Jay Harris Out of Running for Dean’s Job
Jay T. Harris has removed his name from contention in the contest to become dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York Daily News columnist Paul Colford reports.
Harris, who as publisher of the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News was one of the highest-ranking African Americans in the newspaper business, has told friends and colleagues that he wouldn’t move east for family reasons, Colford wrote.
Though Harris was among those approached by a search committee and was considered likely to make its final cut, the panel ended up recommending James Fallows, a former editor of U.S. News & World Report, and former New York Times reporter Alex Jones, who heads the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard.
Miffed, Neal Left for P.R., but Realized He’s a Journalist
“The industry needs to take notice that some of the finest journalists of color, and some of the most promising young journalists are leaving for other professions,” says Terry M. Neal, new chief political correspondent of washingtonpost.com.
“While some of this inevitably has to do with money, much of it also has to do with the sense of alienation they feel in their own newsrooms. Too often their bosses ignore them, try to steer them into undesirable beats, scold them in harsher tones than they would others for mistakes or shortcomings, or make them believe they are lucky to be here, and that sort of thing,” Neal told Journal-isms.
Neal left the Washington Post after the 2000 election campaign after being the only African American in the mainstream media assigned to the George W. Bush campaign. He said at the time he knew of none covering Democrat Al Gore. But when Bush won the election, the White House job went to other reporters. Neal split.
In “A Rising Star Goes for Big Bucks,” the Washingtonian magazine wrote then that “In the sweepstakes for plum assignments after the election, the Post has lost a promising African-American writer and picked two relative newcomers to cover the White House.” It said that “Neal was making about $90,000 after six years at the paper; he’ll be getting near $150,000 in flakdom.”
Neal’s departure highlighted the newspaper industry’s biggest diversity-related issue: “Last year, editors hired nearly 600 minority journalists into their first full-time newsroom job,” the American Society of Newspaper Editors said in 2001. “But at year’s end, 698 minority journalists had left.” Neal was one of them.
“I decided to come back to journalism because I decided that I missed it,” said the 1989 graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia Journalism School. “Sometimes what you do also becomes, to some extent who you are, and I realized that what I am is a journalist. PR is a fine, honorable profession, but for me, it was kind of slow. Frankly, I found it a little boring. I missed the rough and tumble of journalism–particularly political reporting.”
As for the roadblocks in the business, he said, “for every dimwit you meet who’ll try to hold you down, there’s someone else who’ll bend over backward to help you make the best of your career.”
Neal’s work for washingtonpost.com is to include columns, video and audio reports of the 2002 elections, Capitol Hill and the White House.
Hispanic Journalists Protest “Coloring the News” Award
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists has joined the protest of the National Press Club’s award to William McGowan‘s “Coloring the News” book, telling the Press Club board that, “if you insist on honoring this book, then we challenge you to sponsor a public debate this fall between McGowan and a representative of NAHJ or UNITY.
“In the interest of fairness, we want the public to see the book you honor subjected to a level of scrutiny higher than that which was employed by your misguided judges,” wrote NAHJ President Juan Gonzalez.
The Press Club last week declared McGowan’s book the winner in its press criticism book category, even though it was the only entry. The Press Club’s Board of Governors is deciding whether to reconsider the award in response to a request from the Media Monitoring Committee of the National Association of Black Journalists.
NAHJ agreed with NABJ that the book, subtitled “How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism,” is unworthy of the award.
“Anyone can point to examples of bad journalism,” Gonzalez wrote. “But to blame such examples on the ‘crusade for diversity’ shows a profound lack of understanding of what that crusade is all about, and a hostile attitude toward journalists of color. By honoring McGowan, the National Press Club embraces that hostility and lack of understanding.” Full text of the letter at the end of this column.
Maine Paper Apologizes for Column of “Bigotry”
“Hatred and bigotry are not welcome” on the Opinion page of the Kennebec (Maine) Journal,” executive editor David B. Offer wrote readers on Wednesday.
“We receive our share of letters and columns that fall into that category; our policy is not to print them. But one slipped through the cracks on Tuesday.”
The offending column “equated race with crime and welfare – among the oldest and most objectionable stereotypes. It urged people not to shop at businesses that hired Somali immigrants. It suggested that Maine is not as good a place to live and work as it was before the Somalis came here. With no evidence at all, the column tried to link the Somali immigrants to terrorism.
“That is not how important issues involving race, crime and immigration should be discussed,” wrote Offer.
The paper is owned by the Blethen family, which also owns the Seattle Times.
Why Sun-Times Upset Korean-Americans
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown protested last week that he wasn’t responsible for the headline over his column poking fun at dog-eating, “Nation of dog-eaters turns us off to World Cup.”
But Michael Miner, writing in the Chicago Reader, says Brown misses the point. “Korean-Americans who reacted to Mark Brown’s column — or to its headline — weren’t angry because it isn’t true that Koreans eat dog. They felt they’d been reduced to a caricature and ridiculed for it,” Miner writes.
“Which is why Brown’s dog column should be remembered as an instance when a columnist chose to kid around a little instead of seizing a golden opportunity to read several books on his subject, survey immigrant groups and anthropologists, and use his space to peel away the layers of cultural confusion that divide one civilization from another — the way newspaper columnists usually do.”
L.A. Station Wouldn’t Let Anchor Say Goodbye
KCBS-TV in Los Angeles has made it official: It has hired popular anchor Laura Diaz away from KABC-TV, where she has spent 19 years. KABC wouldn’t let Diaz back on the air to say goodbye to viewers.
Diaz told the Los Angeles Times that her last “Eyewitness News” appearance was on Friday, with management keeping her off the air Monday even though she was prepared to work. “I would have liked to say goodbye,” she said. “I have nothing but respect for all the people at KABC. It was a wonderful place to work. They made me a nice offer, but Viacom-CBS offered me the opportunity of a lifetime.” KABC officials couldn’t be reached for comment.
In addition to becoming the main anchor at KCBS, Diaz said she will make several appearances as a West Coast correspondent for CBS’ prime-time newsmagazine “48 Hours” and will also be a news reader for the network’s morning news. Diaz might also appear at times on sister station KCAL.
L.A. Times Promotes Simon K.C. Li to AME
The Los Angeles Times has promoted Simon K.C. Li, the newspaper’s foreign editor since 1995, to assistant managing editor, effective in August.
Li will be responsible for a variety of paper-wide projects, including reporter and editor recruitment, and serve as an adviser to Managing Editor Dean Baquet, the newspaper said.
Replacing Li as foreign editor is London Bureau Chief Marjorie Miller.
2nd Offer Made for Chicago Defender Parent Company
The race to revive Sengstacke Enterprises Inc., the financially ailing owner of the Chicago Defender and three other African American newspapers, kicked into higher gear this week as a second bidder for the company made a formal offer, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Target Market News, a Chicago-based firm that does market research on black consumers, submitted a cash offer Tuesday for 51 percent of the family-owned business.
Ethnic Newspapers on Rise in New York City
The number of newspapers and magazines published in New York City has grown to 270 publications targeting an increasingly diverse population, according to a survey released Wednesday.
The survey by the Independent Press Association-New York said that more than 60 ethnic groups publish newspapers or magazines in 42 languages. Nearly half use a language other than English and 14% use more than one language, the Associated Press reports.
The survey found dailies serving blacks, Greeks, Israelis, Italians, Russians, and Serbs. Six dailies are published for New Yorkers of Chinese descent, five for Koreans, four for Hispanics, and three for Poles.
ABC Radio Taking Larry Elder National
Larry Elder, a black conservative-libertarian who has hosted afternoon drive on KABC-AM, ABC Radio’s talk station in Los Angeles since 1994, is going national. Beginning Aug. 12, Elder’s show will be syndicated through ABC Radio Networks, broadcasting live from 6 to 9 p.m. ET, reports Media Week.
David Horowitz, the liberal-turned-conservative who has crusaded against reparations for slavery in ads on college newspapers, says he counts Elder as a friend. Elder is often billed as the “Sage from South Central.”
Text of NAHJ Letter to National Press Club
July 10, 2002
Jonathan Salant
AP
2021 K St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20006
Dear Mr. Salant:
The board of directors of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists is dismayed with your organization’s decision to award a coveted prize to William McGowan‘s book Coloring the News. This insulting book is a poorly argued indictment of the need to ensure diversity in America’s newsrooms, in the pages of its newspapers and magazines, and in the images on the nightly news.
While McGowan’s book may have been the only entry in the category of media criticism, you still had a choice in deciding whether to honor it or not. That you chose to do so is disturbing. You have given his specious argument a stamp of credibility that it does not deserve.
McGowan’s thesis, that the crusade for diversity has caused a decline in the quality of American journalism, is not presented in anything approaching a fair manner. It fails as journalism. It fails as scholarship. McGowan falsely presents examples of bad or incomplete journalism as the direct outgrowth of the demand for the full and fair coverage of non-white citizens and communities. His logical leaps are unsupported by the facts he presents.
McGowan even accuses young journalists, “particularly members of minorities,” of harboring a “scorn for objectivity,” resulting in a newsgathering environment in which “facts lose their currency.” What is his evidence for this outrageous insult? He presents none.
Anyone can point to examples of bad journalism. But to blame such examples on the “crusade for diversity” shows a profound lack of understanding of what that crusade is all about, and a hostile attitude toward journalists of color. By honoring McGowan, the National Press Club embraces that hostility and lack of understanding.
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists demands that news organizations cover issues affecting Latinos in the fullest and fairest manner possible. We do not ask news organizations to hold back on coverage of immigration, bilingual education or any other topic. We merely ask for thorough, complete coverage of these issues.
Thoroughness is something that is lacking in McGowan’s book. To cite just one example, on page 15 McGowan refers to a 1996 APME study which found that 40 percent of whites believed that lower standards were employed to promote journalists of color. He fails to note other relevant findings of that study, including the fact that 77 percent of whites agreed that newsroom staffs should reflect society in terms of racial/ethnic makeup and that 86 percent thought that diversity strengthens news coverage and credibility.
Opinion polls are not facts: if our white colleagues believe we are held to a lower standard of performance, they are sadly mistaken. In fact, the opinion is insulting, as it presumes non-white journalists as a whole are less qualified, less committed to good journalism, and less likely to uphold the highest standards of our profession, than white journalists. If non-white reporters are held to a lower standard than white reporters, why is it that America’s newsrooms still do not reflect the diversity of America? Why is it that 45 percent of all daily newspapers across the country still do not employ a single person of color in their newsrooms? These facts undermine McGowan’s argument.
McGowan routinely tries to lump together the demand for full and fair coverage with bad decisions, fear of offending politically powerful audiences, and “political correctness.” The fact that the same journalistic flaws can be found in an examination of coverage of politics, business, and other non-racial issues, is completely ignored. Yes, bad journalism does exist. The crusade for diversity is not to blame for it, anymore than a business editor’s demand for strong business reporting is to blame for laudatory articles about Enron prior to 2001. This is a fundamental flaw in McGowan’s argument.
And you’re rewarding him for it?
We join our colleagues at the National Association of Black Journalists in criticizing the quality of this book, and in criticizing your ill-advised decision to uphold it as one of the year’s best efforts.
If you insist on honoring this book, then we challenge you to sponsor a public debate this fall between McGowan and a representative of NAHJ or UNITY. In the interest of fairness, we want the public to see the book you honor subjected to a level of scrutiny higher than that which was employed by your misguided judges.
Sincerely,
Juan Gonzalez
President
National Association of Hispanic Journalists
