Sportscaster Darrian Chapman Collapses, Dies at 37
Darrian Chapman , the lead sports anchor of Chicago’s WMAQ-TV, died today after collapsing while playing hockey, the Chicago Tribune reported. He was 37.
Chapman had put his skates on and was walking toward the ice to play hockey when he fell to the floor around 11 a.m., said Beth Nelson, marketing and programming director for Johnny’s Ice House on the city’s West Side. She said Chapman had been a regular at the rink for two years and was making his third visit this week after taking some time off.
He came to NBC5 Chicago from NBC4 in Washington, D.C., where he served as the station’s weekend morning sports anchor and sports anchor for more than four years. While in the nation’s capital, he also did some play-by-play for George Mason University’s men’s basketball team on “Home Team Sports.” Prior to that, Darrian held the position of sports director at WGR NewsRadio 55 in Buffalo, N.Y.
Did N.Y. Times Blow Coverage of Antiwar March?
The story in The New York Times looked about right: top of the page, a five-column head, and a huge photo of marchers outside the White House, reports Editor & Publisher. After all, as the story made clear, the demonstration in Washington, D.C., had far exceeded everyone’s estimates, with turnout at least 100,000, or more, making it probably the biggest antiwar protest in the nation’s capital since the height of the Vietnam war. No wonder it got major play.
There was just one problem: The march took place last Saturday and the story did not run until today.
The story, on A17, by Kate Zernicke, had “make-up article” written all over it, possibly in response to many organized protest letters sent to the Times since the paper’s weak, and inaccurate, initial article about the march on Sunday.
Edwin Bayley, Founding Dean of Berkeley’s J-School, 84
Edwin R. Bayley, founding dean of the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, died Sunday at a Green Bay, Wis., hospital. He was 84 and had been ill for several months.
In 1975, Bayley made it possible for the Maynard Institute, then known as the Institute for Journalism Education (IJE), to relocate from Columbia University to the UC-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. IJE ran the Summer Program for Minority Journalists at Berkeley from 1976 to 1989.
Chicago Defender’s Owner Near a Sale
Sengstacke Enterprises Inc., owner of the Chicago Defender and three other African American newspapers, was expected to agree by 5 p.m. today to be acquired by Real Times Inc., a Chicago firm that beat out five rivals for the privilege of trying to turn around a company that is gasping for air, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Headed by newspaper veteran Thomas Picou, a member of the Sengstacke family, Real Times will pay $8.5 million for 91 percent of Sengstacke Enterprises, which also publishes the Michigan Chronicle in Detroit, the New Pittsburgh Courier and the Tri-State Defender in Memphis.
It will assume $2.4 million in debt, bringing the full value of the deal to $10.9 million.
If the agreement is signed, and closed by Dec. 15, as expected, it would end 5 1/2 years of anguish that started with the death of the paper’s longtime leader,
What’s Happened to Essence Magazine?
“I Had Sex With My Minister,” page 108! “This is not your mother’s Essence,” says the africana.com Web site’s weekly “A-List” column, described as ” a compendium of what African America was (or should have been) talking about over the previous week.”
It continues: “And while we appreciate some of the ways in which the magazine has transformed itself for a newer, more fast-paced and occasionally vulgar culture (“Master His Johnson!” a helpful guide to men’s sexual equipment we were shocked to find but loved), we sometimes long for the uplift that once was found between these glossy covers.
“Sometimes, in fact, the A-List wonders just what the Essence editorial vision IS these days, what with an Editor-in-Chief desk that seems to feature an ejection seat. Veering madly between Cosmo-style sexalicious exposes and Righteous Sister “raising our young black princes” primers just leaves us confused.”
NOW Foundation: TV is “Adolescent Boys’ Fantasy”
The National Organization for Women Foundation has released its third annual report on how women are portrayed on prime-time TV, it says the majority of women on TV continue to fall under the category of “young, thin and white.” It also accuses the six major networks of catering to an “adolescent boy’s fantasy world.”
“Our field analysts observed a continued lack of gender and racial diversity on TV. Outdated and negative stereotypes were common where diversity did exist. The six broadcast networks employed 134 more men than women in regular primetime roles. Programs told from a male point of view outnumbered those with a female point of view more than 2-to-1.
Dean Offers Columnist Free Class on Multiculturalism
A fatal mob beating is stirring racial tensions on a college campus in Waukesha, Wis., after a student newspaper column linked the Milwaukee incident to lifestyles and struggles in the African American community, reports the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
“Stop the welfare payments and you’ll end the madness,” wrote assistant editor Dan Hubert in the latest issue of the Observer, University of Wisconsin-Waukesha’s student newspaper.
Since the column rolled off the presses earlier this week, angry students have demanded Hubert’s expulsion from school and called for the university to cut off funding for the Observer. Administrators and students, black and white, say that although they support freedom of the press, they are insulted by Hubert’s generalizations about African American neighborhoods, parents and fashion.
Dean Brad Stewart said he plans no disciplinary action, but he does have an offer for the young newsman: free tuition for one of the college’s courses on multiculturalism.
“The purpose of the institution is to combat ignorance,” Stewart said. “We’ll find a seat in the class for him.”
Nashville’s Ernie Freeman Off the Air
Nashville’s Channel 4 morning anchor Ernie Freeman is gone from the station, but managers aren’t saying why, reports the “Brad About You” column in the Nashville Tennessean.
“One of Ernie’s colleagues tells me he got in a dispute last week with supervisors over the hours that he was working. For three days a week, Ernie worked from 4 a.m. through the 5 or 6 p.m. newscasts. Ernie’s morning co-anchor, Holly Thompson, often didn’t work as many hours.
“Whether the hour issue had anything to do with Ernie’s departure is unclear, but on Friday VP/General Manager Steve Ramsey called a staff meeting at 4:15 p.m. to announce that Ernie no longer worked at the station. Yesterday, I couldn’t find Ernie. And News Director Mark Shafer referred my call to Ramsey. Ramsey called to say: ”It’s a personnel issue we can’t talk about.”
Hispanic Caucus: NBC Should Recognize AFTRA
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has asked NBC to recognize the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists as negotiator for on-air employees of newly acquired Telemundo Communications Group Inc. station WSNS-TV Chicago without a secret-ballot election, based on past support voiced for the union, reports Broadcasting and Cable. In a letter to NBC Stations president Jay Ireland, the Caucus cited a petition signed earlier this year by all nine on-air station employees.
Greg Moore Columnist Pick Lasts Four Weeks
“After four weeks as a Metro columnist, Jim Armstrong is reversing field and returning to sports where he will resume his former perch as a premiere takeout writer and columnist,” Denver Post Editor Greg Moore wrote to his staff.
“Jim took on the Metro assignment at my urging. And he returns to sports with my blessing. In my exuberance to think outside of the box in filling the Metro columnist slot, I might have pressed Jim into a suit that ill fit him,” he continued in a memo posted on Jim Romenesko‘s Media News.
“For some, this might seem a lightning turnaround. In a way it is, but it is best for all involved. Jim put everything he had into the challenge I dangled in front of him, but his heart is in sports, where he enjoys a national reputation for excellence. His fans are bound to be happy about his return judging by the hundreds of emails deploring his departure.
“Jim will take up his previous duties effective today. I intend to restart my national search for a Metro columnist immediately. Thanks.”
Two at Medill Named Co-Curators of Ida B. Wells Award
The Ida B. Wells Award jury has selected two people to serve as co-curators of the award. Ava Greenwell and Charles F. Whitaker both on the faculty of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, have been selected as co-curators of the Ida B. Wells Award, said Phil Haslanger, president of the National Conference of Editorial Writers.
The Wells award is given in alternating years by NCEW and the National Association of Black Journalists to recognize “outstanding efforts to make news organizations reflect more accurately the diversity of the communities that they serve.”
The two will take over the organizational work for the award now that Sam Adams has retired as curator.
The current members of the jury, which selected the two co-curators, are Vanessa Gallman and Haslanger from NCEW; Condace Pressley, the president of NABJ and Sheila Stainback, an anchor for Court TV, representing NABJ; James Gentry, dean of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas; and Loren Ghiglione, dean of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and himself a former Wells Award recipient. The curators will also serve on the jury.
