Writers Have Fun With CNN’s Bid to Talk “Hip-Hop”
It started when Rolando Santos, who as general manager of CNN Headline News is one of the highest-ranking Latino news executives in television, told the San Francisco Chronicle Monday that announcers were working in slangy expressions such as “whack,” [isn’t it “wack?”] “ill” or “sick” — “the lingo of our people,” he said — to help attract younger audiences.
Then, Phyllis Furman, writing Wednesday in the New York Daily News, reported that she had obtained an internal Headline News memo that said:
“In an effort to be sure we are as cutting-edge as possible with our on-screen persona, please refer to this slang dictionary when looking for just the right phrase. . . .
“Please use this guide to help all you homeys and honeys add a new flava to your tickers and dek[k]os,” referring to the graphics that appear on the busy Headline News screen.
She went on to quote a Headline News spokeswoman saying the memo was sent out by a mid-level producer to the attention of graphics writers and that top execs knew nothing about it.
Still, it was too much for the Washington Post to resist. The paper ran on Thursday a sample of what such a newscast might sound like:
“[Voice of James Earl Jones]: “This is CNN Headline News, the dopest news network.”
“Anchor Rudi Bakhtiar: “Yo, ‘sup, y’all. This is Rudi Bakhtiar, in the hizzy in Atlanta, with tha latest 4-1-1 from CNN Headline News . . .”
“[Cue up photo of President Bush]
“Bakhtiar: “President Bush laid another smackdown on Iraq today, suggesting that Saddam Hussein must be trippin’ if he thinks tha United States will back down from its campaign to stop the Iraqi dictator. Wolf Blitzer has more.”
“Blitzer: “Rudi, President Bush was representin’ again today. He told congressional leaders he would deploy America’s military might to bust a cap in Saddam if tha Iraqi leader continued to stand in tha way of U.N. weapons inspectors.” Since the Post is in the midst of a byline strike over reporters’ lack of a contract, no name was attached to the story.
Santos issued this humorless statement through a spokeswoman:
“This was an e-mail among ticker supervisors, ticker writers, dekko writers and graphics creators that was designed to make them aware of resources available to them that would help make their areas more relevant to a segment of our audience that is important to us. The e-mail was informational, not a policy or directive from me. With that said, I should point out that I want the language used in our tickers and dekkos to be real, current and relevant to the people who watch us.”
Hartford Courant’s Slavery Special a Hit
Reaction to the Hartford Courant Northeast Magazine’s 80-page special issue on slavery has been “amazing,” said Jenifer Frank, the magazine’s editor. The Sept. 29 issue focused on Connecticut’s role in the institution of slavery, and how that shaped the state’s history.
“We’ve gotten responses from teachers, both in and out of the state, who want to use it in their classrooms, and from just plain folks who are saying it’s about time,” Frank told Editor & Publisher.
Criticism so far has been slight. “I can only think of two, maybe three people that said ‘So what? It’s ancient history,'” Frank said. “But that’s how we understand where we are today.”
Who Was that Man Shown Being Arrested ?
Alert members of the listserve of the National Association of Black Journalists noted that during Thursday’s coverage of the killings of five people in Montgomery County, Md., a number of cable outlets showed footage from a helicopter of an African American man in handcuffs having his pockets emptied by police. Anchors and reporters freely said they didn’t know what the man was detained for, but left the cameras on him for six minutes.
An hour later, it was confirmed that he had nothing to do with it. A CNN reporter said, “Forget what you saw in the last hour.” As one NABJ member said, “That’s the problem; I can’t forget what I just saw.”
Tribe Honors Editor It Once Scolded
The first few times Bonnie Red Elk wrote about Fort Peck tribal council doings for the Wotanin Wowapi in the early 1970s, council members summoned her for a scolding, reports the Great Falls ( Mont.) Tribune.
“You’re printing negative news,” they protested. “What’s going on?”
The newspaper faced a no-win situation common to many tribal newspapers: It was trying to cover the very entity that controlled its purse strings. “I would just tell them calmly and without getting anyone upset, ‘We’re just printing what we see,’ ” Red Elk, who’s now the editor, said of those early days. “We’d go to the committee meetings, and they weren’t used to that.”
Today, even tribal council members couldn’t imagine life without the Wotanin. They helped Fort Peck Community College throw a big dinner in honor of the weekly newspaper and the woman behind its success, Red Elk.
Some Male Editors Don’t See Newsroom Sexism
Some male editors and publishers disagree that sexism prevents female editors from advancing in the newsroom, reports Editor & Publisher. A survey released last week showed that many women editors see a lack of opportunity for promotion.
Only one in three of top women editors questioned in the study said she expected to move up at her current newspaper.
Some men who have spent decades in the industry said they didn’t see sexism at such high levels, citing the recent appointments of first-time women chief editors in several cities.
Mia Song Wins Casey Award for Lead Poisoning Photos
Mia Song of the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., was among the top winners of the 2002 Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism, which recognize distinguished coverage of children and families in the United States. Song won for “Poisoned Children,” in which, judges said, Song ” took a nonvisual issue (lead poisoning) and brought it to life; the images were so powerful that we could feel the paint chipping. The compelling photographs showed enormous creativity with the use of high and low camera angles. As her young subjects played and slept – oblivious to the presence of the camera Song brought to light a crucial issue for children of all socio-economic backgrounds.”
Some Conservatives Say Greg Moore’s Paper Is Moving Left
The Denver Post was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for its treatment of the Columbine High School shootings and wound up as the lead dog in a joint operating agreement with the Rocky Mountain News — but in recent years, the paper has been seen by many observers as flabby, boring and consistently less energetic and engaging than its crosstown quasi-rival, reports the Denver weekly Westword.
Since the June arrival of new editor Greg Moore, however, this reputation has started to change. Simply put, people are talking passionately about the Post again. But plenty of conservatively inclined readers in this conservatively inclined state are accusing the Post of propagating not-so-secret left-wing positions.
Replies Moore, “I don’t expect that people will always be happy with the issues we raise, but I’m comfortable journalistically with them. And sometimes it’s the right thing to do to challenge people, even if you know they may be angry with us.”
FCC Privatization Moves Called “Most Censored” Story
The media research group Project Censored at Sonoma State University in California announced its list of the most under-covered “censored” news stories of 2001-2002. Number one involved moves by the Federal Communications Commission that the project said indicate an intention to sell off the radio frequency spectrum as electronic real estate, to the highest bidders.
But in a piece last month critical of the annual Project Censored list, Peter Byrne and Matt Palmquist wrote in the SF Weekly that “to label any of the subjects ‘censored’ is either flat-out deception or an admission of astonishing ignorance. A quick stroll through the Nexis database reveals that nine of this year’s top-10 ‘most censored’ stories have already turned up in the New York Times, many of them with prominent placement, considerable depth, and angles not far off from Project Censored’s leftist slant. Even Mother Jones, a paragon of lefty journalism, has slammed the list in an article headlined ‘The Unbearable Lameness of Project Censored.’
Sports Anchor Suspended Over Aunt Jemima Remark
When the dust settled, sports anchor Steve Kashul of Chicago’s 24-hour news channel CLTV was suspended and the regular outdoors contributor to Kashul’s “Sports Page” show, Chauncey Niziol, was ousted. The dustup followed a remark by Kashul on the show that Terry Cooper, a spokesman for the event’s planning committee, dressed in an authentic black hunting camouflage and turkey-feather hat, “looked a lot like Aunt Jemima,” reports Robert Feder in the Chicago Sun-Times.
BET Names Columbus, Ohio, Best for Black Families
Columbus, Ohio, is the number one city for African Americans, according to a study conducted by www.BET.com and “BET Nightly News.”
The study analyzed U.S. cities with the highest African-American population percentages and rated them on a variety of important issues affecting the quality of life for black families including: poverty and infant mortality rates; high school graduation rates; homeownership; median income and unemployment; teen pregnancy; and crime. The cities leading the survey tended to have smaller African American communities, such as Columbus, which has a population that is 24 percent black.
“The uniqueness of this survey is that it was not reader or user-based, but a purely scientific approach that strictly analyzed data surrounding issues of importance to African Americans,” said Retha Hill, vice president of content development for BET.com. “This study serves as a starting point for serious discussions about how Black families are faring in major urban areas.”
Houston claimed the second spot in the study with Baltimore and St. Louis landing at the bottom of the list..” The survey was undertaken in conjunction with BET’s broadcast of the “Under One Roof” black family series. Findings from the study were released this week via the Web site and BET’s newscast.
Medill Course Sends Students to S. Africa
South Africa is this year’s spring break hot spot for some Medill School of Journalism students, reports the Daily Northwestern, the campus newspaper. As the first step to integrating international journalism into Medill’s undergraduate curriculum, several students are to take a class in the winter quarter called “South African History, Culture and Journalism” taught by Medill Dean Loren Ghiglione.
The students then will travel to South Africa over spring break to complete a final project, and some will stay for the spring quarter to fulfill their Teaching Media internship requirement.
Ghiglione has worked on similar programs for Emory University and the University of Southern California, when he directed both schools’ journalism programs. Although many journalists left South Africa after the end of apartheid in 1989, Ghiglione said the nation still faces important issues such as AIDS, poverty and a struggling economy.
Snoop Snipped from Muppets Movie
Rapper Snoop Dogg has been edited out of an upcoming Muppets TV movie, and an African American activist is taking credit for the removal, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Najee Ali, head of Los Angeles-based Project Islamic Hope, said he pressured the Jim Henson Co. to take Snoop Dogg out of NBC’s “A Very Merry Muppet Christmas” because of the rapper’s pro-drug persona and his involvement with several pornographic video projects. Henson executives said that the editing of Snoop Dogg’s appearance had nothing to do with Ali’s protest, but insiders familiar with the Henson Co. acknowledged that executives were concerned about information that the rapper is planning to release another triple X-rated video this fall.
