Can Pamela Thomas-Graham Revive CNBC?
Pamela Thomas-Graham became president of CNBC last year with impressive credentials: She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, where she served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. She worked for 10 years at McKinsey & Company, the world’s largest management consulting firm, becoming its first black woman partner in 1995. She is a novelist and commentator on business and marketing issues, and when she became president and CEO of CNBC.com and executive vice president of NBC, she was the highest-ranking female line manager at NBC.
But, the New York Times reports, although the recent string of financial scandals and extreme dips in the stock market should make this CNBC’s moment to shine, the network’s ratings are flagging.
Bruno Cohen, the CNBC executive vice president, said the network itself had wondered whether it was being “painted with the same brush” as the now-discredited analysts it featured. He and other CNBC executives say those who accuse the network of going soft on analysts and chief executives are not being fair. “Anybody who says that is not a regular viewer of CNBC,” said Thomas-Graham.
She told the Times that she could go only so far in changing the network and that she believes the network’s ratings increases in July proved that CNBC is making a comeback.
“We are in a very long game and I don’t want to do anything knee-jerk or reactionary,” she said. “We have a business here that goes the course, that survives bull and bearish cycles, and we’re going to be fine.”
NABJ Convention Opens Today in Milwaukee
When Milwaukee was picked six years ago to host the National Association of Black Journalists, convention planners believed that the event could pump up to $9 million into the city’s downtown, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
As the convention opens today, expectations are more sober: Attendance will be near a historic low of 1,200 – well off the 3,500 originally expected – as a weak economy forces both media companies and individuals to tighten their belts.
But even with attendance down, the convention has the potential to boost Milwaukee’s image with African-Americans, convention planners say, and that could pay off for the city.
The convention newspaper reports that the organization in better financial shape, although it is still posting losses on its portfolio investments, said Glenn Rice, the organization’s treasurer.
And the association announces it has scheduled a discussion on “Mid-Term Elections: Republicans, Democrats & African Americans” featuring the Republican National Committee chairman, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, and his Democratic counterpart, Terry McAuliffe, on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Services Saturday for Virgin Islands Publisher
Funeral services are planned Saturday for Ariel Melchior Sr., a lifelong newsman who saw the newspaper he founded during the Depression, the Virgin Islands Daily News, win a Pulitzer Prize in 1995. He died July 23 at age 93.
As publisher of the paper, his opinions on public policy in the U.S. Caribbean territory carried political weight, even with those who did not agree with him, former Lt. Gov. Henry Millin, a close friend, told the Associated Press.
“He was respected even by people who didn’t like him,” Millin said. “The Daily News was the bravest publication I’ve ever known.”
Melchior and his colleague J. Antonio Jarvis founded the Daily News in 1930 with $1,000 borrowed from family and friends. Melchior bought out Jarvis’ share in 1940 and served as publisher until 1978, when he sold the newspaper to Gannett Co. Inc.
“He was a dominant figure in the V.I. for most of his life,” Ivan C. Brandon, a reporter at the paper in the 1970s, told Journal-isms. “He was a huge man, at least 6’4″ with a booming voice and a quick smile. On an island where the color of your skin is a big deal, he defied all odds because he was very dark and for years conducted an affair with one of the most powerful women on the island. They finally got married in the late 1970s.”
Tavis Smiley Says NPR Culture Must Change
Some 640 public radio stations broadcast in the country, and 27 have picked up “The Tavis Smiley Show,” making it a fledgling success but far from a certified triumph, reports Los Angeles magazine.
“The educated population of African Americans and Hispanic Americans has grown, but that growth hasn’t been reflected on the air,” says Bill Davis, president of Southern California Public Radio, which oversees Pasadena station KPCC. “If The Tavis Smiley Show works, I think you’ll begin to see public radio extending service out to audiences we just haven’t serviced very well in the past. If it doesn’t work, it’s back to the drawing board.”
Smiley has a one-year contract with NPR. Given his drive, many have wondered about his commitment to public radio. “I consider this opportunity historic,” he says. “One does not run away from a historic opportunity one year into it. There’s a whole culture at NPR that needs to be challenged and changed. You don’t do that in a year. And I owe it to all those persons of color who have never had a show like ours to not, in the words of James Brown, ‘hit it and quit it.'”
“Will All Hispanic Men Suddenly Become ‘Suspicious’?”
In her column for King Features Syndicate, Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas endorses the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ call to abandon “Hispanic” as a physical description, but says her greater concern is that Latinos be vigilant in their communities and protect their children:
“I have an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. My heart is filled with pain. I want to watch my daughters 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” she writes. “I want to hug them, protect them and tell them over and over again that I love them. Like millions of people across this country, I grieve for a 5-year-old girl with curly hair and a sweet smile. I struggle to understand the mind of the sick monster who kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered Samantha Runnion.
“Before [Alejandro] Avila‘s arrest, police described the suspect as an ‘Americanized Hispanic,’ someone who speaks English with a Spanish accent. That description might turn out to be accurate if Avila is indeed the killer, but it also raised troubling questions in my mind. Will all Hispanic men suddenly become suspicious? Will there be an anti-Hispanic or anti-immigrant backlash because of the actions of one deranged person?”
N.Y. Post Praises Press Club’s Decision on McGowan
“I never discuss our editorial board decisions,” says Robert George, the only African American on the tabloid New York Post’s editorial board. “The editorials basically speak for themselves.”
Fair enough. Speaking for itself is this editorial, curiously missing from the Post’s Web site, from Saturday’s edition:
PRESS CLUB DOESN’T SHOOT MESSENGER
Kudos to Manhattan Institute fellow and author Bill McGowan.
Last Monday, he picked up a National Press Club award for his book, “Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism.” In his book, McGowan – a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal – unapologetically explores the damage that political correctness has brought upon American journalism.
According to him, P.C. politics now dictate and distort the way news is reported, and racial favoritism has soured the atmosphere in many newsrooms.
Suffice it to say, some groups weren’t too pleased with the board’s selection. Both the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists went ballistic when they learned of the award.
Indeed, they were so vocal that the club’s board of governors almost rescinded it.
In the end, however, the National Press Club came to its senses, and McGowan received his well-deserved prize.
It’s good to know that political correctness hasn’t quite yet smothered the First Amendment.
To both McGowan and the National Press Club: Job well done.
Journalists of Color “Are Hardly Taking Over”
Tampa Tribune editorial writer Joseph H. Brown mentions “Coloring the News” in his Sunday column as he answers a reader who complains about the negative images of African Americans he sees in Brown’s paper.
Referring to the low numbers of journalists of color, Brown writes, “Could there be more? Yes, . . . we’re working on it. There’s a Diversity Committee that ‘encourages a heightened awareness of gender, age, economic status, cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and physical and mental capacities. But the paper has a long way to go.’
“According to one white guy, however, this is a bad thing. In his book `Coloring The News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism,’ author William McGowan claims minority journalists are biased, underqualified and incapable of objectivity.
“That’s nonsense. For one thing, minority journalists – 12.07 percent of the total – are hardly taking over the nation’s newsrooms. Additionally, McGowan, like a lot of diversity critics, assumes that when newsrooms were the exclusive province of white men, reporting was unbiased and everyone working in them was `qualified.’
“But he’s right about one thing: The news is being covered differently these days. Both he and the disgruntled black reader need to acknowledge that it’s for the better,” Brown writes.
Former Phyllis Crockett Working With Howard U. TV
Noluthando Crockett-Ntonga, known as Phyllis Crockett while she worked for National Public Radio before moving to Africa, has joined Howard University’s WHUT-TV as coordinator of the station’s Africa Initiative, producing and acquiring programs from and about Africa and producing stories for “Evening Exchange,” says General Manager Adam Powell III. The First “Evening Exchange” program aired in June.
Crockett-Ntonga is in D.C. for two months to jump-start the Africa Initiative before returning in September to her new home in Cameroun, Powell said.
As Phyllis Crockett, she covered the White House for NPR before moving to South Africa to serve as a broadcast consultant as the country moved toward majority rule. There, friends urged her to change her first name to Noluthando, which she did in 1990. Later, she married Edgard Ntonga. and moved last year to Cameroun.
Powell also announced that Judi Moore-Latta, on leave as chair of Howard University’s Department of Radio-TV-Film, has joined the station as deputy general manager, and that Janis Hazel has become director of development. Hazel comes from Detroit, where she has worked for Detroit Public Television and the Motown Museum. “She will be in effect reopening HUT’s long-dormant Development department, but it will focus on underwriting, not pledge drives,” he said. Howard’s is the nation’s first black-owned PBS station.
ABC Awards 16 Grants to Promote Filmmaking Diversity
ABC announced the 16 recipients of its 2002 ABC New Talent Development Scholarship-Grant Program, which is designed to discover and foster diverse writing, filmmaking and directing talent, Electronic Media reports.
Each of this year’s scholarship-grant recipients will receive $20,000 for the completion of their creative project, and each sponsor organization will receive $10,000 toward the continued support of the arts in their respective communities.
Administered by Carmen Smith, VP of ABC Talent Development Programs, the grant and scholarship awards assist high school and college students and members of nonprofit institutions by providing support for the development of new creative ideas or the completion of existing creative projects. Recipients are also paired with a mentor during the 12-month grant period, with the program culminating in a three-day series of workshops, including pitch meetings, at ABC Entertainment and The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Calif.
This year’s scholarship-grant honorees and their projects are Nora Chau (New York) for “To Chow Yun Fat with Love,” Gabriel Cordell (Los Angeles) for “Carolina,” Luisa Dantas (Washington) for “Bitter Sugar,” Juan Devis (Chicago) for “Welcome to Tijuana,” Sean Lee Fahrlander (Ojibwe Nation, Wisconsin) for “Walk the Bear,” Diane Fraher (New York) for “The Reawakening,” Starr Harris (Raleigh, N.C.) for “Grown Up Already,” Rhonda Haynes (New York) for “Bringin’ in da Spirit,” Marsha Jackson-Randolph (Houston) for “You Send Me: The Sam Cooke Story,” Kevin Kamin (Minneapolis) for “Shawn Ship Shape,” Alexandra Martinez (Houston) for “Sunset Park,” Alaina Niemann (Raleigh, N.C.) for “Corpulent Power,” Anna Peralta (Los Angeles) for “Vet in the City,” Jean Trela (Chicago) for “Baby Central,” Vivian Umino (Washington) for “The Master Painter” and Aaron Woolfolk (Los Angeles) for “Harimaya-bashi (The Harimaya Bridge).”