Asians in Top TV Markets: Female-to-Male Ratio 5:1
A first-ever study finds a critical shortage of Asian American male broadcast journalists, but suggests that the major factor is a fundamental lack of interest in the TV news profession by Asian males and not, as some have suggested, any biased hiring by managers.
The study for the Asian American Journalists Association found that of the 104 Asian Americans who appear on air in the top 25 markets, only 20 are male.
In the top 25 markets, there is one Asian American male anchor (afternoon broadcast) versus 13 females.
Asian Americans females in top journalism schools outnumber males four to one.
“When our numbers are compared to the numbers of male and female African American, Native American, or Hispanic broadcast journalists, what we see is a problem that impacts our members more significantly than other people of color,”said Victor Panichkul, AAJA President.
“Every time we had talked to industry leaders about this issue, they didn’t see it as much of a problem,” said Mae Cheng, vice president of print and this year’s sole presidential candidate. “Now we have evidence.”
The findings also reflect a potential ongoing problem because Asian males are not enrolling in university journalism and communication programs in significant enough numbers to change the employment trend. In response to the study, AAJA will step up efforts to encourage Asian American male students to enter the broadcast field through programs and scholarships, said Cheng.
The research — entitled “Asian Male Broadcasters on TV: Where Are They?” — was conducted by theUniversity of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communications. More from the AAJA convention later in today’s posting.
Conservatives Embrace Complaining NABJ Speaker
A press release from a little-known conservative Los Angeles preacher complaining about his treatment at the National Association of Black Journalists convention was picked up as a front-page story in the Washington Times and immediately won attention from other conservatives.
Fox television host Bill O’Reilly scheduled discussion of the issue on his radio and television shows.
The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson was chosen to debate pop academic Michael Eric Dyson at the NABJ convention last week. The subject was reparations, but those who attended said Peterson was clearly out of his depth and spent time talking instead about morality (The matchup “was Mike Tyson versus Woody Allen,” said syndicated Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts in the NABJ convention newspaper.)
Dyson used his Chicago Sun-Times column to blast Peterson’s “self-hatred,” saying, “His brand of painful self-hatred, and hence, his hatred of other blacks, plays well in certain white conservative audiences. . . . He was barely articulate.”
Peterson replied with a news release denouncing NABJ, headlined, “They Screamed, Booed, And Jeered At Me.”
The Washington Times ran a front-page story headlined “Black journalists jeer peer,” which was followed by a Bill O’Reilly interview with NABJ President Condace Pressley on O’Reilly’s “The Radio Factor.”
Said O’Reilly: “Calling somebody a self-hating black man who despises black culture and worships at the altar of whiteness, that’s about as strong as you get on a personal attack, and that’s what Dyson called Reverend Peterson.”
Pressley: “And that was harsh.
“I think the point that was made to everyone in the room that day last Friday, though, was that Professor Dyson . . . perhaps presented in a more articulate fashion than Reverend Peterson did.”
Pressley was at first scheduled to appear on O’Reilly’s television show, but Dyson appeared instead. And the discussion was not about reparations or NABJ, but about Dyson’s column. He was asked why he called Peterson self-hating and replied:
“Well, I said that, Bill, because, first of all, Mr. Peterson repeatedly — Reverend Peterson repeatedly failed to deal with the issue of reparations, and then went on to speak about how utterly immoral black people were, how disregarding and hateful we were of white Americans, and how we deserved to get the kind of treatment we receive as a result of our uncritical celebration of the civil rights movement.”
In a letter to Jim Romenesko‘s Media News, NABJ member Roland Martin of Savoy Magazine called the Washington Times article “a bunch of crap”.
However, it was Peterson’s version that gained currency in some circles. On the Fox “Hannity & Colmes” show Thursday, Westwood One radio talk show host Laura Ingraham said, “The meeting of the Black Journalists Association, last week, showed us that even black conservatives can’t be given a fair hearing in the black elite leadership. Jesse Lee Peterson, a Reverend, went to speak at that convention. He was basically booed off the stage. He was treated abominably. There is an intellectual hegemony on the part of the elitist and the black leadership, which is why Republicans have got to target their message to the black people, which — it’s not like they just care about hate crime legislation …”
Magazine Names San Diego Best City for Latinos
Among Latinos, San Diego is now the best place to call home.
So says Hispanic magazine, whose August issue ranks the California city the No. 1 place for Latinos in the United States to live, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Trailing San Diego were Austin, Texas; Miami; San Antonio, Texas; El Paso, Texas; Las Cruces, N.M.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Tucson; Los Angeles; New York City; and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
Do employees at the city’s leading newspaper reflect that Latino interest? The Union Tribune apparently does not participate in the annual census of journalists of color conducted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Film Maker is Like Journalists, Tired of “the Taco Beat”
Writing in the Miami Herald about director Robert Rodriguez on the release of “Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams,” the sequel to last year’s $112 million hit “Spy Kids,” Rene Rodriguez says:
”Some of Robert’s films have clearly laid out his Latino background, but I think he also sees himself as a non-ethnic-specific filmmaker,” says James E. Garcia, editor and publisher of www.americanlatino.net. “He doesn’t want to be pegged in any one way, the same way Hispanic journalists don’t want to be stuck on the taco beat. “It’s the same tug-of-war all Hispanic-Americans go through, no matter what their profession: the desire to declare your own unique identity and preserve it, along with the natural tendency in American society to be part of the mainstream.”
Too Many Presidents in Chicago NABJ Chapter
“Vernon Jarrett is 80. When the Chicago Association of Black Journalists was being created 26 years ago, the founders met in his living room. In gratitude for his services, CABJ later made him a member for life. Today he may or may not be performing his greatest service — leading an insurgency that’s either returning the organization to its roots or tearing it apart. He’s CABJ’s newly elected president — but so is someone else,” reports the Chicago Reader.
“Jarrett, who’s been a columnist for the Sun-Times and the Tribune and now writes for the Defender, is contemptuous of the journalistic pretenders who, when the interest of the founders began to wane, took over CABJ. ‘We’ve had some black journalists . . . who couldn’t tell you what the 13th Amendment was, had never read DuBois, who didn’t know who Paul Robeson really was, who had never read Frederick Douglass, who knew nothing about the Harlem renaissance period, who had hardly read a black poet of yesterday — they might have read some of the modern stuff — and consequently, they haven’t truly added to diversity, other than being a black face in a white place.’ “
Commenting on the Chicago Reader’s piece, Sabrina Miller of the Chicago Tribune says, “I wish the writer had delved further into the journalistic credentials (or grave lack thereof) of former president Angela Harkless, Louis Byrd and the remainder of their slate. To my knowledge there is not a single member among the “officers” of that slate that is a full-time working journalist. I also wish the writer had mentioned that the eligibility of two members of the Byrd slate is in question. Further, it is unfortunate that the writer allows Angela Harkless’ claim that the organization suffered from 20 years of financial mismanagement until her tenure to stand unchallenged. He also failed to address a so-called annual report and recent newsletter produced by the Harkless/Byrd camp that reads like propaganda.
“The most unfortunate thing is that the situation has degenerated to a level that, no matter how it is resolved, will leave irreparable scars to one side or the other. It is a sad tale for such a great news town with so many great, Black journalists.”
Greg Moore: Denver Post “Is Where I Want to Be”
The Denver newspaper Westword outlines the task before Gregory Moore, its first African American top editor:
“Despite being first among equals in the joint operating agreement that mated its business operation to that of its crosstown foe, the Rocky Mountain News, in 2001, the Post remains a house divided — a workplace marked more by its backbiting and rumor-mongering than by high morale and professional satisfaction. Quality remains an issue, as well.
And in a q-and-a, Moore says, “You look at my career, and you’ll see I go places and I stay either until I’ve outgrown the place or the place has outgrown me — and the latter hasn’t happened yet. I’m not a job-hopper. I do what makes sense, and this job makes sense for me. I left a very good job making a very nice living, with a house that I loved, that my wife [TV executive Nina Henderson Moore] loved, and causing her to leave her career. And now we’re bringing a new baby into the world [it’s due in November]. Now, you don’t do those type of things lightly, thinking ‘Two years from now, I’ll be somewhere else.’ This is where I want to be.”
More from AAJA Convention
Journalists Discuss Racial Profiling After Sept. 11
One panelist described his arrest, questioning and detainment just days after the terrorist attacks. Ali Al-Maqtari, a French teacher from Yemen, was taken into custody Sept. 15 and held in a Tennessee jail for nearly eight weeks, reports the Dallas Morning News.
He said he did not blame the government for being cautious and questioning him because he is a Muslim visiting the United States.
“I understand … [why] I was in jail for the first week – two weeks, because something bad had happened,” Mr. Al-Maqtari said. “That’s why I cooperated.”
But after officials found nothing to connect him to the terrorists, they continued to hold him, he said.
Panel Debates Appropriateness of Jokes about Asians
Keiko Agena says she has no idea why she laughs at some jokes about Asians but not others, says the Dallas Morning News.
The Japanese-American actress, a star of The WB television series “Gilmore Girls,” wonders whether it’s bad, for instance, that she likes the character Miss Swan, played by her non-Asian friend Alex Borstein on the Fox sketch-comedy show “Mad TV.”
Agena’s comments came during a panel, “Can Race Ever Be a Laughing Matter?” that also included comedian Henry Cho, actor John Cho (no relation) and activist Guy Aoki, among others.
Asian-American Journalists Vigilant About Gains
The number of Asian-American journalists is shrinking in newsrooms across the country, but members of a group gathered in Dallas this week hope to battle that trend, writes the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in this stage-setter.
More from NABJ Convention
Maynard IJE’s Oral History Project Offers a Window
Because so much of African-American history has been squashed, altered or kept secret, many struggle with identifying who we are and where we’re going, writes Orlando Sentinel columnist Tammy L. Carter.
She says many of the answers can be found in the stories of our elders.
“In 1999, the Maynard Institute launched its History Project, which documents and preserves stories of those African-American journalists who broke into general circulation media during the 1960s and 1970s.
“The History Project’s second phase, an oral/video collection that tells the journalists’ experiences in their own words, consists of 20 interviews, including Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault of CNN.
“I saw a snippet of those interviews last week during the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Milwaukee.
Hearing their stories made me realize that I have much more to learn.”
Lines of Race, Money Drawn in Milwaukee
An informal tour of Milwaukee reflected mirror images of Kansas City – not many of them positive, writes Lewis Diugiud in the Kansas City Star.
Segregation, gentrification and fear of crime unfortunately are all present too. Diugiud says the National Association of Black Journalists convention last week gave him a chance to see that.
NABJ Convention Is Being With “Extended Family”
“Being with my extended family of journalists deepens my commitment to the craft,” writes Lynne K. Varner in the Seattle Times. “It also deepens my resolve to advocate for those who aren’t at the table to speak for themselves. I listened to a debate between the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties and heard them speak about an agenda for America that included black America. I picked and chose from 60 journalism workshops, knowing all the time that this is how skills stay fresh and sharply honed. This is how I will remain true to the craft of journalism and to my sense of self.”
Jacksonville Gets Message on Black Men’s Health
Tonyaa Weathersbee of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, Fla., alerts readers to the messages on black men’s health delivered at an NABJ panel sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.
“After leading the country for more than a decade in being more likely than any other racial group to be cut down by a bullet before age 35, African-American men now lead the world with their rates of prostate cancer and high blood pressure,” she writes.
“The whole world. Including the Third.
“Just once, I thought, it would be lovely to read a story or hear some news about black men that didn’t include the words ill, endangered or incarcerated. To hear that they’re contenders in something like, say, the numbers of science degrees awarded than the length of time spent unemployed.”