In U.K., an Echo of African American Columnists’ Concerns
Gary Younge writes a column for the Guardian newspaper in England, one of the very few black columnists in the U.K. Today, Younge, who won a three-month fellowship at the Washington Post in 1996 and then married Post reporter Tara Mack, announces that he’s becoming the Guardian’s correspondent in New York, thus ending his regular column.
His farewell comments echo those of many African American writers who are asked why they write about race so often:
“From the outset, before I had written a word, I was advised by many, most of whom I believe genuinely had my interests at heart, not to dwell on race. ‘You’ll get yourself pigeonholed,’ they warned. A conundrum because, as the very phrasing made clear, while the responsibility for this perception would be mine, those actually doing the pigeonholing remain invisible and elusive.
“Moreover, with the occasional exception of Jewish colleagues, I doubt any other columnists are asked to stay away from areas where they have knowledge, which are of interest to readers and the public and are key issues in political discourse – particularly those that are covered so poorly. In the words of Steve Biko, the late black-consciousness activist murdered by the apartheid regime, ‘I write what I like.’
“In doing so I have discovered just how accurate those initial warnings were. The desire to stereotype and pigeonhole is strong – and, for some, almost irresistible. All too often I have been asked: ‘Do you consider yourself a black columnist, or a columnist who happens to be black?’ The question presupposes that you cannot be both black and a columnist, but must chose between one and the other.
“Being black is not a vocation. If it is I would have to go on strike, because the hours are long and the pay pathetic. It is one of things I am, it is not any of the things I do. Race does not define me. Nor does it shape my worldview any more than it does white columnists. The fact that I am aware of it means it is more likely to inform the subjects I write about.
“Just under than a third of these columns have been about race. For a period that spanned the racially motivated bombings in London, rioting in the north west, the triumph of [France’s Jean-Marie] Le Pen and the BNP [the far-right British National Party], and the asylum and immigration bill, this does not seem excessive for a writer with an interest in the subject. But for some, who have pilloried and pleaded with me ‘to stop banging on about it,’ even this has been too many. All I can say is that, while many black and Asian people have expressed delight that I write about issues other than race, none of them has ever said: ‘Why do you keep writing about us all the time? We are so well covered everywhere else.'”
Asian Male in Show Business: Important Just to Be There
Henry Cho is a good ol’ Southern boy, an actor and stand-up comic whose bicultural schtick is elevating his profile in appearances all over the nation – lofty stuff, especially for an Asian-American from the mountains of Tennessee, says the Dallas Morning News.
Neal Justin, television critic for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and member of the governing board of the Asian American Journalists Association, says Cho’s mere presence in Hollywood “is important. There’s just not a lot of Asian males that are very prominent in show business.
“One of the problems is, Asian males still suffer from not being perceived as being terribly sexy. Asian females to some extent have gotten over that. But Asian males are not considered to be leading-man types. They’re rarely seen onstage, in television shows or behind the anchor desks of local news shows. For whatever reason, and somebody a lot smarter than me will have to figure this out, they haven’t gotten over that barrier.”
Cho’s profile “is the kind of thing that makes a difference,” says Justin.
Another Media Critic Calls Journalists Out of Touch
In an era when network anchors in tailor-made suits sign multimillion-dollar contracts, and some of their talking-head, syndicated columnist colleagues earn more from one speech than the average American earns in an entire year, it may be difficult to imagine, but journalism in this country was, until relatively recently, a largely blue-collar craft, media writer David Shaw comments in the Los Angeles Times.
As recently as 1971, only 58 percent of newspaper journalists had college degrees; now 89 percent have degrees, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
In other words, many big-city journalists — especially those who set the agenda for what gets covered in the rest of the media — have moved away from much of the largely middle- and working-class audience they purport to serve. At best, they’re out of touch. At worst, they’ve become elitists.
Young Drifting Away From News After 9/11 Surge
A little more than a year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had people riveted to TV news shows, droves of viewers — especially in younger demographic categories — are drifting away, both from the network newscasts and 24-hour cable networks. Not surprisingly, most of the new viewers still watching are in older demo groups, reports Media Week.
Michele Norris Not the First ‘ATC’ Co-Host of Color
Today was Michele Norris‘ first day as co-host of National Public Radio’s popular newsmagazine “All Things Considered,” but she’s not the first person of color in the job, as Journal-isms had reported. Corrects Adam Clayton Powell III, a former NPR vice president who is now general manager of Howard University’s WHUT-TV: “Lee Thornton briefly co-anchored ATC in the 1980s after she left CBS. And Emil Guillermo co-hosted for over a year, also in the late 1980s.
“ATC became all-white once more after Emil was removed in 1990, along with nonwhite executive producers (Judi Moore Latta, Ben Davis) and most other senior people of color, shortly after I left as VP/news.”
Telemundo Gaining on Univision
If the November sweeps are any indication, NBC’s ownership of Telemundo is starting to pay off for parent company General Electric, as Telemundo’s Spanish-language stations are taking more ratings share than ever in major markets, reports Media Week. Backed by NBC’s muscle for a year now, Telemundo has been able to strengthen its local news operations and, in some cases, beat out market leader Univision.
Takeover of Hispanic Broadcasting Delayed
Federal review of Univision Communication Inc.’s proposed $2-billion acquisition of Hispanic Broadcasting Corp., the nation’s leading Spanish-language radio broadcaster, has become “protracted” because of antitrust concerns, according to a Merrill Lynch & Co. report, says the Los Angeles Times.
Jackie Jones Accepts Teaching Post at Penn State
Jackie Jones, a veteran who has worked at more newspapers than most, is leaving The Washington Post, where she is local business editor, to become a senior lecturer in journalism at Penn State, starting in January. It’s a three-year appointment. In which she’ll be teaching news writing and copy editing. “Most likely I will work on my master’s while at Penn State and decide whether full-time academia is for me,” she says.
Among Jones’ previous newspapers are New York Newsday, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Detroit Free Press and the Philadelphia Daily News. She’s a past board member of the National Association of Black Journalists and represents the organization with the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
Thornton, Shapinksy, Cox Join Howard U. Television
Lee Thornton has been tapped to host Howard University WHUT-TV’s new weekly media series, “Front and Center,” now seen Saturdays at 11 p.m. The program is produced at the University of Maryland, where Thornton holds the Richard Eaton Chair in Broadcast Journalism.
David Shapinsky joins the station as senior producer/program development, supervising creation of long-form public affairs broadcasts, special programming with HUT partners and health care broadcasts with medical correspondent George Strait, whose reports are seen on WHUT’s flagship series Friday nights, “Evening Exchange.” Shapinsky was a producer/reporter at ABC News. Cody Cox joins the station as acting operations producer. He has been a freelance producer and technician on WHUT productions, and before that was producer of the Freedom Forum’s weekly Newseum Radio series on NPR worldwide,
Michael Fountain: CBS to BET to WHUT to ESPN
Michael Fountain, who took a vice president’s position at Black Entertainment Television only to leave BET abruptly in February, resurfaced at Howard University Television in August as senior producer in charge of the weekly prime time “@Howard” series, among other duties. Now he’s leaving to join ESPN as a senior producer, according to WHUT, which is seeking a replacement producer. In the 1990s, Fountain was senior producer of the “CBS Evening News” and “CBS This Morning,” also producing stories for CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” and CBS News’ coverage from Rwanda in 1994.
Columnist William Turner Named Interim College President
William Turner, a columnist for the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal and member of the Trotter Group of African American columnists, among other endeavors, has been named as the interim president of Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Ky., the newspaper reports.
Turner, 56, is the president of Turner and Associates, a workplace-consulting firm. He has also had a long career in academia. He served as the dean of arts and sciences at Kentucky State, and as a professor and administrator at several universities, including Winston-Salem State University. He is also a columnist for the Winston-Salem Journal.
His appointment will begin on Jan. 1 and last between 12 and 18 months as the university starts a national search for a permanent president. Turner’s first priority will be to lead the historically black liberal-arts school of 2,300 students through an academic review. In recent years, the school has been battered by financial problems, tension between the faculty and the administration, and low graduation rates for students.
One casualty of Turner’s new job will be his regular Journal column, which appears on the Journal’s editorial pages on Wednesday. Turner said that he will stop writing the column. No date has been set for his last column.
N.Y. Times Publishes Controversial Columns
After days of criticism, the New York Times on Sunday ran revised versions of two sports columns rejected by editors two weeks earlier. Executive editor Howell Raines said in the Times that the editors’ original objections were based not on the opinions stated in the columns but on separate concerns: one column, by Dave Anderson, about the Augusta National Golf Club’s refusal to admit women, gave the appearance of unnecessary intramural squabbling with the newspaper’s editorial board; the second, by Harvey Araton, which also dealt with the Augusta issue, presented problems of structure and tone.
Gerald Boyd, the Times’ first African American managing editor, had been the Times’ point man in defending its decision not to run the columns. Though some commended the Times for stepping forward to acknowledge its mistake, it nonetheless was an embarrassment for the newspaper. In the Washingtonian magazine’s online edition, Washington Post Co. Chairman Donald Graham was reported to have walked through the newsroom, smiling broadly and stopping to tell sports editor George Solomon: “I have to remember to tell [sports columnist] Mike Wilbon not to disagree with our editorial policy on Iraq.”
