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Journalisms 7/29

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Sharpton Said to Be Political Asset to Comcast, Radio One


L.A. Times Veteran Randy Hagihara Takes Buyout


Norris Book Chosen for Minneapolis’ First Community Read


Columnist Heads for Trouble With Column on Hair


Almost 45 Percent of U.S. Young Are Children of Color


Short Takes


Sharpton Said to Be Political Asset to Comcast, Radio One


“Al Sharpton wasn’t just pleasing prospective employer MSNBC when he became the first major black leader to endorse the controversial Comcast/NBC merger. It turns out he was also enriching his current employer, Radio One, the largest black-owned radio company in the country, which has paid him more money than he’s made anywhere else in his life,” Wayne Barrett reported Thursday in the Daily Beast.


“The Daily Beast has already reported that just months after Sharpton played a pivotal role in pushing the merger, he became a regular substitute host and appears now to be in line for a fulltime anchor post on Comcast’s MSNBC. As awkward as that coincidence is, how about a conflict of interest he did not disclose in his letters to the Federal Communications Commission—or his other pro-merger activities?


“He was trumpeting a merger that’s already paid dividends to Radio One and its affiliate TV One, which reportedly pay him $700,000-a-year for his six-year-old radio show, commentary, and other appearances on TV One, and occasional blogging on their joint website, NewsOne.”


Alfred Liggins, the chairman of TV One and the CEO and president of Radio One, and his mother, Cathy Hughes, combine to own more than 90 percent of the voting shares of the radio company, Barrett wrote.


“. . . Sharpton has actually been much more useful to Liggins and Hughes politically than he has been as a performer. In addition to pushing a merger that may have helped deliver full control of a TV network to them, he joined them in a recent, bombastic campaign against a piece of legislation introduced” by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., “when the Democrats controlled the House that would have required radio stations to pay artists for the songs they play. His TV show for TV One, on the other hand, was a bomb. Called ‘Smart Talk,’ this barbershop conversation show died after 12 episodes in 2005, unable to attract a large enough black audience. Even though Radio One owns his radio show, ‘Keeping It Real,’ the network’s Atlanta station dropped it in 2009, reportedly due to paltry ratings, and Sharpton had to find a new home with another network in Atlanta.”


Sharpton was not quoted in the article.


 


L.A. Times Veteran Randy Hagihara Takes Buyout


Randy Hagihara, senior editor, Metpro and internships at the Los Angeles Times, has taken a buyout, Hagihara told Journal-isms on Friday. He spoke as the Times initiated another round of layoffs that included media columnist Tim Rutten.


“Yes, I took the buyout,” Hagihara said by email. “Metpro will continue. The Times has a class of six starting in September and has the total support of Editor Russ Stanton and Publisher/Tribune CEO Eddy Hartenstein.


“It was my privilege and honor to direct the program for so long. It was the best job in journalism. But it’s time to try something new.” Tracy Boucher, director of newsroom development, and Randy Harvey, associate editor, are now to oversee Metpro.


According to his LinkedIn profile, Hagihara has been a senior editor for recruitment since January 1990.


Metpro is a diversity program that begun at the old Times Mirror Co. and is now centralized at the Los Angeles newspaper.


Metpro candidates train with the paper for six months and, if all goes well, they work their way through the newsroom as two-year temps. Those who successfully complete the program become L.A. Times staffers.


Richard Horgan reported for FishbowlLA that Rutten spoke with KPCC-FM 89.3 morning host Madeleine Brand.


“ ‘Whatever the merits of your work, to be older and to be collecting a relatively large paycheck was to have a kind of target on your back,’ he says, admitting that he was surprised but not shocked by the news,” Horgan reported


“ ‘After the paper was acquired by Tribune in 2000, there’s been an unbroken record of disaster. It’s now a shell of what it was 10 years ago. Readers get less and less for more money.’ ”



Norris Book Chosen for Minneapolis’ First Community Read


“Tumultuous meetings over a proposed off-leash dog area at Martin Luther King Jr. Park over the past year left many city residents with a sick feeling in their stomach,” Nick Halter wrote last month for the Southwest Journal in Minneapolis.


“When the debate over the park was finished and the proposal nixed, some of those people decided they didn’t want to walk away from their neighbors on such bad terms. Instead, they decided they would use the dog park debate as starting point toward building relationships across racial lines.


“Thus, a handful neighbors — black and white, old and young and on both sides of I-35W — began meeting in an effort to better understand each other and how race and racism affects communities.


“The group, Building Bridges, is now rolling out several community initiatives, including a community read this fall of ‘The Grace of Silence,’ a memoir about race and family by South Minneapolis native and National Public Radio host Michele Norris.


Norris also began a Race Card Project in which participants start a conversation by writing just six words on a postcard. Some of the statements: “You talk like a white girl,” “Step on backs to raise yourself.” and “I assume black women hate me.”


Norris is scheduled to appear with Gwen Ifill, Ellis Cose, Eugene Robinson and Soledad O’Brien on a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Philadelphia next week, “When Media Becomes the Memoir.”


Norris told Journal-isms, “I am encouraging people to think about the elders in their families, their neighborhoods, their fraternities and sororities or their church communities, and to take the time to record their stories. I hope that NABJ members use their story-telling and reporting skills to find the ‘I’ in history . . . because many of the stories our families kept hidden away won’t be found in history books, and might go to the grave if we don’t make the effort to preserve those memories while we still can.”


Columnist Heads for Trouble With Column on Hair


John W. Fountain, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times who often writes about issues of black self-esteem, admittedly waded last week into what his wife warned would be controversial territory.


“Un-be-weave-able!” he wrote.


“Nearly everywhere I look, I see it — hair weave flowing, flapping in the breeze — blonde, brown, black, glossy and streaked. It approaches from the distance, like a mirage, a silhouette of cosmetic homogeneity that has been stitched or glued to the heads of my African-American sisters, some replete with eyelashes that look like sun visors.


“Whether on full-grown women or little school-age girls, I see it. Indeed it is hard to miss this conspicuous consumption and indulgence in this post-modern ritual of beautification that leaves me lately scratching my bald head.


“The hair, synthetic or someone else’s — worn as full headdress, as a phony pony (tail), or clip-on bang — is, in the words of many a sister, simply a matter of choice. Still, I cannot help but wonder whether this apparent weave explosion does not have a much deeper, more insidious root with consequences and implications beyond what eyes can see.


“My wife has assured me that by opening this can of worms, I will get lots of hate mail.”



Almost 45 Percent of U.S. Young Are Children of Color


“In the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF)’s new report on The State of America’s Children® 2011, we give a comprehensive overview on the well-being of America’s children,” Marian Wright Edelman, president of the fund, wrote on Friday.


“But just who are America’s children and families today? Children make up almost one in four of the people living in the United States today. More than one-quarter of our nation’s children are young—infants, toddlers, or preschoolers. They are the poorest age group in America. And the younger they are the poorer they are — cheating them in the years of greatest brain development. In chapters on child population and family structure we take a closer look, and a national child and family portrait begins to emerge.


“One of the most striking facts about America’s children is the rapidly blurring distinction between who is a ‘minority’ child and who is in the ‘majority.’ Today, almost 45 percent of America’s young are children of color, and by 2019 — just eight years away — they will be the majority of our child population.


“In fact, the majority of children are already children of color in the District of Columbia and nine states — Hawaii, New Mexico, California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Maryland, and Georgia. Of the 74.5 million children in America, 41.2 million (55.3%) are White, non-Hispanic; 16.8 million (22.5%) are Hispanic; 11.3 million (15.1%) are Black; 3.5 million (4.7%) are Asian/Pacific Islander; and 951,000 (1.3%) are American Indian/Alaska Native. The number of Hispanic children has increased every year since 1980, rising from 5.3 million in 1980 to 17 million in 2009. The number of White children has decreased every year since 1994, and the number of Black children has remained steady over the past two decades.”


Short Takes


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