L.A. Times Implicates Biggie in Tupac Killing
A year-long investigation by the Los Angeles Times reconstructed the Sept. 7, 1996, killing of rap icon Tupac Shakur and the events leading up to it. The paper reports today that evidence it gathered indicates:
* The shooting was carried out by a Compton gang called the Southside Crips to avenge the beating of one of its members by Shakur a few hours earlier.
* Orlando Anderson, the Crip whom Shakur had attacked, fired the fatal shots. Las Vegas police discounted Anderson as a suspect and interviewed him only once, briefly. He was later killed in an unrelated gang shooting.
* The murder weapon was supplied by New York rapper Notorious B.I.G., who agreed to pay the Crips $1 million for killing Shakur. Notorious B.I.G. and Shakur had been feuding for more than a year, exchanging insults on recordings and at award shows and concerts. B.I.G. was gunned down six months later in Los Angeles. That killing also remains unsolved.
Foundation “Delighted” With Hampton J-Appointment
The Scripps Howard Foundation, which has committed $2.3 million for the development of journalism at Hampton University and funded a new journalism building there, is “delighted” that Rosalynne (Roz) Whitaker-Heck has been chosen as interim head of the new school of journalism, the foundation’s president and CEO, Judy Clabes, told Journal-isms today.
“The news is that this wonderful young black professor has been made interim director of this new school”, she said. “We’re delighted.” Charlotte Grimes, who is white and is a former national correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was brought in two years ago to head the University’s Department of Media Arts , recommended for that post by the foundation, Clabes confirmed. Grimes is also the first recipient of the Scripps Howard Professorship of Journalism.
But Grimes is not heading the new school, which will be housed in a $5.7 million building funded by the E.W. Scripps Co., and on Tuesday, Hampton President William R. Harvey told Whitaker-Heck that she would head the school on an interim basis. The decision came on the first day of school and three weeks before a week-long series of events celebrating the opening.
Grimes had told Journal-isms that “There were fundamental differences between me and the president over the mission, the vision and what we should teach and my role in it.”
Clabes said that heading a school had different requirements from leading a department and that she had discussed the interim appointment with Harvey before the announcement.
Whitaker-Heck said of Grimes, “she did a tremendous job in helping us with this transition. I have the highest respect for her. I highly value what she did, and all the faculty and all the staff,” she told Journal-isms.
Journalists of Color Setting New Leadership Standards
Newspaper folks like Orage Quarles in Raleigh, Dorothy Bland in Fort Collins, Alberto Ibarguen in Miami, Christine Chin in Bellingham, Wash., and Ken Cooper in Boston have set new standards – for journalists of any color – for their successful and inclusive leadership, reports People & Product, diversity magazine of the Newspaper Association of America.
“When I first got here, I went to a Colorado Association of Black Journalists meeting,” recalls Greg Moore, who after 16 years at the Boston Globe – the last seven as managing editor – recently became editor of the Denver Post. “The woman who was taking me around just introduced me as ‘This is him.’ No name or anything. At first I thought she was kidding. Then I recognized people are looking for me to be involved in leadership and guidance, to be a role model and to not mess up.”
Complaining White Anchor Didn’t Mention Poor Ratings
Last week in Philadelphia, former Fox 29 news anchor Rich Noonan, who is white, filed a discrimination complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission after he was fired and replaced by African American anchor Dave Huddleston. When Noonan was fired, he blamed race, and not the newscast’s perennially poor ratings.
Writing in Philadelphia Weekly, Solomon Jones notes that Noonan also failed to mention that nearly everyone associated with the newscast had been moved out, including his co-anchor, whose contract was also not renewed; the weatherman, who left last year; and the news director, who resigned last year when LaMay began making changes to boost sagging ratings. Noonan’s omission not only confused colleagues, writes Jones, it angered some black activists.
Oregon City’s Anna Song Breaks the Golden Rule
It was a lovely eulogy, heartfelt and warm, reports television columnist Howard Rosenberg in the Los Angeles Times, that Anna Song gave at a public memorial service for two girls who were kidnapped and murdered in Oregon City, Ore. Song was tender, she was compassionate, and there was no cause to question her sincerity.
But unlike the others speaking about Ashley and Miranda that night, Song is a reporter. Not just any reporter, but a prominent member of the KATU “coverage team” attached to this story. However well meaning, Rosenberg writes, Song crossed a line, violating a basic tenet of journalism by participating in a story she was supposed to be observing as a reporter, as an outsider.
Historic Marriage of NBC and Telemundo in Miami
The Labor Day Weekend marriage of Miami English-language TV station WTVJ-NBC 6 and its Spanish-language partner, WSCV-Telemundo 51, is by definition historic, writes the Miami Herald.
But don’t be fooled if the leaders of both stations act as giddy as newlyweds. They feel the weight of this experiment, which is the culmination of NBC’s $2.7 billion purchase of the Telemundo network and the beginning of a model partnership that will be duplicated in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York.
Radio Talker Says Philly Apology Skirts Real Issue
Radio talk show host Michael Smerconish takes issue with the Philadelphia Daily News’ apology for its front-page of mug shots that included no whites.
“I wish the paper had responded to the criticism of a few with a demand for dialogue about the very real problem highlighted in photos and print that day. Instead, the capitulation of the Daily News does nothing but prove that, as a society, we remain unwilling to broach any subject that involves substantive dialogue about race,” he says.
Gay Journalists’ Updated Stylebook Available Online
The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association has published its 2002 Stylebook Supplement, and it is available online. The organization said the publication is designed to complement newsroom style guides and The Associated Press Stylebook with suggestions on terms relating to sexual orientation and gender identity, reports Editor & Publisher .
NLGJA’s original stylebook was published in 1997 to help reporters covering gay issues and the battle over gay rights. New entries include civil union, commitment ceremony, ex-gay and special rights. The publication also includes a list of gay organizations, including media contacts.
Whatever Happened to Gerald Garcia? He’s in Illinois
For anyone wondering what has become of former editor Gerald Garcia of the doomed Houston Post, the self-nicknamed “Angel of Death” has found a new roost in the heartland, reports the Houston Press.
Since early this year, Garcia has been editor of the Southern Illinoisan, a 30,000-or-so regional daily based in Carbondale. Garcia had the distinction of presiding over the dissolution of both the Dean Singleton-owned Post and the 153-year-old Knoxville Journal in Tennessee. He’s established a reputation in the newspaper business as a hatchet man brought in by owners to trim spending and increase profit margins in preparation for selling newspapers, merging them — or outright killing them off.
In the early 1990s, as publisher in Knoxville, Garcia chaired the Task Force on Minorities in the Newspaper Business, founded by the old American Newspaper Publishers Association (now the Newspaper Association of America), the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the National Association of Broadcasters and other journalism groups.