Michele Norris Joins NPR’s “All Things Considered”
Michele Norris, an award-winning journalist with nearly two decades of experience, will join Robert Siegel and the newly appointed Melissa Block as a regular co-host of “All Things Considered,” becoming its first co-host of color since the longest-running national program on public radio began in 1971, the network announced today.
Norris begins as co-host on Dec. 9. Sources told Journal-isms the announcement followed negotiations to release Norris from her contract at ABC.
“After nine extremely rewarding years working with a dedicated and talented team of broadcasters at ABC News, I now look forward to this new and extraordinary opportunity,” Norris said in a statement. “As a devoted listener of ‘All Things Considered,’ I have long been impressed and inspired by the show’s commitment to excellence and by its gifted stable of correspondents and commentators who guide listeners on an incredible journey to new destinations and discoveries each day.”
“Michele Norris will make her mark on public radio,” said Bruce Drake, vice president for news, in his own statement. “Her range is broad; she’s comfortable reporting on everything from Washington politics to popular culture. She will bring to ‘All Things Considered’ an approach to domestic subjects like education and poverty that is diverse and wide-ranging.”
“All Things Considered” attracts a weekly audience of 12 million, the network said, airing on 573 public radio stations.
Norris has been a correspondent for ABC News since 1993. As a contributing correspondent for the “Closer Look” segments on “World News Tonight,” Norris reported extensively on education, inner city issues, the nation’s drug problem and poverty. Norris has also reported for the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.
TV Pays Beginners the Lowest of All News Media
Working in television news has become too popular for the good of entry-level pay, reports Vernon Stone, journalism professor emeritus at the University of Missouri. “Our research confirms what hundreds of newcomers and would-be’s know all too well. Average pay for beginners and many others in TV news is unprofessionally low,” he writes.
“For six years, entry-level pay in television has been the lowest of all mass media-related job fields. It has not quite kept up with the cost of living.
“New college graduates now earn less in TV news than in radio news, where pay overall lags [behind] television. But there’s a flip side. In part because of radio’s low pay, its jobs draw fewer applicants, at least among journalism and communication degree holders. To hire college grads with news training, radio stations must pay more. . . .
“Both TV and radio have long lagged [behind] daily newspapers in starting pay, as well as typical pay for more experienced professionals in comparable positions. Median entry pay in TV news has even dropped below that for weekly newspapers, which are usually located in smaller markets. Indeed, TV pays beginners the lowest of all journalism-related specialties.”
Film Shown at AAJA Convention Proves Controversial
When independent filmmaker Justin Lin was trying to make his “Better Luck Tomorrow,” some film companies tried to change his characters, writes L.A. Chung in the San Jose Mercury News.
“They’d say point-blank, ‘If you can change it to a white cast we’ll give you the money now,’ ” Lin said.
Lin said “no,” maxed out 10 credit cards and made the movie his way, with an Asian American cast. “Better Luck Tomorrow” ended up generating enough of a buzz at the Sundance Film Festival that MTV Films bought it for distribution next year. Happy ending? Not exactly.
The low-budget independent film has continued to make waves at Asian American film festivals ever since. But it turns out that many Asian Americans are criticizing the film.
A behind-the-scenes tape at Sundance got the controversy started. It shows some of the effete film buffs at Park City, Utah, denouncing it for moral emptiness and critic Roger Ebert defending it. In and around the showing in San Diego, and at an Asian American journalists convention in July, the discussion among Asian Americans has been similar. It centers on what kind of films Asian Americans ought to be making, and what kind of messages are appropriate.
Hispanic TV audience Makes a Leap
Over the last two years, Hispanics accounted for 84 percent of growth in the U.S. adult television audience in the 18-34 and 18-49 demographic groups, according to a Univision Communications analysis of Nielsen Media Research.
Electronic Media reports that the analysis also found that those two Hispanic population groups grew by 40 percent and 24 percent, respectively, compared with 2001.
Hispanics now account for 18 percent of the U.S. adult 18-34 television population and 15 percent of the U.S. adult 18-49 television population, according to the data.
NBC Buys 3 Spanish-Language TV Stations
Continuing its push to expand its Telemundo network, NBC agreed to buy three Spanish-language TV stations, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Buying the stations, in Phoenix, Tucson, Ariz., and Fresno, Calif., brings to 15 the number of stations NBC’s Telemundo unit owns and operates, Media Week reports. By owning them, NBC will get an additional revenue stream as well as the ability to increase local news coverage and upgrade the stations’ on-air looks, it said. NBC also can spread out costs between Telemundo stations and NBC stations, sharing camera crews at news events, for example.
NBC, which is part of General Electric Co., acquired Telemundo a year ago for $1.98 billion plus $700 million in debt.
Journalists Attacked in South Africa
An independent news agency has appealed for public pressure to be brought on officials in Mpumalanga, South Africa, to prevent its young black journalists from being viciously assaulted and intimidated, reports the East Cape News in Grahamstown.
In a statement to the Mpumalanga government that was circulated by South Africa National Editors’ Forum, African Eye News Service editor Justin Arenstein said four of the news service’s journalists had been physically assaulted and/or intimidated in public in five separate incidents in the provincial capital, Nelspruit, over the past nine months.
Mark McEwen Out at “Early Show?”
“First Bryant Gumbel quit, then Jane Clayson was ‘reassigned,’ then weatherman Mark McEwen was, well, we’re not sure what happened, but we know he won’t be part of the next incarnation of the broadcast,” writes Diane Holloway in the Austin American-Statesman.
“What exactly do CBS News executives have planned for ‘The Early Show’ and, to be blunt, why do they bother?
“Plans are still under wraps, but here’s what we know:
“Sometime in the next month, maybe as early as next week, a new cast of characters will be announced. It will be an ensemble of four more or less equal participants. No co-anchors, no news reader, no jolly weather celebrity.”
Seattle Times Planning to Kill P-I?
At a mid-September staff meeting, Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen spoke of invoking clauses added to the joint operating agreement in 1999 that would kill the Post-Intelligencer, reports Sandeep Kaushik in the Stranger, a Seattle alternative paper.
Times business reporter Alwyn Scott wrote about Blethen’s plan, but editors spiked his story, saying Blethen’s comments were off the record, the Stranger said. A Times spokeswomen said of the JOA: “Nothing has changed, nothing has happened, nothing is imminent.” The P-I has, in Ken Bunting, one of the few African American executive editors at a daily newspaper.
“Curtis” Strip Counters Smoking
To coincide with October’s “Healthy Lung Month,” the “Curtis” comic made its debut on the American Lung Association’s Web site, Editor & Publisher reports.
Ray Billingsley‘s strip often shows the 11-year-old Curtis trying to get his father to quit smoking. Lung Association President and CEO John L. Kirkwood said that having a black cartoon character on the site “is especially important because the African American population is disproportionately affected by lung disease.”
Visitors to the site www.lungusa.org can subscribe to a “Curtis” e-newsletter that alerts them by e-mail when the next comic will be posted.
Billingsley, whose strip appears in more than 250 newspapers via King Features Syndicate, is a volunteer for the lung association’s Southeast Florida division and a recipient of the association’s President’s Award.
