Press expressed to each other. The economy has disparately affected people of color; more so Black people with double digit unemployment. My question would have pertained to what in the stimulus package would assure that a significant portion of those 90 percent of private sector funds would go to those people who are hit the hardest and hurting the most."]

Obama Reviewing Ban on Photos of Flag-Draped Coffins

"President Barack Obama said Monday he is considering whether to overturn a Pentagon policy that bans the media from taking pictures of the flag-draped coffins of U.S. troops returning from the battlefield," as Lara Jakes reported for the Associated Press after Obama’s news conference.

"A leading military families group says the policy, enforced without exception during the administration of former President George W. Bush, should let survivors of the dead decide whether photographers can record their return.

"At his first prime-time news conference as president, Obama said his administration is reviewing the policy with Defense Department officials. He noted that he was informed Monday that four U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq, making the question timely."

The bulk of the news conference discussed Obama’s effort to push his economic stimulus plan. Ed Henry of CNN asked about the military coffins.

"John Ellsworth, president of Military Families United who lost a son in Iraq in 2004, said the survivors should be able to decide whether the coffins should be photographed," the AP story continued.

Ralph Begleiter, a professor at the University of Delaware and a former world affairs correspondent for CNN, unsuccessfully sued to force the government to release pictures of flag-draped coffins returning home. He said taxpayers should see the cost of war.

"Of course we respect the families, but none of these caskets is identified in any way and there’s no invasion of privacy in the first place," he said, according to Jakes’ story.

"The fallen troops ‘died for all of us ‚Äî they died for the nation, they died for the cause,’ Begleiter said in a January interview. ‘It’s a right for all Americans to pay their respects for those who made the sacrifice. It is not a right held exclusively for the families themselves.’ "

Two black journalists were among the 13 whose questions were taken: Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post asked about New York Yankees All-Star Alex Rodriguez’ admission Monday that he used steroids and Helene Cooper of the New York Times asked whether Obama was certain his stimulus package would work.

Obama appeared to be calling on reporters from a list placed in front of him. Sam Stein of the Huffington Post was one of those chosen in a forum usually reserved for reporters from the mainstream media.

The others were the AP’s Jennifer Loven, Reuters’ Caren Bowman, CBS’s Chip Reid, NBC’s Chuck Todd, Bloomberg’s Julianna Goldman, ABC’s Jake Tapper, Fox’s Major Garrett and Hearst’s Helen Thomas, Michael Calderone reported for Politico.

GOP’s Steele "Sick and Tired" of Media’s "Gotcha"

"Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele said yesterday that he will provide records from his 2006 Senate campaign in Maryland to the FBI in an effort to speed an apparent federal probe into allegations of improper campaign spending," Paul West wrote Monday in the Baltimore Sun.

"Steele confirmed that his sister, Monica Turner of Potomac, was recently contacted by FBI agents looking into allegations that his campaign paid a company she owned more than $37,000 in 2007 for campaign work that was never performed. The allegations were made by Steele’s former campaign finance chairman last year in an unsuccessful attempt to gain a more lenient prison sentence after his fraud conviction in an unrelated case.

"In his first public comments on the issue, Steele described the transfer of records to the FBI as voluntary.

"’I’m not going to wait for them to come to me. I’m going to take it to them and give them everything that they think they need. And if that’s not enough, we’ll give them more,’ Steele told ABC’s ‘This Week’ in an appearance scheduled before the allegations became public.

"Steele repeated denials issued by his spokesman earlier in the weekend in response to news reports, first detailed by The Washington Post" in a story by Henri E. Cauvin.

"’It’s all false,’ Steele said. ‘We’re being very proactive about this because I’m sick and tired of this ‘gotcha’ business that The Washington Post and others in the media attempt to engage in.’"

Azteca America Cancels Newscasts, 20 Laid Off

"Azteca Am?©rica on Friday canceled all newscasts and laid off more than 20 employees, according to several sources at the struggling network, Veronica¬†Villafa?±e reported Monday on her Media Moves site.

"As one outgoing employee put it, ‘they finished off what they started last year,’ referring to the round of layoffs and the moving of most of its news operations to Mexico City back in May of 2008.

"Employees of the Mexico-based network were told the cuts were a response to the economic crisis. Among the layoffs: reporters Nancy Agosto, Luis Treto, Claudia Mendoza and Carlos Ruben Zapata. Producers: Oswaldo Villazon, Leonel Morales, Jonathan Victoria. Writer Raul Rodriguez and editor Otto Leyva. Cameramen: Juan Carlos Chopin, Nestor Sanchez, Luis Quiroz and Salvador Rico."

During last week, the first full week of the Obama administration, Univision led the Spanish-language networks with a 4.2 million average, Telemundo had 1.2 million, TeleFutura 570,000 and Azteca 150,000, David Bauder reported Monday for the Associated Press.

Madagascar Reporter Shot Dead Covering Protest

A radio reporter in Madagascar, the island nation off Africa in the Indian Ocean, was shot dead while covering a demonstration outside the presidential palace Saturday, according to news reports.

Ando Ratovonirina, 25, a reporter and cameraman for privately owned Radio et T?©l?©vision Analamanga, was part of a team covering a large demonstration organized by Antananarivo mayor Andry Rajoelina to call for the replacement of President Marc Ravalomanana’s government, according to Reporters Without Borders.

"He was shot in the head when members of the presidential guard opened fire on demonstrators as they surged towards the presidential palace."

The national police said at least 25 people were killed and 167 wounded when security forces fired on the protesters, the Associated Press reported.

Heritina Ny Anjarason, a colleague who was with Ratovonirina and a second staffer at the time of the shooting, told Reporters Without Borders: "Ando was holding a microphone and was taking notes while Mirindra had a small camera. A delegation representing the mayor had gone to talk to the soldiers guarding the palace. When it returned, we approached the mayor’s chief of staff, Gen. Dolin, to interview him about the outcome of the negotiations. We had not yet reached Gen. Dolin and we had our backs to the palace when the shooting started. We threw ourselves to the ground but Ando was hit all the same."

Baroness Margaret Thatcher, left, and her journalist daughter, Carol.

Thatcher’s Daughter Fired for Using Racial Slur on BBC

The daughter of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was fired from a BBC show after using a racial slur to describe a black French tennis player, British newspapers reported. 

According to Britain’s Daily Mail, "One Show" host Adrian Chiles said he, Carol Thatcher and two others were relaxing after filming "One Show" and Thatcher had been talking about French tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

"’Carol was in full flow, talking about who’d win the Australian Open,’ he revealed in a column for a national newspaper.

"He wrote that Ms Thatcher had said: ‘You also have to consider the frogs. You know, that froggy golliwog guy.’

Webster’s New World Dictionary defines a "golliwog" as "a grotesque black doll used in illustrations by Florence K. Upton (died 1922) for a series of children’s books." "Frog" is a derogatory term for Frenchman.

Chiles, 41, said a member of the group "was ‘aghast’ by Miss Thatcher’s comments and challenged her about using the word ‘golliwog’.

‘"Yes, well, he’s half-black,’ Carol explained, waving her hand in front of her face,’ said Chiles in The Sun.

"The BBC’s decision to fire Thatcher prompted 3,348 complaints and 133 messages of support, discussion on BBC1’s ‘Question Time,’ several newspaper front pages, opinion columns by black commentators and reaction from London mayor Boris Johnson, according¬†to the Guardian.

"Black journalist Michael Eboda, founder of Powerful Media, criticized the national statutory body established to help eliminate discrimination, headed by Trevor Phillips, who is himself black, saying it should not have declined to comment.

"’Racist comment falls within their remit, and you’d have thought they’d maybe make a comment that racist language of any sort is something that shouldn’t happen in Britain in 2009.’"

Carol Thatcher’s brother Mark was quoted in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph as saying that his sister "hasn’t a racist bone in her body" and accusing the BBC of "behaving like the Stasi," the secret police in the former East Germany.¬†

"Critics have also suggested that sacking Ms Thatcher was an act of revenge against her mother, who had a frosty relationship with the corporation," the Daily Mail said.

Limbaugh’s Audience Most Conservative, Male

"Since Rush Limbaugh launched his radio program in the late 1980s, the market for conservative-leaning talk shows, like the broader news and talk universe, has grown much more crowded. Today, Bill O’Reilly‘s cable show attracts more conservatives on a regular basis than does Limbaugh’s radio show, while Sean Hannity‘s program draws about as many conservatives as Limbaugh’s," according¬†to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

"Yet by one standard, Limbaugh’s conservative appeal continues to stand out. In Pew Research’s 2008 news media consumption survey, as in previous biennial news surveys, Limbaugh’s audience was the most conservative. That is, conservatives made up a greater share of his regular audience than of the regular audiences for the ‘O’Reilly Factor,’ ‘Hannity & Colmes’ (now called ‘Hannity’), or any of the 39 programs or networks tested.

". . . The news consumption survey also found that Limbaugh’s audience included a greater share of men than the audiences for any other news or opinion outlet included in the survey. Fully 72% of those who said they regularly listen to Limbaugh were men while just 28% were women. Again, this does not mean that more men tune into Limbaugh’s show than other news and talk programs; rather, men make up a greater share of his audience than the audiences for other programs."

Short Takes

  • President Obama Thursday named¬†Monica C. Lozano, publisher and chief executive officer of Los Angeles’ La Opinion, to his new Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
  • "For 37 years, Lovell Dyett has been one of Boston’s premiere black broadcasters, hosting well-regarded talk shows on both television and radio," the Bay State Banner reported. "After being let go by employer WBZ-AM in a round of budget cuts last month, a rush of support from loyal listeners has brought Dyett back on the air ‚Äî but on Sunday morning, instead of his long-held Saturday night slot, and for only a half-hour instead of three hours."
  • National Public Radio’s "News & Notes" "was almost cancelled in July, during the height of the Presidential campaign," former host Farai Chideya told blogger Eisa Nefertari Ulen on Monday. "Many of us fought back against that decision, and we won. But I believe that by going head to head with management in July, we made it clear that we were willing to fight for the audience and the show . . . and that may have cost us politically in the calculus that followed." "News & Notes" was canceled in December, with budget cutbacks cited. Its last show is March 20.

Feedback: Piece I Ran on Lincoln Made Whites Angry

I chuckled when I read your piece about Henry Louis Gates’ look at Lincoln. For about six years I was edited the Baltimore Sun’s Perspective section, which appeared on Sundays and contained news and commentary. When I got the job, one of the top editors told me that I should challenge the readers’ views, and every Sunday there ought to be something in Perspective that would make them think.¬†Michael Adams

I actually believed what the guy told me and ran numerous pieces about race relations, often coming at it from a black perspective. Some of the pieces ticked off the readers, and the editor who told me to "make them mad" headed the other way every time we approached each other in the newsroom.

No piece that I ever ran stirred up more anger among white readers han a piece Lerone Bennett wrote about Lincoln. I asked Bennett to write the piece in 2000 after I saw him do a -Span interview about his book, "Forced Into Glory," which strips Lincoln of his mythical place as the Great Emancipator. Apparently, White America is so brainwashed by the Lincoln myth that the facts are not the facts; the truth is simply what it wants to believe.

The day after the piece ran, I was confronted in the newsroom by an angry reporter, a phony white liberal, who grew up in South Carolina, and claimed to have heard all the stories about Lincoln being a secret friend of the South. Bennett asserts that Lincoln had quite a bit of sympathy for the South, and was concerned that the abolition of of slavery would adversely affect whites there. Basically, this guy discarded Bennett’s research and suggested that he simply was not smart enough to take on Lincoln.

A history teacher and amateur Lincoln scholar called the Sun’s top editor and complained. The teacher found a sympathetic ear because he taught at the same exclusive prep school attended by the editor’s son. The editor directed the teacher to me, and the teacher gave me a lecture on why Lincoln’s greatness as a leader and humanitarian overshadowed his shortcomings as a man of his times (a racist). Letters poured in defending Lincoln.

This flap prompted me to read the Emancipation Proclamation. Throughout my life, teachers and others had told me what it said, but I figured it was time to read the words of the Great Emancipator. Well, I found large portions of the document to be incomprehensible. It’s no wonder that after it was issued, even newspapers of the day got it wrong. One thing is certain: it did not end slavery. It allowed slavery in the border states and all other areas of the South that were loyal to the Union. Slavery was abolished only in the areas that were in rebellion. This reinforced Bennett’s assertion that the Proclamation actually caused the re-enslavement of blacks, who had been freed by the Union army in areas that then declared their loyalty to the Union.

Perhaps White America will pay attention to Henry Louis Gates. I guess he has the credentials that will finally make folks think about the Great Emancipator. And, I hope he gives some credit to Bennett.

Michael Adams
Baltimore
Feb. 10, 2009

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