Group Says It Documents Bias in Broadcast, Cable
Twenty percent or more of large broadcast and cable companies discriminate against people of color, and 15 percent or more of these companies discriminate against women, according to research cited by the Washington-based Minority Media and Telecommunications Council in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission.
The council represents 45 national organizations and three educational institutions in the FCC’s equal employment opportunity rulemaking proceeding. These organizations include virtually all of the mainstream civil rights and religious organizations. Rutgers University law professors Alfred and Ruth Blumrosen said they found to a 95 percent degree of certainty that among companies with 50 or more employees in 1999:
— 20 percent of broadcasters and 36 percent of cable companies intentionally discriminated against African Americans.
— 24 percent of broadcasters and 20 percent of cable companies intentionally discriminated against Hispanics.
— 15 percent of broadcasters and 19 percent of cable companies intentionally discriminated against women.
FCC Releases Studies on Media Ownership
The Federal Communications Commission is inviting public comment on 12 studies it released this week that are intended to serve as a factual basis for its review of media-ownership rules. The studies largely appear to provide a basis for easing those rules, reports USA Today.
Some findings, as summarized by Media Week:
— Of 10 commonly owned local newspaper-TV combinations, five exhibited a similar slant in following the 2000 presidential race and five exhibited divergent slants. The study said it could reach no conclusion on whether common ownership results in a common viewpoint in news coverage. Among the rules under consideration is a ban on daily newspapers owning nearby broadcast stations. Some combinations exist under exceptions.
— Network owned-and-operated TV stations receive more awards for news programming than do affiliates, even though the two types of stations get similar ratings for their early evening newscasts. Affiliates owned by a newspaper have more and better news than other affiliates.
— The number of independent media outlets increased 195 percent since 1960 in 10 markets, and the number of independent owners of those outlets increased by 139 percent. Diversity of voices is a key consideration underlying many of the FCC’s ownership rules.
— Broadcast TV’s viewership share dropped 31 percent all-day and by 33 percent in prime time between 1990 and 2001.
— Between 1996 and 2002, the average number of radio station owners in each market decreased from 13.5 to 9.9.
Mark Cooper, research director of the Consumer Federation of America, said the voluminous amount of data released by the FCC needs to be carefully reviewed, but that just a quick look reveals shortcomings, the Associated Press reported. “These are 12 studies done by mostly people on staff at the FCC, done with narrow methodologies asking narrow questions,” Cooper said.
Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said the studies supported FCC Chairman Michael Powell‘s perceived bias toward abolishing ownership limits and should be rejected, the Dallas Morning News reported.
News Service for Black College Students Goes Online
The opening of a new School of Journalism, an attack on a gay student and a rundown of the top prospects for the black-college football season are headlines on the new Black College Wire, a news service designed to promote the journalistic work of students at predominantly black colleges and universities.
The service, part of an effort to link those students with training and employment opportunities in the field, went online this week at www.blackcollegewire.org. It is funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The news service is a project of the Black College Communication Association, an organization for faculty members teaching journalism and mass communications at black colleges and universities. BCCA’s Student Media Institute operates the site and assists in training students and faculty. Richard Prince edits the Black College Wire; Betty Anne Williams directs the Student Media Institute and Pearl Stewart chairs the BCCA board; the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education provides technical support and manages the Web site.
“My Colleagues Didn’t See the Anti-Latino Racism”
“As an editorial writer and columnist who also happens to be Mexican American, I have wrestled with how I should cover the campaign of Tony Sanchez, who is trying to be elected Texas’ first Latino governor,” writes the Dallas Morning News’ Ruben Navarrette, Jr. in the Texas Monthly. “Can I be “objective?”
“The question ceased to be theoretical when Gov. Rick Perry ran a television ad that was designed to push people’s buttons. They pushed mine. The 30-second spots accused Sanchez of laundering millions of dollars for Mexican drug lords. In a meeting with the Dallas Morning News editorial board, on which I sit, Sanchez angrily denounced the ads but resisted calling them racist. His consultants had probably warned him that playing the race card might mean conceding the pot. Able to recognize a white sheet when I see one, I wrote a column blasting the drug ads for exploiting the stereotype of Mexican corruption in a deliberate effort to frighten white voters away from Sanchez. Never mind that neither Sanchez nor his bank was charged with wrongdoing.
“My colleagues, most of whom are white, didn’t see the ads in the same light. Because I am Mexican American, I have sensibilities and insights that differ from theirs. Of course, one man’s insight is another man’s absence of objectivity. So now I am under a microscope. Colleagues and readers are questioning whether journalists with Spanish surnames can be objective in offering opinions about somebody named Sanchez.”
L.A. Times’ Hernandez to Head METPRO Reporting Program
Efrain Hernandez Jr., an assistant metropolitan editor at the Los Angeles Times since 1998, has been named to direct the reporting arm of METPRO, the Tribune Co.’s two-year program designed to prepare African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans with limited journalism experience for full-time reporting/editing positions at one of Tribune’s 12 daily newspapers.
He succeeds Richard Kipling, who became editor of the Times’ Orange County edition in August after 10 years running METPRO in Los Angeles.
METPRO (Minority Editorial Training Program) has two tracks, one for copy editors at Long Island-based Newsday and the other for reporters at the Los Angeles Times. Hernandez will oversee the Los Angeles training.
METPRO was introduced at the Los Angeles Times in 1984. More than 250 journalists have participated in the program since its inception. METPRO recruits up to 25 students each year to participate in the editing and reporting programs.
Last spring, Hernandez was named interim city editor of the Los Angeles Times’ San Fernando Valley edition during a particularly intensive period of local news there, a Tribune news release said. Prior to that, he worked out of the Times’ downtown newsroom as an editor on the criminal justice team. Earlier he was metro morning assignment editor.
Hernandez worked as a reporter and editor at The Boston Globe from 1990 to 1994.
Military Reporters and Editors Form Group
With prospects of war against Iraq looming, a group of military journalists announced Friday the formation of a new organization dedicated to improving coverage of the armed forces. Military Reporters and Editors, the first group of its kind, was founded by reporters concerned about restricted access to troops at home and abroad, reports the San Antonio Express-News.
James G. Wright, the group’s president and assistant metro editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, told Journal-isms that the group had 20 to 30 members and that things were moving too fast for him to know how many were journalists of color. “We just incorporated last week, and people are joining at the rate of two or three a day. We had 22 people before then who’d already paid the $50 a year dues,” he said. The group grew out of a conference last year at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland, attended by “two or three” journalists of color, such as USA Today copy editor Sharyn L. Flanagan, who was formerly on active duty.
“We’ve seen numerous cases where the Pentagon has restricted our ability to report on the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who serve the people of this nation,” Wright said. “MREs wants to ensure that media access improves as the United States wages its war on terrorism. The people of this country deserve nothing less.”
The organization is planning its first conference Nov. 15-16 in Washington, D.C. The meeting will focus on how reporters and editors should cover a new war in Iraq. Wright can be contacted at jameswright@seattlep-i.com.
Suit Says Cincinnati Paper Called Black Cop’s Son a Criminal
Charging that a Cincinnati Enquirer reporter incorrectly identified the son of the former head of a group of black Cincinnati police officers as a criminal, Clarence Williams III and his family have sued the newspaper, the reporter, the city and police for $10 million, the Cincinnati Post reports.
Williams, now a police chief in Florida, his wife, a Cincinnati police sergeant, and their son, Clarence Williams IV, filed the suit in Hamilton County, Ohio, Common Pleas Court, claiming that a story in Saturday’s Enquirer defamed the younger Williams.
In the story, the Enquirer correctly reported the brother of Timothy Thomas – the unarmed black teen whose fatal shooting sparked Cincinnati’s race riots – was arrested late last week.
Reporter Jane Prendergast also reported an adult with Thomas, Deangelo Williams, was arrested – but she incorrectly reported that Williams was the son of Clarence Williams III and also was a convicted drug dealer.
Press Groups Work to Free Al-Jazeera Cameraman
Diplomatic attempts to release a cameraman detained by the U.S. government has yielded little result, said an Arab television network in mid-September. Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel has procured the assistance of international media organizations such as the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders in seeking the release of Sami Al-Haj, the Sudanese assistant cameraman who was arrested in December 2001 at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, reports the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
“We don’t think this could happen to any other news organization,” the Reporters Without Borders’ Americas Desk said in a recent email, noting that Al-Jazeera has been subject to criticism by the U.S. administration.
“It is quite irregular for the U.S. authorities to refuse to tell the journalist’s family and friends what the charges are against him,” wrote Reporters Without Borders General Secretary Robert Menard in a Sept. 20 letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. “We think this continued silence is especially unfortunate because it could be seen as an intention to harass Al-Jazeera, which has already been the target of U.S. State Department pressure.”
Pastors Protest Charlotte Paper’s Same-Sex Union Policy
Pastors from seven churches met privately Monday with Charlotte Observer executives to protest the paper’s decision to run paid announcements of same-sex unions, the Observer reports.
While spokesmen on both sides characterized the meeting as cordial, Observer Publisher Peter Ridder said it would not change the newspaper’s decision to run the paid announcements as soon as one comes in.
No Same-Sex Unions in Gaston, N.C., Paper
Gaston (N.C.) Gazette publisher Duane McCallister says running same-sex unions ads “legitimizes a practice that offends many of us,” reports Jim Romenesko‘s Media News Extra.
In a Sept. 28 column headlined, “A Policy Guided by the Compass of Morality,” McCallister tells readers that the Gazette — a 33,000-circulation Freedom Communications-owned newspaper — “has had a long-standing policy of not accepting advertising or free announcements acknowledging same-sex unions. And we are not going to be changing that policy.”
McCallister adds: “The reason for the policy is pure and simple: North Carolina law does not sanction such unions and we have never felt it our place to recognize civil unions that were not considered legal under the laws of our state.”
Showtime Plans Film on Jasper, Texas, Hate Crime
The story of an African American who was dragged to his death, chained to the back of a pickup truck by three white men in a small Texas town, is the basis for Showtime’s “Jasper, Texas,” an original telefilm starring Jon Voight, Louis Gossett and Joe Morton. The film is slated for June 2003, when its premiere will commemorate the fifth anniversary of the crime, reports Electronic Media.
The film is written by Emmy nominee Jonathan Estrin (“EZ Streets,” “Cagney & Lacey,” “Dellaventura”) who also serves as executive producer alongside Michael Greene. It will be directed by Jeff Byrd of “Book of Love” and the “Soul Food” television series.
In June 1998, in the small Texas town of Jasper, a black man, James Byrd Jr., was chained to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged to his death by three white men. Almost overnight, the incident in the small town became national news.