Maynard Institute archives

As “Rocky” Folds, ASNE Cancels Convention

by richard0547

Journalist-of-Color Groups Say Their Shows Will Go On

The ASNE Reporter covered the opening of the 2008 American Society of Newspaper Editors convention. ASNE planned to revive the student project as an online-only product in Chicago. On the same day that Denver’s Rocky Mountain News published its final issue, the American Society of Newspaper Editors Friday announced it has canceled its 2009 convention, an action taken for only the second time in its history.

The National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association, the Native American Journalists Association and the South Asian Journalists Association all said they would continue with plans for their own conventions.

ASNE president Charlotte Hall¬†said in a news release that although plans to hold the convention in Chicago, April 26-29, were well under way,¬†ASNE’s leadership had “concluded that the challenges editors face at their newspapers demand their full attention.”

“Hall said that it had become clear that member attendance would have been significantly lower than normal because of the stress within the industry,” the news release said.

“This is only the second time since ASNE was founded that it has foregone holding a convention. ASNE also canceled its convention during the last critical days of World War II in 1945.

“This year’s circumstances are quite different than in 1945, Hall said. ‘This is a uniquely stressful period in our business as we face both structural change and deep recession.”

“ASNE had planned votes at the Chicago convention on bylaws changes that would drop ‘paper’ from its name and expand its membership to include editors of online-only news Web sites and leading journalism educators. That, and the annual election of new board members, will now occur electronically.”

The ASNE Reporter, the two-decade-old student newspaper project that was at first suspended for financial reasons, was to have been revived as an online-only publication for Chicago-area students.

ASNE’s action appeared not to affect the journalist-of-color organizations.

“No, we are not canceling,” Jeff Harjo, executive director of the Native American Journalists Association, told Journal-isms. “We are moving forward with our plans to celebrate our 25th year. We are promoting our conference and making it easier for folks to register on-line and for their hotel rooms. Check out our web site at http://www.naja.com.”

“Right now we are moving forward with our plans to hold our annual convention,” Barbara Ciara, president of NABJ, said. “The board of directors is closely following the new developments in the industry as it relates to how our association is impacted by the economic downturn. We are aggressively going after non-traditional funders to help sponsor our convention and we have reduced our annual budget. Yet, we have managed to continue to provide our membership with monthly opportunities for professional development, job-listing services, and a host of other member benefits.”

Ivan Roman, executive director of NAHJ, whose board was meeting in New York, said that organization was not canceling either. “We knew from the beginning – it’s reflected in the budget – that the convention would take different forms. We’re being very flexible. We’ll cut back expenses so that we can make a profit,” and take advantage of in-kind services offered in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the convention site. The focus will continue to be training, with 36 multimedia-training sessions in a week.

Janice Lee, deputy executive director of AAJA, said, “We’re pretty far along in getting some support, and support is difficult,” but “our members still need professional development training, perhaps now more than ever.”

Sree Sreenivasan,¬†a founder and at-large board member of the South Asian Journalists Association, said, “It’s our 15th anniversary and [we] are going to make it even more about training and retraining than ever – and we are working to¬†make it more affordable than years past. We are also partnering with other groups in ways we haven’t before.”

NAJA plans to be in Albuquerque, N.M., from July 30 to Aug. 1; NABJ in Tampa, Fla., from Aug. 5 to 9; NAHJ in San Juan, June 23-27, AAJA in Boston from Aug. 12 to 15, and SAJA will return to New York on July 10 and 11. Conventions are a principal way these organizations fund their operating budgets.

There is no doubt about the economic situation in which the news industry finds itself, however.

The Rocky Mountain News prepared this video, “Final Edition.” Click image to view.

. . . Ex-Rival Hires 2 Columnists of Color From “Rocky”

As the Denver Post reported on Friday, “The Rocky Mountain News is no more.

“A publishing run spanning nearly 150 years came to an end in the early morning hours as the News delivered its final edition. The precarious economics of newspaper publishing forced Denver into the growing ranks of cities that no longer can support two major daily publications.

“To a saddened and somber newsroom staff, executives of News owner E.W. Scripps Co. announced Thursday at noon that the paper was shutting down after efforts to find a buyer failed.

“‘People are in grief,’ News editor, publisher and president John Temple said at a Thursday afternoon news conference when asked how his 220-member staff was responding.”

In a memo on Thursday, Denver Post Editor Greg Moore named two columnists of color among the Rocky staffers he said the paper would pick up: Tina Griego, a former Post columnist, is to write three days a week, and Bill Johnson, who has been a faculty member at the Maynard Institute’s Editing Program for Minority Journalists at the University of Arizona.

Along with sports columnist Sam Adams and pop culture columnist and blogger Mike Pearson, Griego and Johnson were among those who wrote farewell columns for Rocky readers.

The Columbia Journalism Review asked Rocky staffers to share their thoughts, and among them was Tillie Fong, night general assignment reporter, a 1987 graduate of the Maynard Institute’s Summer Program for Minority Journalists.

“I don’t think the news has really sunk in yet-it doesn’t seem possible that something so vital, so alive as it were, is gone,” she said.

“I feel the Rocky’s closing as a death-not as an institution but as a part of my life, a part of ME, that has died.

“I always felt that the Rocky was this feisty little paper that reflects the spirit of the people that it serves-fiercely independent, outspoken, active, but also caring and compassionate.

“I also think that the newspaper also provides a different perspective to issues and events, and a unique voice to the community that can’t be replicated elsewhere.

“Maybe that’s what every journalist like to think of his or her organization, that it makes a difference in the world. But I really think the demise of the Rocky doesn’t just mean the loss of jobs for me and my colleagues, but also a part of Denver and Colorado history is also lost.”

 

San Antonio Paper Lays Off 135, Including 2 Columnists

Aissatou SidimeTwo Latino columnists and four black women journalists are among 135 people being laid off at the San Antonio Express-News, staff members told Journal-isms on Friday.

Publisher Tom Stephenson announced on Wednesday that the Hearst-owned paper would lay off 15 percent of its employees and leave 30 positions unfilled in an effort to reduce costs and cope with the economic troubles that have hit the U.S. newspaper industry, Jennifer Hiller reported in the newspaper.

Longtime sports columnist David Flores and Metro columnist Ken Rodriguez were said to be among the casualties, along with features editor June Wormsley and business writer Aissatou Sidime.

“I am moving into financial planning – which I had begun preparing financially for after the first layoffs here,” Sidime told Journal-isms. “Five months ago I began talking to local planners to get tips on the best way to enter the field given that I would need some income and that I wanted a successful, experienced planner to mentor me and recently had settled on becoming a paraplanner.

“I think the industry will continue to see people leaving until managers can articulate a clear vision of how they will make money providing content in a fashion that does not lead to annual or semiannual layoffs, pay cuts and benefit reductions. Currently no one seems to have a profitable concept for how to make money providing news and features digitally – which is the ONLY future.”

Sidime has been at the Express-News since 1999 and previously worked at the Tampa Tribune and the Nashville Tennessean.

Editor Robert Rivard was out of the office on Friday, and Managing Editor Brett Thacker did not return telephone calls.

Dallas’ Spanish-Language Al Dia Down to 2 a Week

“Spanish-language newspaper Al D??a has cut back to two print editions per week, as A.H. Belo, corporate parent of the free Dallas broadsheet, looks to lower costs and eliminate more jobs,” Hispanic Market Weekly reported on Monday.

“Effective the week of February 16, Al D??a is only distributed on Wednesdays and Saturdays – with a combined press run of about 215,000 copies – down from a six-day, Monday-Saturday schedule.

“Only last July, Al D??a had expanded its Wednesday and Saturday print runs to about 120,000 copies from the normal daily run of about 40,000, with those additional copies slated for home delivery.”

Credit: Andy Marlette

White Cartoonist’s “N—a Please” Causes Stir at FAMU

A white editorial cartoonist used the phrase “N—a please” Tuesday in a talk before an audience at the journalism school at historically black Florida A&M University, but the cartoonist and a columnist for the student newspaper have decidedly different takes on what that meant.

Under the headline “Panelist Makes Racist Comment,” Marlon Williams wrote in a column Friday in the Famuan that four middle-aged white men – Ed Hall of Artizans Syndicate; Andy Marlette, Pensacola News Journal; Jeff Parker of Florida Today in Melbourne; and Rob Smith Jr. of Glennbeck.com – took part in a panel discussion about the decline of editorial cartoonists.

“Because diversity is important to most FAMU students, many questions were asked about diversity within the editorial cartoonist field,” Williams wrote. “Our questions weren’t directly answered. As a matter of fact they weren’t answered at all. But the icing on the cake was when Andy Marlette said, ‘N**** Please!’

“A cloud of dissension hovered over the lecture hall as no one knew how to react to something that had just slapped everyone in the face. Silence filled the room until one student shouted, ‘Say what?’

“Then most of the room burst into laughter to ease the situation, and the discussion continued even though most students were furious at what Marlette said. How were we supposed to respond – riot?

“What led to the remark was when Marlette explained a controversial cartoon he drew in 2005 at the University of Florida that had Kanye West holding the race card, and Condoleezza Rice opposite of him saying, ‘N****, please!’

“Now, I’m not sure what made Marlette think it was okay to draw that cartoon, let alone say the N-word aloud and in front of over 70 black students. It was appalling and a disgrace. We have gone through too much as a people to allow a white person to come into our house and say the N-word without any regard. The more shameful thing was no one, myself included, decided to say anything. Well, I’m saying something now.”

Asked to explain, Marlette told Journal-isms via e-mail, “I don’t think that the columnist’s take on the forum was quite accurate. The forum was hosted originally as discussion of the role of Florida’s editorial cartoonists as watchdogs of state government. However, given the recent news surrounding the NY Post cartoon and the publication of a cartoon in the South Florida Sun Sentinel of Charlie Crist in blackface, the discussion naturally went towards race and cartoons,” he said, referring to Florida’s governor.

“We were asked several questions as to why the majority of editorial cartoonists (there are less than 60 in the U.S.) are white males. The assertion that those questions weren’t answered is probably correct, but primarily because nobody knows a concrete reason as to why that is. Jeff Parker, cartoonist for Florida Today, speculated that given the fact that the number of cartoonists in the country is so small to begin with, the number of minority cartoonists is as well.

“I believe a question was asked as to how the lack of diversity affects the subject matter and opinions that are presented in cartoons. So in response, I related a story about a cartoon I had drawn in college for the Independent Florida Alligator that became the center of debate at the University of Florida. I always prefer to show a cartoon, but without the image at hand, I described it. The words ‘Nigga, please!’ were the exact words in the caption bubble in the cartoon. I repeated them for that reason only, to specifically and accurately describe the cartoon in the context of the discussion.

“I then explained the intention of the cartoon; that those words were chosen for their irony, being that it was Kanye’s word put into [Rice’s] speech bubble to represent her objection to his claim post-Katrina that Bush did not care about black people.

“I went on about the debate that carried on following the publication of the cartoon and about the University’s condemnation of it. I told how at the end of the day, after many opinions on all sides of the issue were voiced, the folks who still took offense agreed ultimately, that it would have been okay if a black cartoonist had drawn it.

“I then pointed out that at that time, nobody knew what race, religion or culture I came from, and how that is really a great virtue of cartoons, that they can be a form of expression by themselves, unhindered by any labels.

“That being said, I also expressed my hope that our industry will become more diverse and thereby stronger, and my belief that if it is to survive, it will necessarily have to do so.”

NAACP Visits Fox Stations Over N.Y. Post Cartoon

“NAACP chapters across the country turned up the volume of protests Thursday aimed at media giant News Corp. over the publication an editorial cartoon in the New York Post last week, viewed by many as a racist assault on President Barack Obama,” Denise Stewart reported Friday for BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“Representatives of 70 NAACP chapters held press conferences and delivered letters to Fox News affiliate stations calling for the firing of Sean Delonas, the Post’s cartoonist, and its editor‚Äìin-chief, Col Allan, as well as increased diversity in the newsrooms of News Corp. outlets.”

The cartoon shows two policemen, one with a smoking gun, looking at a dead chimpanzee. One says, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” Though the president did not write the stimulus bill, the chimpanzee was widely taken to represent him. The Post denied the cartoon referred to Obama but News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch later apologized.

“In Lansing, Michigan, NAACP chapter President Winston Williams Jr. went to Fox affiliate WSYM unannounced and asked to see the General Manager Gary Baxter,” Stewart’s story continued. The two had never met, but Thursday, Williams was armed with a letter stating the NAACP’s position and determined to have a face-to-face talk about diversity and other issues.”

In Roanoke, Va., “Debbie Reardon, WFXR’s director for news and creative services, also took a turn at the microphone. She told the crowd that she voted for Obama and valued their presence,” Pete Dybdahl reported for the Roanoke Times.

“We fully support you in what you’re saying and your right to say it,” she said.

Pictures taken by military photographers of the flag-draped caskets of war dead were released only after Freedom of Information Act lawsuits were won in 2004 and 2005. (Credit: National Press Photographers Association)

U.S. to Let Bereaved Families Decide on Media

“Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced yesterday that he is lifting a 1991 government ban on news coverage of the return of the remains of fallen service members to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and will let families decide whether to allow photographs and videos,” Ann Scott Tyson reported Thursday in the Washington Post.

“The ban, upheld by both Republican and Democratic administrations, has generated lawsuits as well as conflicting emotions on the part of military families.

“After receiving input from a number of sources, including all of the military services and the organizations representing military families, I have decided that the decision regarding media coverage of the dignified transfer process at Dover should be made by those most directly affected: on an individual basis by the families of the fallen,’ Gates told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. ‘We ought not presume to make that decision in their place.’

“Pictures of casualties have long played into the politics of a war ‚Äî most notably in Vietnam, dubbed the ‘living room war’ for its extensive television coverage. Indeed, starting in the 1990s, politicians and generals used the term ‘the Dover test’ to describe the public’s tolerance for troop casualties.”

Black History Month Ends With More Discussion

Black History Month 2009 is ending with a continuing debate over Attorney General Eric Holder’s comment that the United States is “a nation of cowards” in discussing race and more discussion about the value of the month.

In the Washington Informer, a weekly, Shantella Sherman wrote, “To choose mass communications as a college major seemed acceptable in the late 80‚Äôs as I considered colleges and career paths; but history, particularly African American or Black history, was deemed by my mentors and academic cohorts alike to be a dead-end career choice.

‚Äú’Who wants to know about Black people?’ and ‘Who cares about Black people?’ seemed to be the overarching themes of criticism. I prided myself on being a ‘race woman,’ not because of racial pride, but because I had once been colorstricken into believing that White was right.

“. . . I am an historian today, because it is critical to the stability and continued success of African Americans to know and understand their place in the context of larger, mainstream society. . . .

“Let it be clear, racial pride is not a call to hate other races or cultures, but Black self-loathing must be answered with collective Black loving. People who love themselves, do not hurt themselves or others who look like them. People who know their history do not engage in behaviors that will ultimately lead to the destruction of that history or those who created it. We have plenty to celebrate as African Americans; let us begin by embracing ourselves.”

Some commentators noted that Holder’s speech on African American History Month was unfairly reduced to the “nation of cowards” line.

 He also said, for example:

“Black history is extremely important because it is American history. Given this, it is in some ways sad that there is a need for a black history month. Though we are all enlarged by our study and knowledge of the roles played by blacks in American history, and though there is a crying need for all of us to know and acknowledge the contributions of black America, a black history month is a testament to the problem that has afflicted blacks throughout our stay in this country.

“Black history is given a separate, and clearly not equal, treatment by our society in general and by our educational institutions in particular. As a former American history major I am struck by the fact that such a major part of our national story has been divorced from the whole. In law, culture, science, athletics, industry and other fields, knowledge of the roles played by blacks is critical to an understanding of the American experiment. For too long we have been too willing to segregate the study of black history.

“There is clearly a need at present for a device that focuses the attention of the country on the study of the history of its black citizens. But we must endeavor to integrate black history into our culture and into our curriculums in ways in which it has never occurred before so that the study of black history, and a recognition of the contributions of black Americans, become commonplace. Until that time, Black History Month must remain an important, vital concept. But we have to recognize that until black history is included in the standard curriculum in our schools and becomes a regular part of all our lives, it will be viewed as a novelty, relatively unimportant and not as weighty as so called ‘real’ American history.”

Arun Chaudhary goes over a script with candidate Barack Obama last year.

Chaudhary, Jackson Named to Obama Photo Team

Arun Chaudhary has been named the official White House videographer, Pete Souza, official White House photographer, announced on Wednesday. Among others named to the photo team was Lawrence Jackson, an official photographer who will be assigned primarily to work with Souza covering the president, Donald R. Winslow reported for News Photographer magazine of the National Press Photographers Association.

Chaudhary will also facilitate producing multimedia projects for the White House Web site, www.whitehouse.gov. Lawrence Jackson

“During the campaign, Chaudhary was Obama’s director of field video production and he brought the Obama campaign to life on YouTube and the Obama Web site,” Winslow wrote.

Chaudhary, a New York University film-school professor, is the son of an immigrant Indian father and a Jewish mother, both scientists, according to the National Journal.

Jackson has been a photojournalist for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., where he spent a decade, and most recently for the Associated Press in Washington, where he has worked for more than five years.

Short Takes

  • In Massachusetts, “Comcast Corp. customers in Boston and Brookline may be seeing more breaking TV news reports, dramas, and sports coverage en espa?±ol from such places as Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and Venezuela. The cable provider this month introduced an expanded Hispanic programming package that imports 50 popular Spanish networks from Central and South America,” Johnny Diaz reported Thursday for the Boston Globe.
  • Antoine Sanfuentes, senior White House producer at NBC Antoine SanfuentesNews, has been named deputy bureau chief of the Washington Bureau of NBC News, Bureau Chief Mark Whitaker announced on Friday. Sanfuentes is half-Chilean, he told Journal-isms.
  • “Dmae Roberts is the producer and host of a 54-minute audio documentary ‘In The Mix: Conversations With Artists . . . Between Races,'” the Asian American Journalists Association reported on Friday. “The production explores Mixed Race contributions in arts and literature. Mixed Race is the fastest growing minority in America. The segment is distributed by Public Radio International and aired on National Public Radio. ‘As a Mixed Race Asian American,’ Roberts said, ‘I’ve spent most of my adult life exploring and explaining my identity. . . . My hope is to explore the topic of Mixed Race but also add some insight into our current president and the daily negotiations he and other Mixed Race Americans go through every day.'”
  • The vast majority of U.S. consumers still deem print editions of newspapers and magazines to be “indispensable” sources of news and entertainment, according to a survey by The Rosen Group, Joe Mandese reported Friday for MediaPost. It also found that two-thirds of Americans now use Web sites “devoted to news” as a daily source, and nearly a third consider them to be their No. 1 source of news and information. Nearly 60 percent of respondents do not consider information found on blogs to be “credible.”
  • After this week’s news that Roland Martin would substitute for CNN’s Campbell Brown while Brown is on maternity leave, Politico’s Michael Calderone wrote about a CNN staffer who, “said a couple weeks back that they didn’t expect Martin because he’s regarded as a partisan, while Brown’s show is billed as a non-partisan alternative to her 8pm competitors, Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly,” MediaBistro’s Steve Krakauer wrote on Friday. “A CNN spokesperson put it this way to TVNewser: ‘Can Roland Martin – who has been a journalist for 20 years and has supported both democrats and republicans – offer common sense and a broad range of opinions when he subs for Campbell for a couple of months? Yes – watch the show in April.'”
  • “Stephen Hill is coming back to Cincinnati – but not as a television news reporter,” Kimball Perry reported Thursday for the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Hill, who turned 50 last week, is being released from an Ohio prison and returning to Cincinnati as a convicted sex offender. The former Channel 9 reporter has been an inmate at the Allen Correctional Institution until today, when he completed the five-year prison sentence imposed on him in 2004 after he pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual battery on four boys.”
  • “The Egyptian judiciary should overturn today’s court decision to impose a fine on five journalists for violating a ban on media coverage of a murder trial, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The trial involves an influential businessman who is a member of President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling party,” the press-freedom group said on Thursday.

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