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Unity, AAJA, SPJ Back Freelancer Held in Iran

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Vickie Burns Guiding NBC’s New N.Y. Digital Channel

Roxana Saberi in Notorious Prison, Worked “Illegally”


The Asian American Journalists Association, the Society of Professional Journalists and Unity: Journalists of Color Wednesday added their voices to those demanding that Iran release Roxana Saberi, a freelance journalist who is being held, according to the Iranian government, in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.


No charges have been announced, although foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said she had been working “illegally” in Iran.


Saberi, 31, joined AAJA as a student member in 1999, serving as an intern covering the Unity convention that year in Seattle.


“She was a member through 2004, when she attended the UNITY Convention in Washington, D.C., as a Tehran correspondent/bureau chief for the television news service Feature Story News,” AAJA said in a statement. “Her stories have been carried by National Public Radio and other media. As a professional journalist, she also covered events in Afghanistan.”


AAJA members Keith Kamisugi and Steven Chin launched a Web site, FreeRoxana.net, with “updates, links and an embedded Twitter feed,” Kamisugi told Journal-isms.


SPJ President Dave Aeikens spoke Monday to Reza Saberi, Roxana’s father, who lives in Fargo, N.D., that organization said.


“Roxana Saberi needs to be released and returned to her family immediately,” Aeikens said in a news release on Wednesday. “Journalists should not be jailed in any country for doing their jobs.”


Reza Saberi, a teacher and translator, disclosed on National Public Radio on Sunday that he had heard from his daughter on Feb. 10 that she had been arrested on Jan. 31.


“She said that she had bought a bottle of wine, and the person who had sold had reported that one and they came and arrested her,” Reza Saberi, speaking from Fargo, N.D., told “Weekend Edition Sunday” host Scott Simon. “But later we found out that for a bottle of wine they don’t keep the person in detention. It’s just some fine that they get. And, also, this is an excuse they make in order to arrest someone. Someone else also had the same experience, we heard, and they had made the same excuse for him – that person didn’t drink.”


The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iran.


In a report on Tuesday, Martha Raddatz of ABC News told viewers, “Iran’s Foreign Ministry told the ISNA news agency that Saberi had been arrested for ‘gathering news illegally’ because she was working without press credentials. The spokesman for the Foreign Ministry would not say where she was being held.”


Judicial authority spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said at a press conference on Tuesday that Saberi had been “arrested on the order of the Tehran revolutionary court and is now in detention in Evin prison, according to the press-freedom group Reporters Without Borders.


“Revolutionary courts, in existence since 1979, are intended to try national security, espionage, terrorism, and drug-trafficking cases. Proceedings are usually closed, and defendants are frequently made to appear in court without legal counsel,” according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.


Reporting Wednesday from the West Bank, where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is traveling, Raddatz said Clinton “told ABC News on Tuesday that the State Department was trying to find out Saberi’s legal status and location.


“The State Department has reached out to our Swiss contacts to ask for information and express our deep concern about this young woman’s fate,” Clinton said, according to Raddatz. “We are going to use every tool at our disposal to bring her home.”


Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday that Reza Saberi told the group that his daughter has not worked for the media since 2006. “She did not have access to news and information as she did not have press accreditation. ‘Her writings were just personal notes and comments about cultural and literary subjects with a view to writing a book about Iran,’ he said, adding that ‘she had been concentrating since 2006 on studying Farsi and Iranian culture at a Tehran university.’


“It is very common in Iran for journalists and bloggers to be arrested arbitrarily and held in unknown locations. Blogger Hossein Derakhshan, for example, has been held in an unknown location since 1 November.”


In her report Tuesday, Raddatz said, “I have direct experience with the Iranian government’s attitudes about ‘gathering news illegally.” She recounted how she, her producer and her cameraman were arrested by Iranian police last September for videotaping officers who were looking for women whose heads were not “properly” covered.


Unity urges journalists to sign a Facebook petition supporting Saberi’s release.


Sportscaster Asks for Volunteers to Help With Search


Bruce Cooper, the sportscaster father of missing boater and NFL player Marquis Cooper, said he and his family would begin a private search for his son on Wednesday but was adamant that they would not themselves participate, Erica Pitzi reported for WTSP-TV in Tampa, Fla.


“Today’s private air search started around nine-o-clock this morning, according to the Cooper family. It lasted nearly six hours with nothing new found.


“Bruce Cooper said today that he is ‘mentally exhausted’ and sometimes stops and realizes that he ‘lost a son.’


“Since Sunday, Cooper’s family has remained hopeful that they will find Marquis, even after the sole survivor, Nick Schuyler, told the US Coast Guard that the football player ‘gave up’ after holding on to the capsized boat for hours.


In a telephone call Wednesday night to CNN’s “Larry King Live,” Cooper said, “today we had three planes in the air and 12 boats on the water, continuing the search efforts. And so that’s done nothing but renew our spirits, give us a lot more optimism that our son and everyone still out at large will be found.

“And as for tomorrow, three planes and 15 boats will go out again. There’s a possibility of seven planes up. So we are just ecstatic and optimistic.”


Cooper told the news media that the family received a strong response after setting up an e-mail address at nflsearchandrescue@gmail.com, asking for volunteer pilots and captains to assist in a continued search for the missing players.


“For any experienced pilots or boaters who want to help in the search, the Cooper family is offering $50 per hour plus gas.”


Cooper’s station, KPNX-TV in Phoenix, sent its news director, Mark Carey, anchor Mark Curtis and photojournalist Garrett Wichman to Florida to follow the story, working out of a sister Gannett Co. station, WTSP-TV, a CBS affiliate. Cooper did his last sportscast in Phoenix on Saturday night.


His 26-year-old son and three others failed to return from a fishing trip Saturday night.


Casey, the news director, told Journal-isms on Wednesday that he and Curtis felt close to Bruce and Marquis Cooper and that he felt “it would be best if we covered the story with people that Bruce and the family felt comfortable with.”


Was It, "No, We’re Straight?" or "Nah, We Straight?"

Among the benefits of assigning African Americans to the Obama White House is being able to pick up on cultural cues that others might miss.

Nia-Malika Henderson, who came to Politico from Newsday, provided an example on Tuesday in a piece headlined, "Blacks, whites hear Obama differently."

"On his pre-inaugural visit to Ben’s Chili Bowl, a landmark for Washington’s African-American community, President Barack Obama was asked by a cashier if he wanted his change back," it began.

‚Äú’Nah, we straight,’ Obama replied.

"The phrase was so subtle some listeners missed it. The reporter on pool duty quoted Obama as saying, ‘No, we‚Äôre straight.’

"But many other listeners did not miss it. A video of the exchange became an Internet hit, and there was a clear moment of recognition among many blacks, who got a kick out of their Harvard-educated president sounding, as one commenter wrote on a hip-hop site, ‘mad cool.’

"On matters of racial identity, many observers in the African-American community say he benefits from what’s known as ‘dog-whistle politics.’ His language, mannerisms and symbols resonate deeply with his black supporters, even as the references largely sail over the heads of white audiences."

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPlLdMTSIGg&eurl=http://www.illdoctrine.com/]

Vibe Story Anticipated Chris Brown-Rihanna Discussion

In light of the attention given the alleged abuse of Rihanna by fellow singer Chris Brown, video blogger and New York radio host Jay Smooth interviewed Elizabeth Mendez Berry, author of a 2005 piece in Vibe magazine, "Love Hurts," that she says drew the most letters to the editor ever for a story in that publication.

"At the same time, there were plenty of people who said to me, ‘Why are you airing our dirty laundry?’" Berry told Smooth. Her piece was about the domestic abuse heaped by the late rapper Big Pun upon his wife, Liza Rios, and more broadly about domestic violence in the hip-hop world.

"There were definitely some people who tried to intimidate me, and things like that. It was a powerful experience." she said. "What really saddened me was that within the hip-hop community there was a really strong backlash not against Chris Brown, but against Rihanna. I hope we can use this as the beginning of a conversation."

There was similar optimism after the 2005 piece.

Mark Anthony Neal, an associate professor with the Department of African-American Studies at Duke University, said on National Public Radio’s "News & Notes" then, "Ironically, Mendez Berry’s article, and the willingness of one of the most popular urban culture periodicals to publish it, is evidence that hip-hop is actually coming to terms with issues of domestic violence on its own terms.

"Fifteen years ago when Dr. Dre, then a member of NWA, threw video host Dee Barnes down a flight of stairs, the hip-hop community was virtually silent. As hip-hop and many of its artists grow up, it’s only natural that some within the hip-hop generation will begin to put pressure on the culture to better reflect its grown-up status.

"Admittedly, it’s an uphill battle, as record companies, music video networks, urban radio stations, urban magazines and the artists themselves find the debasement of women, gays and others a very lucrative business. But hip-hop has always been honest about its demons. It would do the black community well to take a lesson from hip-hop."

[Brown was charged Thursday with felony assault and making criminal threats, according to news reports.] [Updated March 5.]

 

Vickie Burns Guiding NBC’s New N.Y. Digital Channel


“NBC’S long-promised new digital channel, New York Nonstop, will launch Monday at 5 a.m. as the company’s latest step to drive content to as many people as possible,” Richard Huff wrote Wednesday in the New York Daily News.


“New York Nonstop will be available to 5.7 million viewers on cable and over the air on digital channel 4.2. It’s billed as a ‘local information and lifestyle channel,’ not just a news channel and not designed to compete directly with cable news operation NY1.


“‘First and foremost,’ said Vickie Burns, vice president of news and content for WNBC and New York Nonstop, in an interview Tuesday, ‘it’s all things New York, things that are newsworthy and interesting and engaging, and we mean New York in that universal and inclusive sense.’


“The channel will have news updates every 15 minutes, but the only fixed show with a slight hint of a traditional newscast will be a 7 p.m. hour anchored by Chuck Scarborough (who will continue to do the 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts on Ch. 4).


“. . . the transition hasn’t been easy. All off-camera staff had to apply for new multimedia positions. Some experienced people have left, and some new ones have been hired. Several familiar on-air folks, such as Jay DeDapper and Carolyn Gusoff, have been jettisoned.


“‘Change is necessary,’ Burns said. ‘We like the results of the change. We’ve been very focused on what we needed to do, very focused on engaging people in that process and bringing them with us, and getting ideas and hopefully inspiration from them.'”


Ebony-Jet “Welcomes” Readers’ Subscription Campaign


An unsigned e-mail making the rounds urges those who read it to throw subscription parties, if necessary, to help save Ebony and Jet magazines, whose parent Johnson Publishing Co. is undergoing a reorganization partially to cope with the economic stresses affecting the print and broadcast media.


“In order to support this effort to save OUR magazine, my friends and myself have pledged to get a subscription to both, Ebony, and Jet magazine, starting with one year. We are urging EVERY other person who comes across this plea, to do the same,” the e-mail says. “Please post, repost, and post again, to any blog that you may own, or support. Please email this to EVERY person that you know, regardless of their background. Let them know that Ebony, and Jet magazine has been part of the black american culture for 3 quarters of a century, and that there is a lot that they can learn about black american culture from reading them.”


Asked to respond, Johnson Publishing Co. spokeswoman Staci R. Collins-Jackson told Journal-isms Wednesday:


“During these tumultuous economic times, no company is without challenges. Johnson Publishing Company‚Äôs reorganization is a proactive, strategic measure to ensure that we stay competitive in a media industry that is consistently changing. We remain laser-focused on forward thinking and take the responsibility of ensuring the strength of our iconic brands very seriously. We certainly welcome the continued support of the African-American community that we have served for over six decades and indeed encourage the community to subscribe to our publications via ebonyjet.com in support of our ongoing efforts to continue our long-term success.”


“Why‚Äôs a Jewish Woman Running a Black Paper?”


“A Jewish editor would be an unusual presence at most black newspapers, but at few places more so than the famed Amsterdam News,” Nathaniel Popper wrote on Thursday for the New York-based Jewish publication the Forward.


“For the past few decades, the weekly, Harlem-based publication has achieved notoriety in no small measure due to its frequent run-ins with Jewish antagonists. Those battles were often sparked by the paper‚Äôs longtime owner and editor, Wilbert Tatum, who pulled few punches in his criticism of Jewish leaders and organizations.


“But as Tatum never shied away from pointing out, he had a Jewish wife and daughter. That daughter, Elinor Ruth Tatum, has been slowly assuming the reins of the paper from her father since 1997. She continued to make space on the paper‚Äôs distinctive red-and-black front page for her father‚Äôs essays ‚Äî such as one about vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman in 2000, in which Tatum said that Lieberman was put on the ticket to attract Jewish money from around the globe.


“Since her father‚Äôs death on February 26, at age 76, Elinor Tatum has moved into complete control of the Amsterdam News. The distinctively New York tale of a Jewish editor at America‚Äôs most prominent black newspaper has been a complex and evolving story, and it is not over yet.”


[Despite the Forward’s headline, “Why’s a Jewish Woman Running a Black Paper?” being black and Jewish of course are not mutually exclusive. As Robin Washington, news director of the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune, points out, he was both black and Jewish when he edited Boston’s Bay State Banner.]


A wake for Tatum is to be held on Thursday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Provenzano Lanzo Funeral Home, 43 Second Ave., Manhattan, between 2nd and 3rd streets, the family said. A public funeral service is scheduled for Friday at Riverside Church from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The church is at 490 Riverside Drive, Manhattan. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be sent to the Amsterdam News Educational Foundation, 34 East Third St., New York, NY 10003.



Larry Campbell Leaving AP’s Seattle Bureau Friday


Larry Campbell, the Associated Press’ assistant bureau chief for Washington, Alaska and Idaho, has resigned, Campbell confirmed on Wednesday. His last day will be Friday.


“Can’t really say at this point what I’ll be doing for sure,” Campbell, 53, told Journal-isms by e-mail. “My wife and teen-age kids are still in Anchorage, AK, where I’m originally from. The AP had moved me to Seattle a little over a year ago. I’m going to look for something that allows me to spend time with them more frequently. Phone and video conferencing has gotten old, know what I mean?”


Campbell, who joined the AP in 2001 after working at the Anchorage Daily News and chairing the Department of Journalism and Public Communications at the University of Alaska-Anchorage, attended the Maynard Institute’s Media Academy in Cambridge, Mass., in 2007.


He was once the bureau chief for Alaska, but that position was eliminated when Alaska was combined with Washington and Idaho.

The AP at one time had three black bureau chiefs: Campbell, Robert Naylor in Albany, N.Y., and Denise Cabrera for the Baltimore area, but now has one, Mike McQueen, who is based in New Orleans. 


Diverse: Issues in Higher Education Implements Layoffs


Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, founded in 1984 as Black Issues in Higher Education, is downsizing like many other publications. The Fairfax, Va.-based publication, which now also covers Asian Americans, Latinos and Native Americans, lists an editorial staff  of nine and relies heavily on freelancers.


Maya Matthews Minter, vice president for editorial and production and daughter of co-publisher Frank Matthews, said she considered news of the layoffs “proprietary,” but Tracie Powell, associate editor since October, confirmed that she was one of the casualties.


“I really enjoy editing, and working with young reporters in particular. I also plan to continue writing my weekly column for Congressional Quarterly,” Powell told Journal-isms. 


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