‘Hispanic-Looking’ Man in Custody Again
A man in a white minivan who was taken into custody today in Richmond, Va., amid suspicions that the Washington, D.C.-area sniper was in the area, was described by witnesses as “hispanic-looking, with shoulder-length hair and a mustache,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
Another witness told a Washington, D.C., radio station that the man “wasn’t white. He wasn’t black. I’d say he was Hispanic.”
They illustrate the difficulty of heeding the advice issued this summer from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
NAHJ urged the news media to refrain from using of the term “Hispanic” as a physical description. ” ‘Hispanic’ is an ethnicity, not a race. There are Hispanics who are white, black, light tan, dark tan, etc.” NAHJ said. “Our physical features are varied to the extent that the term ‘Hispanic’ conveys no distinct physical information. Some of us look like baseball player Sammy Sosa. Others look like actor Andy Garcia. When police tell the public that the person they seek is ‘Hispanic,’ it is our job as journalists to ask how they arrived at that conclusion. Asking that question will elicit relevant details about the individual being sought.”
Sports Illustrated Women Is Folding. Is That Bad?
Feminists are flummoxed: Is the demise of Sports Illustrated Women a reason to boo or cheer, asks Chicago Tribune cultural critic Julia Keller.
The two-year-old publication will fold after the December issue, according to an announcement late last week from its parent company, AOL Time Warner.
“Known for covers that would make a Maxim reader drool, Sports Illustrated Women, with a circulation of 400,000, is a perfect metaphor for the current debate over the marketing of female athletes as sex objects,” writes Keller.
“Shouldn’t women, like men, be treated as professionals rather than pinups? No Sports Illustrated cover, for instance, would feature a male athlete in a skimpy outfit with a pouty, come-hither expression, a staple of Sports Illustrated Women. Male athletes are allowed to look like the dignified champions they are — rather than Hooters employees.”
Howard University, NNPA, Microsoft Launch Media Lab
A Converged Media Lab combining broadcast, print, advertising and public relations studies was launched last week at Howard University by the Microsoft Corp.,the National Newspaper Publishers Association and Howard’s Department of Journalism. The lab was called one of the most advanced converged journalism curricula available at a historically black college or university.
The partnership “merges Howard University’s journalism classroom with the NNPA’s newsroom,” said George Curry, editor in chief of the NNPA’s electronic news wire service, BlackPressUSA.com. “The lab provides students with the experience of writing for a national news outlet that reaches more than 200 Black newspapers and 15 million readers. Students will come to the lab to put into practice what they’ve learned in the classroom.”
Microsoft provided software and more than $70,000 in cash for hardware, technical assistance and furniture to support the multimedia facility.
Houston News Channel Names Reporting Staff
Jeff Alan, news director of News 24 Houston, has announced the reporting staff for what will be the only 24-hour news channel seing Houston and the surrounding areas.
The station, a co-venture of Time Warner and the A.H. Belo company, goes live Dec. 12 on channel 24 of the local Time Warner cable system. Alan told Journal-isms that he made a conscious effort to put together a diverse staff.
The reporters are:
Kortni Alson most recently a reporter at WKBN-TV in Youngstown, Pa.
Annie Blanco formerly reporter/anchor at KXXV-TV in Waco, Texas
Melissa Blasius reporter/anchor at WOTV-TV in Battle Creek, Mich.
Haven Daley reporter/anchor at TV2 in St. Thomas, V.I.
Mary Estacion reporter at WHAG-TV in Hagerstown, Md.
Mercedes Garza reporter at KXLN-TV in Houston
Tad Hathaway reporter/anchor at WTVW-TV in Evansville, Ind.
Emmett Irby reporter/anchor at WMDT-TV in Salisbury, Md.
Jennifer Joseph reporter/anchor at KTEN-TV in Denison, Texas
Kristi Nakamura reporter at Marin Channel 26 in San Rafael, Calif.
Erik Runge reporter, WHIO-TV in Peoria, Ill.
Roxana Saberi reporter, KVLY-TV in Fargo, N.D.
Leslie Stewart reporter/anchor at WCSC-TV in Charleston, S.C.
Kristan Thorne reporter/anchor at WWSAV-TV in Savannah, Ga.
Steve Trainor reporter at WHBF-TV in Rock Island, Ill.
Tucker Wilson reporter at KCEN-TV in Waco, Texas
Others named include Gai-Linn Tatrai, financial consultant at Salomon Smith-Barney in Indianapolis, as weekday anchor; Vivian Tamayo, reporter at WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Ala., as weekend anchor, and Darryl Green, freelance meteorologist at Metro Traffic and Weather on Long Island, as weeknight meteorologist.
Farrakhan Calls for National Black News Treasury
In a meeting in New York with members of the black press, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan called for a more united Black press to provide coverage of national issues and to challenge the distortions of the mainstream media, reports The Black World Today.
“The Central Park case should not just be in the Amsterdam News and the Daily Challenge,” Farrakhan suggested. “It should be in the Chicago Defender, the Atlanta World and other Black newspapers.”
Farrakhan urged a national treasury among Black news agencies that would cover international, national and local stories. Farrakhan said he had tried on several occasions to visit Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted as the mastermind of the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the former president of Panama now imprisoned in Florida. “But I’ve been blocked each time,” he said.
He also said he had seen the movie “Barbershop.” “I didn’t find anything funny,”he said.
“The movie divides us along the lines of elders and our youth.”
First Public Radio International Fellow Named
Public Radio International has announced a PRI Fellows Program, funded in part by the Ford Foundation, designed to cultivate minority journalists and increase the diversity of perspectives and voices in public radio.
The first PRI Fellow is Jacquie Gales Webb, who began working at WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C., in July, developing arts and culture content for PRI’s Studio 360 and for local WAMU programming.
Working at PRI affiliate stations, PRI Fellows are responsible for creating content for local and national broadcast, as well as identifying ideas, stories, and people from communities of color who are relatively new to public radio.
Webb was senior producer for Smithsonian Productions, where she produced the acclaimed series “Jazz Singers,” “Remembering Slavery,” and “Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was.” Since 1990, she has hosted s Sunday afternoon gospel music program on WHUR-FM in Washington.
Asia News Network Now Online
The Asia News Network, a network of national daily newspapers published in Asian cities, has launched a Web site, www.asianewsnet.net.
The networking of newspapers in Asia was first discussed informally by Asian editors who participated in the first Asian-German Editors Forum organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Manila.
The network’s stated objectives:
— To enhance and improve news coverage of Asian affairs.
— To provide member newspapers with reliable access to news sources in Asia.
— To help promote the professional development of journalism in the region.
Spanish Youth’s Changing Tastes
Youth can be fickle, says Media Week. Just ask some of the top Spanish-language radio stations in Los Angeles and New York, which saw their shares slide in the Arbitron rating service’s summer survey, which began rolling out last week. In Los Angeles in particular, most of the dominant Spanish-language radio outlets saw their shares of audience slide from the spring survey, as the number of young listeners tuning in swelled during the survey period, June 27 to Sept. 18.
One key factor was a higher number of young Hispanics listening to mainstream stations.
NABJ Internship Candidates: Be in Raleigh
The National Association of Black Journalists will recruit for its internship program at The News & Observer job fair, Oct. 24-26 in Raleigh, N.C.
NABJ is dedicated to expanding job opportunities for African American journalism students.
NABJ annually awards summer internships to students committed to journalism careers. All students must have a cumulative 2.5 grade point average at an accredited four-year college or university. Candidates must submit a resume, letters of recommendation, an essay, samples of their work and a copy of their transcript to be eligible by Nov.1. Packets will be accepted at the NABJ table at the job fair.
Deserving students will be awarded internships at The News & Observer, Rock Hill (S.C.) Herald and The Island Packet (Hilton Head, S.C.).
Internships are also available at Bloomberg News, the AP, Dallas Morning News, CBS News, San Jose Mercury News, NPR, The Tampa Tribune and Seattle Times.
