Black Journalist Says GM Crashed His Career
Did corporate giant General Motors crush the career of an award-winning black journalist in retaliation for this reporter’s October 1997 investigative article detailing racist acts of sabotage directed against many of GM’s black auto dealers by white GM employees?
A jury in Michigan could answer this question next year if a trial occurs for an unusual lawsuit filed against GM by journalist Demetrius Patterson, reports Linn Washington in The Black World Today.
A Michigan judge recently rejected GM’s request to dismiss this lawsuit arising from Patterson’s investigative report about GM’s Minority Dealer Development Program, an initiative to increase GM dealerships owned by minorities.
The lawsuit charges that constant threats from GM officials to “squash” Patterson culminated in his January 2001 firing from the Journal News, a newspaper located in Westchester County outside of New York City owned by Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain. GM “caused” Patterson’s termination “by putting social and economic pressure on Gannett to take action against its employee,” the lawsuit charges.
Conviction Tossed for Indy Columnist’s Attacker
The man convicted of trying to kill Indianapolis Star columnist Lynn Ford has had his attempted murder conviction overturned and could face a new trial, the Star reports.
The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled unanimously Tuesday that the Marion Superior Court jury that convicted Scottie R. Edwards, 55, was given improper instructions before it began deliberations.
Edwards was sentenced to 40 years in prison Sept. 5 after being convicted in June in the Feb. 11, 2001, stabbing of Ford. Edwards was the ex-husband of a woman Ford had been dating.
Ford, 43, “was significantly shaken by that attack, he became more withdrawn and his column, which was fiery before then on racial issues,” was more circumspect, fellow columnist James Patterson, president of the Indianapolis NABJ chapter, said after Ford suffered a fatal heart attack last February. In court, Jeffrey Ford, Lynn Ford’s brother, said the attack had stolen peace from their small family, leaving his brother “a mere shadow of the man he once was.”
Ford was a founding member of the Indianapolis Association of Black Journalists, wrote a column that appeared every other Saturday in the Star and was the newspaper’s assistant arts and entertainment editor.
Study Finds More Hispanics in Prime Time
NBC, slapped with a D on a report card on diversity last month, has 11 Hispanic actors on its fall prime-time schedule — more than any other broadcast network, according to a new report from media buyer Initiative Media, reports Lisa de Moraes in the Washington Post.
While the report card issued in July by the National Latino Media Council, the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, and American Indians in Film and Television gave each of the four major broadcast networks a lousy grade for casting diversity, the Initiative Media study issued notes that the number of broadcast TV series with Hispanic actors has more than tripled since 1990.
First Grads in Diversity Program for Career Changers
A program aiming to increase newsroom diversity by targeting people of color changing careers is graduating its first class — of eight — on Friday.
The Freedom Forum Diversity Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., trains non-traditional students to work at their local U.S. daily newspaper. Most are making a career transition into journalism. The inaugural class includes a former pipefitter, whose career was cut short by a disabling accident; a former machine operator, who has dreamed of working at his local newspaper since sixth grade; a secretary with a flair for graphic design; and a one-time newspaper circulation district manager.
Attendees are nominated and later hired by their local newspapers as reporters, copy editors, page designers or photographers. They undergo 12 weeks of intensive training in journalism to prepare them for immediate employment at their local newspaper. “The beauty of our program is finding people who are changing careers and are a little older. We’ve got to use that group to boost the numbers,” said Wanda Lloyd, executive director of the Diversity Institute. Nine students began the program but one didn’t meet expectations, Lloyd said.
The institute is taking applications for the next 12-week class, which begins Sept. 22. More at
http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=12802.
Fired Editor Files Sex Bias Complaint in Mass.
Her rise at The Eagle-Tribune in Lawrence, Mass., was fast, but her fall was even faster.
Less than a year after she was promoted to executive news editor of the newspaper, Corinne Ray was abruptly fired in April and escorted from the building, reports the Boston Globe. She had sent an e-mail to the publisher complaining about a senior editor’s treatment of women. The message she got back – from the editor she had complained about – was: Quit or be fired.
”I tried to get to my desk, but wasn’t allowed to,” said Ray, who filed a sex discrimination complaint against the newspaper this month with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. ”I grabbed a few pictures of my kids and husband. I didn’t want to make a scene because it was in between deadlines.”
Group Wants 140 Papers Covering Same-Sex Unions
The decision by the New York Times to begin accepting same-sex union announcements adds momentum to a quiet revolution already under way in American newspapers, where at least 70 other daily publications already have similar policies, Newsday reports.
Coinciding with the Times’ policy change, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said it would launch a campaign to double to 140 the number of U.S. daily newspapers that publish same-sex commitment notices.
The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association commended the Times, saying that the action followed a meeting held in December 2001 with the leadership of NLGJA, gay and lesbian members of the newspaper’s staff, Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and other senior officers of the Times. The New York Daily News reported that as recently as last month, three execs of GLADD made a similar case to Times managing editor Gerald Boyd and style editor Barbara Graustark.
Do They Really Believe Bo Knows?
Actress Bo Derek, best known for the cornrowed hair she sported in “10,” to outraged African American cries of cultural appropriation, will host “Uncut: The True Story of Hair,” A&E’s two-hour documentary that premieres Oct. 21, reports Electronic Media.
Interviews include Dolly Parton, Jane Seymour, Frederick Fekkai, Patti LaBelle, Debbie Harry (Blondie), Florence Henderson, Rick James, Crystal Gayle and Bruce Vilanch.
Telemundo To Air NBA, WNBA
The National Basketball Association has reached a three-year agreement with Hispanic broadcast network Telemundo to televise NBA and WNBA games and related basketball programming, Media Week reports.
The NBA says one of its fastest growing fan segments is among Hispanics. Approximately 64 percent of U.S. Hispanics are NBA fans, the league says, and Hispanics make up 13 percent of the NBA’s total fan base. The number of Hispanic players in the NBA is currently seven, including Rookie of the Year for this past season, Pau Gasol.
Currently eight NBA teams have Spanish-language radio broadcast packages in their local markets, and five NBA teams provide Spanish content as part of their Web sites.
Star Hispanic Journalists Trade Accusations
Maria Elvira Salazar, a former co-anchor for the Telemundo network, says she is considering suing for slander a Peruvian former colleague who accused her of blackmail, according to the EFE Spanish-language news service.
The scandal, playing prominently in the Peruvian press, involves controversial talk-show host Laura Bozzo, who is under house arrest in Lima. Salazar claims that Bozzo illicitly taped “and perhaps altered” telephone conversations between the two women regarding former Peruvian spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos. No word on what was supposedly in the conversations.
According to the Chinese Xinhua news agency, Bozzo was placed under house arrest Wednesday, accused of receiving about $3 million from Montesinos in payment for programs favoring the re-election, in 2000, of then-Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. Bozzo is confined to the facilities of Peru’s Monitor TV station, in Lima’s San Borja neighborhood, where she broadcasts her popular show, “Laura in America.” Anti-corruption judge Saul Pena ordered the house arrest of Bozzo on July 17, and a provisional seizure of her property worth $3.1 million.
Michael Fountain, Once of BET and CBS, Joins Howard U.
Michael Fountain, who took a vice president’s position at Black Entertainment Television only to leave BET abruptly in February, has resurfaced at Howard University Television.
Fountain will be senior producer in charge of the weekly prime time “@Howard” series Friday nights at 9. He will also coordinate enterprise reporting for WHUT’s weekly “Evening Edition” prime time magazine, the station announced.
In the 1990s, Fountain was senior producer of the “CBS Evening News” and “CBS This Morning,” also producing stories for CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” and CBS News’ coverage from Rwanda in 1994.
On July 12, 2001, after BET was sold to Viacom, BET announced it had entered into a production agreement with its new sister news operation, CBS News, that would cover two of BET’s signature news shows — “BET Nightly News” and “BET Tonight with Ed Gordon”
“For BET, the agreement represents an infusion of cutting-edge technical production resources and a formal relationship with CBS News, the world’s leading news gathering organization,” the announcement said. “Michael Fountain, BET vice president of news and public affairs, will direct content development and retain editorial control for both productions, using a New York-based team comprised of personnel from both the BET News and CBS News divisions.”
Detroit Journalists Train H.S. Teachers Today
More than two dozen staffers from the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News are coming together today to train local high school journalism teachers at a workshop at Wayne State University.
The event is co-sponsored by the Metro Detroit Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Detroit Chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Organizers Jack Kresnak and Darci McConnell said the goal is to promote enthusiasm for the profession of journalism to teachers who, in turn, can pass that on to their students. SPJ and NABJ will continue working with the teachers throughout the school year and already plan a follow-up program for Oct. 19. More than 70 teachers had registered for the free workshop.
Topics included ideas on generating news stories, layout and design, photography, sports/features reporting and copy editing.
A general session was planned to discuss how high schools that do not have school newspapers can start one, as well as tips on how to motivate students to participate in school journalism.
Native Journalists Seek Executive Director
The Native American Journalists Association is seeking an executive director who will help in the transition from its Minneapolis office to its new location in Vermillion at the University of South Dakota. Knowledge of media and Native American issues is a plus as well as experience in convention planning.
Salary: $35K plus incentives, depending on experience. More information on the NAJA Web site.
