How News Media Were Slow on Lott Story
When Trent Lott praised the 1948 segregationist candidacy of Strom Thurmond, most of the mainstream press was, rather embarrassingly, caught napping, reports Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post.
A dozen reporters heard the [would-be] Senate majority leader say the country would have been better off if Thurmond had won the presidency — and it was carried on C-SPAN — but only an ABC producer thought the remarks were newsworthy. Even then the story didn’t make it to the network’s main newscasts. It wasn’t until Lott apologized last Monday night that such newspapers as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today took note of the matter. In the meantime, Lott was pummeled by a number of online Weblogs — particularly by conservatives who agree with him on many issues — in a way that helped force the story into public view.
Kurtz doesn’t say that he was among the commentators who appeared to underestimate the staying power of the story.
Lott Story Providing Valuable History Lesson
If nothing else, the Trent Lott story is providing Americans with a valuable lesson in the recent history of race and politics.
“Lyndon Johnson had it right 40 years ago when the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed: The Democrats were probably going to lose a good part of the South,” Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said on “CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer,” educating those who never thought twice about how the modern-day white South became solidly Republican.
A piece by David M. Halbfinger in the New York Times Sunday discussed how early in Lott’s life and pre-congressional career, segregation pervaded his world and served him well politically.
It included this memorable anecdote:
“Ira Harkey Jr., editor of The Pascagoula Chronicle, was writing editorials denouncing racial violence and criticizing [Gov. Ross] Barnett for fighting the integration of Ole Miss. In response, a group of local people — many of them shipyard workers, Mr. Harkey says — harassed him for months, threatening violence and even shooting out his office windows.
“Some time later, Mr. Harkey said, he received a letter from a woman who told him that if he did not publish her letter it would prove ‘you are truly an integrationist and I hope you not only get a hole through your office door but through your stupid head.’ It was signed Iona W. Lott — Mr. Lott’s mother.
“‘I called her, asked if she’d sent it to me, and she said she certainly had sent it to me and she meant every word,’ said Mr. Harkey, now 84.”
Among the many other illuminating pieces are two on Ronald Reagan‘s role in winking at racists, one by Jack E. White in Time and another by Adam Clymer in the New York Times.
In the Washington Post Friday, Thomas B. Edsall and Darryl Fears analyzed Lott’s voting record. And in the New York Times, columnist Paul Krugman connected the dots up to George W. Bush, writing:
“The Bush administration’s judicial nominations have clearly been chosen to give a signal of support to those target Southern voters. A striking example has just emerged: We’ve learned that Mr. Lott supported the right of Bob Jones University to keep its tax-exempt status even while banning interracial dating; supporting his position was none other than Michael McConnell, a controversial figure recently confirmed as an appeals judge.”
Lott Appears Tonight on BET
Trent Lott takes part in an in-depth interview with BET tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.
Ed Gordon, whose “BET Tonight With Ed Gordon” is scheduled to be canceled by the network at the end of the year, is to go one-on-one with Lott, says BET.
Immediately after the telecast, a panel of leading African-American journalists and political analysts will offer their reactions to this interview in a “BET Nightly News” special hosted by Jacque Reid.
Lott’s interview is to re-air on BET at 11:30 p.m.
Canceled BET Shows Lost Money: BET President
The decision to cancel “BET Tonight with Ed Gordon,” the long-running interview program; “Teen Summit,” the public affairs program, and “Lead Story,” the Sunday journalist roundtable that originates from Washington, “was made by Bob [Johnson, BET founder] and myself,” said Debra Lee, BET president, in an interview with Newsday.
“These shows were losing money” – an estimated $3 million to $4 million per year – “and we could not find advertisers to support them. There came a day of reckoning.” Lee sought to curb speculation that the cuts were ordered by Viacom.
Newscasts Continue to Marginalize Hispanics, Says NAHJ
Despite the spectacular growth of the Latino population over the past decade, Latinos continued to be marginalized on the evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN in 2001, according to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists seventh annual Network Brownout Report.
The report found that of 16,000 stories that aired in 2001, only 99 (0.62 percent) were about Latinos. In 2000, out of 16,000 stories, only 84 (0.53 percent) were about Latinos.
“The network’s dismal record of covering the nation’s fastest-growing minority group undermines the information needs of all U.S. residents and distorts the public discourse so necessary for any democratic society,” said NAHJ President Juan Gonzalez, a columnist with the New York Daily News.
“America’s Black Forum” Founders Blast Current Show
“To step into the world of ‘America’s Black Forum,’ the TV show, is to enter a carnival house-of-mirrors,” write the show’s co-creators, Glen Ford and Peter Gamble in a stinging commentary. “African American political realities are distorted beyond recognition. The floor tilts crazily rightward as clowns in blackface jump into view to parrot George Bush and Jerry
Falwell, then straighten up and hum ‘Lift Every Voice’ as they lock arms and sway with a sneering Pat Buchanan and his blond, junior conservative companion.
“The trappings of journalism are meant to convey authenticity to what is essentially a weekly exercise in Black-bashing, thankfully punctuated by celebrity interviews of no consequence. ‘America’s Black Forum’ is hosted by Juan Williams, a favorite Black political conjure-artist of Republican-managed Fox News, and alternate host James Brown, a Fox sportscaster with no background in news whatsoever. . . . The show’s most compelling on-air presence is Armstrong Williams, possibly the most noxious Black personality in broadcasting.
“The publishers of The Black Commentator have more than a passing interest in America’s Black Forum. We created the show 25 years ago, while working as network radio reporters, in Washington,” write Ford and Gamble.
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, who has been one of the show’s on-air principals, told Journal-isms that since he was an employee of the show it would be inappropriate for him to comment.
“America’s Black Forum” claims that it is seen in 80 major television markets across the country — reaching 70 percent of U.S. TV households. However, the show’s Web site doesn’t say how many of those markets show it in the wee hours.
Last month, the Black Commentator went after Victoria Valentine, editor of The Crisis, the NAACP magazine, over its September – October editorial, titled “Black According to Whom?” which it called too favorable to the new crop of “Black leaders.” It called for the Crisis board to remove Valentine.
New Biweekly for Asian Americans in San Diego
Asia: The Journal of Culture & Commerce, free 24-page biweekly, which attempts to be something for everyone in the local 420,000-strong Asian-American community in San Diego County, Calif., is now available at 250 tea houses, libraries and markets, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune.
“There was nothing for third-generation and fourth-generation Asian-Americans out there who share English,” said Leonard Novarro, editor and co-publisher.
NY1 Spins Off a Spanish-Language Channel
After serving up news around the clock in the country’s biggest city for the past 10 years, NY1 News is expanding en Espanol, reports Electronic Media. New York’s all-news channel plans to spin off a Spanish-language version of NY1 in May that will feature a half-hour news wheel updated throughout the day.
The coverage will include both repurposed content from NY1 News and fresh material gathered specifically for the Spanish-language channel, which is yet to be named, said Steve Paulus, NY1 general manager. “We don’t just want to take NY1 content and voice-over in Spanish,” he said. “Obviously, there is a difference in what Latinos want.”
NAJA Leader Calls Attention to “Indian Enron” Case
History may remember 2002 as the year of the accounting scandals. But American Indians have been victimized by the government’s own accounting scandal for decades, writes Mary Annette Pember, a vice president of the Native American Journalists Association who has just been named the organization’s executive director.
In the “Indian Enron” case, as it’s being called, the U.S. government has mismanaged the trust funds of up to half a million people for more than 100 years, Pember writes in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
“Most people know little or nothing about this subject.
“There is a strange disconnect between mainstream America and Indian America. Many white Americans view American Indians as denizens of ancient history, which in this culture of instant gratification is anything that happened more than 30 years ago,” she says.
Wash. Post Immigration Series Criticized as Stereotyping
Washington Post writer Anne Hull‘s front-page series on immigrants in Atlanta, called “Rim of the New World,” drew critical letters to the editor from incoming president Mae M. Cheng of the Asian American Journalists Association and from Jeordan Legon, a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Parts of the series “are disappointing because they resort to cliches that were more relevant a decade ago,” Cheng wrote.
“Rather than displaying varied portraits of Latinos, your paper presents stereotypical views of minorities,” said Legon.
On the piece that focused on Asian Americans, “the series could have included stories on such issues as the growth of the evangelical Christian churches Asians are attending and how this is changing the spirituality and political fabric of the South. Or perhaps you could have considered a story about the shift of power in the South as some white neighborhoods welcome Asians but are hostile to Latinos and blacks,” Cheng said.
Dwight Cunningham Editing Washington Afro
Dwight Cunningham, a journalist who also has worked at more places than most, is now executive editor of the Washington Afro-American, effective Nov. 12. Wiley Hall III, who had edited the paper, retains overall responsibility for all Afro publications, including the Washington and Baltimore weekly papers; EW, the Afro’s entertainment weekly; monthly special supplements; and the Afro Chronicles, which are published quarterly on special topics and which make extensive use of Afro archives. Cunningham, who once was an Afro reporter and went on to several newspapers and business publications, most recently briefly helped cover military affairs at the Norfolk (Va.) Virginian Pilot.
Univision, the nation’s largest Spanish-language television network, has agreed to buy WKFT-TV Channel 40 to gain a foothold in North Carolina and access to the state’s burgeoning Hispanic population, the Associated Press reports.
The deal, expected to close during the first quarter of 2003, will create the first North Carolina station to target Hispanics as its primary audience. The Fayetteville-based station will reach at least a third of all Hispanics living in the state, according to Census data, by broadcasting in Fayetteville, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Goldsboro.