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It’s Official: Unity Board Accepts NABJ’s Resignation

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“Situation Room Photo” Speaks to Race, Gender, Swagger

Bin Laden Death Gets 89% of Mainstream Media Coverage

“Geronimo” Code Name Angers Some Native Americans

New Black Channel Bounce TV Signed Up in 26 Markets

Public Relations Field Grows While Newsrooms Shrink

Andrew Breitbart, Despite Deceit, Still Gets Airtime

Short Takes

 

The board of directors of Unity: Journalists of Color voted Friday to accept the decision of the National Association of Black Journalists to withdraw from the coalition. Mekahlo Medina, a representative of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, told Journal-isms he voted against acceptance.

Joanna Hernandez, Unity president, said via email: “The UNITY board of directors met via conference call today to do the work necessary to comply with the NABJ board’s decision to depart from UNITY.

“It was a sad and respectful meeting.

“Kathy Times‘ letter rescinding the appointments of the NABJ representatives on the UNITY board, as well as her own resignation from the UNITY board, effective Tuesday, May 10, 2011, was read for the record.

“The board then voted on removing references to NABJ from UNITY’s Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation.

“Each UNITY board member expressed their dismay and regrets, and the message was clear that the door will remain open for NABJ should their board decide to return to UNITY.”

The board of the National Association of Black Journalists voted April 10 to withdraw from Unity because “as a business model, UNITY no longer is the most financially prudent for NABJ and its membership.”

Remaining are the Asian American Journalists Association, NAHJ and the Native American Journalists Association, who are planning a Unity convention in Las Vegas for 2012.

 

“Situation Room Photo” Speaks to Race, Gender, Swagger

“By now, the photo is a classic. It’s become the most viewed image on Flickr — a mesmerizing picture that suggests as much as it reveals,” John Blake wrote Thursday for cnn.com.

“You may know it simply as the ‘Situation Room Photo,’ but you may not be aware of what some say are three subliminal messages that make it so powerful and unusual.

“The photo captures President Barack Obama huddled with his national security team in the White House Situation Room as they monitor via live video the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden.

“Most commentators have focused on the historic nature of the photo: Obama staring at the screen with a grim intensity; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, covering her mouth . . . the epicenter of U.S. military power hunting down its most hated foe.

“But look deeper and that photo becomes historic in a more subtle way. It’s a snapshot of how much this nation’s attitudes about race, women and presidential swagger are changing, several scholars and historians say.

“. . . For much of U.S. history, the black man has often been portrayed as the threat to America’s safety — the angry man, the thug, the one you cross the street to avoid, says Cheryl Contee, co-founder of Jack & Jill Politics, a blog focused on current affairs from a black perspective.

“But in the Situation Room photo, Contee says, the black man is America’s protector.

“. . . The photo also resolves a tricky image problem for Obama, says Jerald Podair, a history professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.

“Podair says Obama has always been careful to avoid the angry black male stereotype in his public persona, but has acquired another image — that of detachment, even weakness.

“The photo of Obama hunkered down with his national security team watching the stalking and killing of bin Laden solves both problems, Podair says.

“. . . Lori Brown, a sociologist, says showing two women at the center of American military power is noteworthy.

“. . . Obama’s willingness to be photographed without the typical Oval Office swagger gives birth to a new type of swagger, says Contee of Jack & Jill Politics.”

Bin Laden Death Gets 89% of Mainstream Media Coverage

“If it seems like the death of Osama bin Laden has been inescapable this week, from cable news to blogs to even your friends’ Facebook statuses, that’s because it’s true,” Toni Fitzgerald reported Friday for medialifemagazine.com.

“In just a few days, his death has become the biggest story of the year in both traditional and social media.

“On Monday and Tuesday, coverage of bin Laden accounted for 89 percent of mainstream media coverage, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, which tracks the biggest stories in media on a weekly basis.

“That’s the most dominant performance for any story since the PEJ began its tracking four years ago.

“Details about the raid (25 percent) and U.S. and global reaction to bin Laden’s death (24 percent) have taken up the greatest share of the news hole.

“The life of bin Laden has gotten the least amount of attention, at just 6 percent, which is perhaps not surprising considering that news organizations are wary of rewarding the actual man with attention and weary of revisiting territory they covered so thoroughly a decade ago, when it became clear al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks.

“The PEJ also conducted an analysis of how the news is playing out in social media. Notably, for a culture that is often uncomfortable with expressing emotion, humor has been a major theme in the reaction to bin Laden’s death.”

“Geronimo” Code Name Angers Some Native Americans

The Obama administration has sparked outrage in the Native American community following the revelation it used the name of the legendary Apache leader Geronimo as a secret code word during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden,” according to the Pacifica Radio show “Democracy Now!”

“Geronimo was an Apache leader who fought to preserve tribal lands against U.S. and Mexican forces in the 19th century. We get reaction from Native American activist and writer, Winona LaDuke. ‘The reality is that the military is full of native nomenclature,’ says LaDuke. ‘You’ve got Black Hawk helicopters, Apache Longbow helicopters. You’ve got Tomahawk missiles. The term used when you leave a military base in a foreign country is to go “off the reservation, into Indian Country.” So what is that messaging that is passed on? It is basically the continuation of the wars against indigenous people.’ “

Matthew Daly of the Associated Press reported Thursday, “The White House referred questions on the matter to the Defense Department, which said no disrespect was meant to Native Americans.”

New Black Channel Bounce TV Signs Deal for 26 Markets

“Bounce TV, a multicast channel for African Americans, has landed its first distribution deal and it’s a big one — Raycom Media,” TVNewsCheck reported on Thursday.

“Starting this fall, when the network launches, Raycom will carry the new diginet in 26 markets covering 10% of U.S. TV homes and nearly 19% of African-American TV homes.

“Bounce TV said it expects to be in at least 50% of TV homes at launch with more distribution agreements to be announced shortly.

“The markets: Cleveland; Charlotte, N.C; Cincinnati; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Birmingham, Ala.; Memphis, Tenn; Louisville, Ky.; Richmond, Va.; Columbia, S.C.: Huntsville, Ala.; Shreveport, La.; Jackson, Miss.; Baton Rouge, La.; Savannah, Ga.; Charleston, S.C.; Myrtle Beach-Florence, S.C.; Tyler-Lufkin, Texas; Augusta, Ga.; Montgomery, Ala.; Columbus, Ga.; Wilmington, N.C.; Albany, Ga.; Biloxi, Miss.; Hattiesburg, Miss; Dothan, Ala.; and Lake Charles, La.”

Public Relations Field Grows While Newsrooms Shrink

“The muscles of journalism are weakening and the muscles of public relations are bulking up — as if they were on steroids,” according to David Barstow, a New York Times investigative reporter.

In a story Monday on ProPublica, “PR Industry Fills Vacuum Left by Shrinking Newsrooms,” John Sullivan describes how Barstow walked into a Houston hotel for December’s hearings on the Gulf oil spill and found the conference room packed. “Most of the people busily scribbling notes in the room were not there to ask questions. They were there to answer them,” Sullivan wrote.

“In their recent book, ‘The Death and Life of American Journalism,’ Robert McChesney and John Nichols tracked the number of people working in journalism since 1980 and compared it to the numbers for public relations. Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, they found that the number of journalists has fallen drastically while public relations people have multiplied at an even faster rate. In 1980, there were about .45 PR workers per 100,000 population compared with .36 journalists. In 2008, there were .90 PR people per 100,000 compared to .25 journalists. That’s a ratio of more than three-to-one, better equipped, better financed.”

Despite Deceit, Andrew Breitbart Still Gets Airtime

“Let’s face it. LA’s resident conservative agitator Andrew Breitbart isn’t going away. His involvement in the Shirley Sherrod flap threatened to put him out to the woodshed of the public consciousness,” Matthew Fleischer wrote Thursday for FishBowlLA. “But now, thanks largely to his protege James O’Keefe‘s NPR sting, Breitbart is back on Bill Maher and at the LAT Festival of Books and even written up by the Times itself. Breitbart has even inexplicably reemerged as one of the left-wing media’s go-to conservative pundits — much to the incredulity of the liberal blogosphere.”

“. . . Breitbart even found his way to MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan show last week — where the typically ornery liberal Ratigan went out of his way to call Breitbart a ‘sharp shooter who gets results.’ That didn’t sit well with Color of Change activist and Firedoglake blogger James Rucker — who felt Ratigan was bending over backwards to help restore Breitbart’s undeserved credibility.

“Rucker interviewed Ratigan about Breitbart’s appearance.

” ‘When I spoke with Ratigan, he explained what he was trying to do. He quickly agreed that Breitbart was a race-baiter, dishonest, and undeserving of credibility — without question. And he frankly hadn’t thought about the legitimizing effect that having Breitbart on his show — without clearly labeling him as the race-baiter and deceiver he is — would have.”

Short Takes

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