Black Journalist-Military Expert Has Own Web Site
LeRoy Woodson Jr. showed up on public radio’s “To The Point” Thursday night as a military expert talking about Iraq. What was unusual about this was that Woodson is African American. “Twenty-nine percent of the Army is black, and white people don’t understand that we need to talk to these people,” Woodson says of the media commentary he’s encountered. He has yet to see any black retired generals among the parade of talking heads, for example, he told Journal-isms.
It was because of his frustration with American reporting that Woodson, who has worked in more than 50 countries as a photographer and writer for such publications as National Geographic and the Washington Post, decided a year ago to set up his own Web site, www.militaryweek.com, which carries links to reporting around the world on military matters.
The American news media, said Woodson, 58, son of a foreign service officer, are “coming from a particularly Anglo-Saxon cultural perspective, which I think is a bit outdated. The problem I see is that a lot of young reporters who have not had experience working outside the country or are well-steeped in history are rising to fairly prominent positions.” Among American news media, he recommends the perspective of the Christian Science Monitor. Woodson, who lives in Southern California, can be reached at editor@militaryweek.com.
Black Commentary on the War Online
At least two Web sites are compiling black commentary on the war against Iraq. The William Monroe Trotter Group of African American columnists has put up a page with its members’ commentaries at http://www.trottergroup.com/war.htm.
BlackAmericaWeb promises to include black commentary as well, including some by non-journalists, at http://www.blackamericaweb.com/index.cfm?ARTICLEID=87521&CATID=4.
U.S. Readers Turning to Foreign Web Sites
“In the run up to a conflict in Iraq, foreign news websites are seeing large volumes of traffic from America, as U.S. citizens increasingly seek news coverage about the coming war,” the Wired news Web site reported earlier in the week.
“Given how timid most U.S. news organizations have been in challenging the White House position on Iraq, I’m not surprised if Americans are turning to foreign news services for a perspective on the conflict that goes beyond freedom fries,” the Web site quoted Deborah Branscom, a Newsweek contributing editor, who keeps a Weblog devoted to media issues, as saying.
“In January, for example, half the visitors to the Guardian Unlimited news site , an umbrella site for Britain’s left-leaning Guardian and Observer newspapers, were from the Americas.” Likewise, Nielsen/NetRatings “said a quarter of the visitors to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Web site in January were from the Americas.”
NBC’s Ron Allen Makes It to Jordan
NBC’s Ron Allen and a four-person crew made it to Jordan Tuesday, 43 hours after they set out to leave Iraq Sunday night. They had to pay a fine of $60,000 to gain permission to leave, reports The Washington Post. “NBC spokeswoman Barbara Levin says the group was stopped at the border and charged with violating the rules against taking cash out of the country, and for having an unauthorized piece of equipment, a satellite phone. “Allen and his crew had to drive to a location near Baghdad to pay the fine, then head back to the border. ‘Nobody at the network is comfortable when reporters and crews are detained,’ Levin said. “What’s most important is that they’re safe now.”
Salim Muwakkil of Two Minds on Community Protest
A “Committee to Defend Salim Muwakkil and Media Democracy” has sprung up in Chicago after the Chicago Tribune decided this month to end the In These Times columnistï¿œs place in the Tribune’s rotation after five years. A syndicated column from the Boston Globe’s Derrick Z. Jackson is to run in its place, with Muwakkil writing occasional commentaries.
But Muwakkil says he has mixed feelings about the community effort, which is being led by Edward “Buzz” Palmer, a longtime activist who headed Chicago’s “sister cities” program under the late Mayor Harold Washington. “Part of the argument is that the Tribune is trying to diminish antiwar voices,” Muwakkil told Journal-isms. “But with Derrick as a substitute, that argument has less value, and with the Tribune willing to run occasional columns [by me], in some ways that’s a gain.”
More valid is the argument that Muwakkil is local, having lived in the city since 1973, he said. Still, the Tribune “supported me in dicey situations,” though he thinks the Tribune made a mistake by ending his column. “It’s good that the Tribune knows that there are costs when they let go of a writer who has developed a strong rapport” with readers, he said.
“What Liberal Media?” Author’s Racial Blind Spot
Eric Alterman is deservedly getting media time for his “What Liberal Media?” book responding to the notion that the news media have a liberal tilt. But when it comes to racial matters, Alterman’s views don’t seem that much different from those of the conservatives he criticizes.
Alterman swallows the argument put forward by Ruth Shalit in a 1995 New Republic piece called “Race in the Newsroom” that examined race relations at the Washington Post. The error-ridden piece in essence said the Post had become too “politically correct.” Writes Alterman:
ï¿œShe cited, for instance, examples of African-American reporters receiving a degree of indulgence from the paper’s editors that would be unthinkable for a white reporter. Describing his own work in terms that would clearly be tagged as racist if spoken by a white person, African-American reporter Kevin Merida explained, ï¿œthe black experience is part of who I amï¿œ and so he tried ï¿œto incorporate that in my coverage.ï¿œ Merida gave [Shalit] examples of three stories: an admiring profile of ex-Senator Carol Mosely-Braun; an attack on art in the Capitol as ï¿œcolonialist and lacking in racial diversityï¿œ; and a complaint about the Senate for its condemnation of Khal[l]id Muhammad’s racist attacks on Jews while the body stood silently for Senator Ernest Hollings’s jokes about cannibalistic ï¿œAfrican potentates.ï¿œ Suffice to say that not one of these stories held to traditional standards of journalistic objectivity. The obvious impression one draws is that the newspaperï¿œs editors sought to indulge their African-American writer and to privilege his arguments on the basis of the race of their author.”
Merida, who is now an associate editor at the Post and was an assistant managing editor at the Dallas Morning News before his Post incarnation, replied to Journal-isms:
“Ironically, in a book about so-called bias, Alterman selectively aligns facts and partial quotes to create the same kind of bias he decries. That said, the points he tries to make with his anecdotes are absurd. Stories I wrote don’t meet ‘traditional standards of objectivity?’ The editors ‘sought to indulge their African-American writer’ because of his race? I mean, does this guy know anything about my work at the Post over the past 10 years?
ï¿œThis caricature, written with the tone of serious analysis, is so laughable that it seems better placed in sketch comedy than in a book about journalism. And anyone who uses serial plagiarist Ruth Shalit’s shabby work to make his points doesn’t really want to be taken seriously. Shalit is a living monument to mistake-prone journalism. That she was given great assignment after great assignment, and for major publications, is a perfect illustration of the wrong kind of affirmative action. In an odd way, I think the whole thing is kind of hilarious.”
Daughter of Hampton U. President Quits TV Job
Kelly Harvey-Jones, daughter of Hampton University President William R. Harvey, resigned last week as reporter and weekend anchor at WTKR-TV in Hampton Roads, Va., reports the Daily Press in Hampton Roads.
“Frank Chebalo, WTKR’s general manager, said it was Harvey-Jones’ decision to leave the station. She is interested in pursuing other interests, possibly out of the broadcasting arena, he said,” the Daily Press reported.
With Harvey, university president for 25 years, on an unusual leave of absence and the school searching for a director of its Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications, some are speculating that Harvey-Jones might be interested in the job.
The Daily Press noted that, “in 2000, Harvey-Jones got in hot water at the station when she made a $1,000 contribution to then-U.S. Sen. Chuck Robb’s re-election campaign. She was temporarily taken off her anchor duties for violating the station’s policy on political contributions.” But it said, “Harvey-Jones, who grew up in Hampton . . . was a popular anchor among Peninsula viewers.”
J-Prof Sees Journalist-Indian Culture Clash
“There are two things going on” when the white-controlled news media write about Native Americans, says Mary Ann Weston, associate professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, “The burden of history and the clash of cultures.”
Speaking at a symposium on American Indian issues in the California press last month, Weston said that “journalists live in the world of the here and now, a world of hard facts and rigid deadlines, a world of irony and skepticism. But also a world of curiosity and lifelong learning. Tribal cultures, on the other hand, may put higher value on listening, on conversation, cooperation, closeness of relationships, respectful attitudes, the importance of tradition and history.
“We donï¿œtï¿œand donï¿œt want toï¿œchange the core of either culture. But we do need mutual understanding.”
She goes on to list recommendations for both journalists and Native people, saying that todayï¿œs circumstances represent “a watershed in relations between Native Americans and the media. Once the press ignored Native people. Now, for better or worse, Native people are newsworthy. They cannot be ignored.”
“Freedom’s Journal” Also Online
On Monday, we reported that Frederick Douglass’ Monthly, the Liberator and other publications from the 19th century were newly online. Todd S. Burroughs, a researcher on the African American press, points out that every edition of Freedom’s Journal, the very first African American newspaper, edited by Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm and dating to 1827, is also online in PDF format at http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/library/aanp/freedom/index.html .
Republicans Want More Debate on Ownership
“Three Republican senators are calling for broader public debate before the Federal Communications Commission decides what changes to make in the nation’s media ownership laws,ï¿œ reports Media Week. “The suggestion, if followed, could slow the national deregulation coveted by media companies. The call, which came in a letter to FCC chairman Michael Powell, may signal broadening bipartisan concern over the prospect of bigger, more powerful broadcasters and publishers.”
The senators are Wayne Allard of Colorado and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine.
Oprah, Newsweek, Parenting Magazines Make Finals
O: The Oprah Magazine, a creation of billionaire talk-show host Oprah Winfrey; Newsweek, edited by Mark Whitaker, its first African American editor; and Parenting, edited by Janet Chan, are finalists in the American Magazine Awards in the over-2 million circulation category. The presentation of the awards takes place May 7.
Last year’s winners circle caused a stir among journalists of color when awards went to Whitaker in the over-2 million category, and to Vibe editor-in-chief Emil Wilbekin in the 500,000 to 1 million circulation category.
Others competing this year in the over-2 million category are National Geographic and Sports Illustrated.