FCC’s Powell Rejects Calls to Delay Decision
A day after Unity, the coalition of journalists of color, asked the Federal Communications Commission to delay action on overhauling media ownership rules, FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who is African American, indicated he disagreed with calls for the FCC to seek additional comment and said the FCC expects to vote June 2, MediaWeek and other news outlets report.
?To be perfectly candid, I think there are those who just simply want to delay the proceeding because they do not support the change,? Powell told the Media Institute in Washington, according to TV Week.
Unity: Journalists of Color, the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have separately urged the FCC to delay action on six media ownership rules under review.
“The American people have not been adequately informed about the profound changes that are about to occur,” NAHJ President Juan Gonzalez said on Feb. 25. “Chairman Powell should seek the widest possible public debate before promulgating rules that will fundamentally alter the media landscape in our nation.” Unity and NABJ issued their own statements on Tuesday.
?The issue of media ownership and consolidation is one that trumps all other issues key to the mission and success of NABJ,? said NABJ President Condace Pressley.
More Polls Detail Black-White Divide on War
A new poll from the Gallup Organization and a CBS News-New York Times poll released Thursday detail the divergent views of blacks and whites on support for the war against Iraq.
The New York Times reported that its latest joint poll with CBS News, which was based on five days of interviews conducted after the war began, “showed that black Americans were far more likely to oppose President Bush’s policy in Iraq, and were much more likely to say that defeating Saddam Hussein was not worth the cost in American lives.
“For example, 78 percent of white respondents to the poll said they approved of how Mr. Bush was handling the situation, while just 37 percent of blacks agreed with that position. At the same time, 59 percent of blacks said they disapproved of the president’s handling of the war, while only 17 percent of whites said the same thing.”
A Gallup statement today says, “A closer look at the data from two Gallup Polls conducted since the war began shows that a majority of most demographic groups favor the war, with two exceptions being blacks and ideological liberals. Opposition among blacks is especially widespread, at 68 percent. Wide gaps in support also exist by party, gender, education, and income. A special analysis reveals that the strongest independent predictor of opinion on the war is approval of President Bush, followed by race, ideology, party, and income.”
The black-white divide is also clear from a look at African American columnists’ views on the war.
More on the Gallup Poll at the end of today’s posting.
Univision, Telemundo Covering War Extensively
“Most viewers wouldn’t have taken note, but among the first U.S. casualties in the war with Iraq was a Hispanic-American,” writes Richard Huff in the New York Daily News.
“That fact didn’t slip by news staffers at the nation’s two primary Spanish-language networks, Univision and Telemundo, nor the millions of Hispanic-Americans who have depended on them for war coverage since last week.
“Both networks have been covering the war extensively since last Wednesday, though with slightly different approaches.
” ‘If you were to watch, we are giving exactly the same news as our competitors,’ said Jorge Ramos, who this week has anchored Univision’s ?Noticiero Univision? from sand-whipped Kuwait City. ‘But if you stay a little longer, then you’ll start to see information you can’t get anywhere else.’
“That difference comes from presenting information aimed at Spanish-speaking viewers, who make up the nation’s largest minority group. More important, among the 36.6 million Hispanics in America, roughly 11 percent speak only Spanish, meaning they’re likely to depend on news from Telemundo or Univision.
“‘All they’re doing is coloring it culturally so it comes across the right way,’ said Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, about the Univision/Telemundo coverage. ‘There’s a way of speaking, there’s a way of describing, there’s a way of putting out the news that is slightly different from the English.'”
Guide Issued to Creating High School Partnerships
“Reaching Generation Next: A News Media Guide to Creating Successful High School Partnerships,” a 133-page project of the Washington Post’s Young Journalists Development Program , was unveiled at a reception at the Post Wednesday.
The guide was written by Metro reporter Lisa Frazier Page, who had been detailed to work on the book, which was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Dorothy Butler Gilliam, a Maynard IJE board member who directs the Post young journalist program, emceed the reception.
About 7,500 copies were printed, Gilliam told Journal-isms. Such industry organizations as the American Society of Newspaper Editors will distribute 1,000 to its members; the Radio Television News Directors Foundation and Radio-Television News Directors Association are to distribute another 1,000 to news directors. Others will go to the leaders of the journalist organizations of color, among others.
The 125 attendees, from a variety of journalism organizations, also saw “Reaching Generation Next: One Newspaper’s Story,” a video of the Post’s Young Journalists Development Program, in which Post reporters help high school students produce their own papers.
Copies of ?Reaching Generation Next? are available free upon request. For more information, contact Gilliam at the Post, gilliamd@washpost.com
Critic Cites Chung’s Discomfort With Live Interviews
The Asian American Journalists Association is disappointed that CNN canceled Connie Chung’s show partly because Chung “serves as a role model for many young Asian Americans and women. She broke many barriers for both communities when she entered the business,” AAJA President Mae Chung told Journal-isms from the AAJA board’s meeting in Los Angeles.
Among the post-mortems after Chung?s Tuesday departure, Gail Shister in the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that Chung’s show was the third-most-watched show on CNN, but that its non-hard-news focus worked against her. She added that “Chung’s obvious discomfort with live interviews did little to help her. A few months after Tonight’s debut, CNN began taping the show whenever possible.”
“After CNN shelved Tonight last week, Chung was relegated to anchoring war cut-ins from CNN’s Atlanta headquarters,” Shister writes.
“Chung, whose relentless drive and tenacity helped her land many big-name interviews in her three decades at ABC, CBS and NBC, began pressuring [new CNN boss Jim] Walton for a return date for Tonight, CNN sources say.
” ‘I wish she hadn’t pushed the issue, but that’s Connie,” one source says. ‘It’s the same Connie who’s able to get the “get.” I’m sure she felt her role was a total afterthought, and she had every right to feel that way.
“Should she decide to leave TV, Chung will have no problem paying her bills. She and her husband, syndicated talker Maury Povich, ‘have enough money to run many countries,’ says a CNN wag,” wrote Shister.
Justice Dept. Approves Univision Merger
The Department of Justice says it will approve the proposed $3 billion merger of Univision Communications Inc. and Hispanic Broadcasting Corp., with conditions the companies earlier said they expected, reports MediaWeek.
Univision, the nation’s top Spanish-language TV owner, must reduce its equity stake in leading Hispanic radio company HBC’s competitor Entravision Communications Corp., the department said. It also said Univision must forgo a management role in Entravision. The deal still needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission, MediaWeek said.
Commentator Says Racial Euphemisms Dehumanize
“We use ‘inner-city youth’ to mean young people who are poor, black, Latino, Asian or Native American -? though it is most-often reserved for the first two. It never means ?white,? which would rule out President Bush’s daughters, though, geographically speaking, they sleep in the inner city of Washington, D.C., every time they take a snooze in the White House,” writes Keith M. Woods, reporting, writing and editing group leader at the Poynter Institute.
” ‘Minority’ defines people in relation to other people. In Congress, Democrats are minorities at the moment. In the world, Christians are minorities. But journalists use the word interchangeably with race, transforming people into ?lesser? numbers even in places where they are the majority.
“That’s the problem with all of the euphemisms and dodges of our racial codes and idiosyncrasies. They strip people of an identity and reduce their lives to a shorthand that is as imprecise as it is insulting,” Woods writes.
The Poynter site adds reader comments to Woods’ piece, and they include discussion of the phrases “articulate,” “ghetto” and “majority minority.”
Widow of Haitian Journalist Unhappy With Indictment
A long-awaited indictment in the killing of prominent Haitian journalist Jean Dominique accused six men who have been jailed more than two years, but his widow claimed that ”the real assassins” were not charged, reports the Miami Herald.
“The 33-page indictment cleared a prominent ruling party senator and other politically connected suspects but failed to offer a motive for the slaying that silenced one of the most outspoken critics of the government,” says the Herald.
“”I still don’t know who killed my husband,’ Dominique’s widow, journalist Michele Montas, said Monday. `But I do know one thing: This was a planned act, carefully planned. So I find it extremely strange they came up with only the people who actually were involved in the event itself . . . To me those aren’t the real assassins.’
“Although the crime is widely considered to have political connections, human-rights activists said, the indictment made it appear as if the radio broadcaster was simply killed by common thieves.
” ‘How about those who planned it? How about those who ordered it? Who was behind it? We don’t have a name that we can attribute as the intellectual author,’ Guyler C. Delva, president of the Haitian Journalists Association, said.”
Gallup News Release on Support for War
March 28, 2003
Blacks Showing Decided Opposition to War
Bush approval has strongest relationship to opinion about war
by Jeffrey M. Jones
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ — The beginning of war with Iraq brought about a rally in support for military action, from percentages in the high 50s prior to the breakdown of the diplomatic process to the current 71% who say they favor the war. A closer look at the data from two Gallup Polls conducted since the war began shows that a majority of most demographic groups favor the war, with two exceptions being blacks and ideological liberals. Opposition among blacks is especially widespread, at 68%. Wide gaps in support also exist by party, gender, education, and income. A special analysis reveals that the strongest independent predictor of opinion on the war is approval of President Bush, followed by race, ideology, party, and income.
Support for the War by Group
Seventy-eight percent of men favor the war, compared with 66% of women — a 12-percentage-point gap. Gender gaps have traditionally been evident in support for military action, although those gaps have narrowed in the post-Sept. 11 world. However, the current difference in support by gender is nearly identical to what it was at the beginning of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Then, a 10-point gap existed, as 86% of men and 76% of women approved of the United States’ decision to go to war with Iraq to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
The racial gap — more appropriately called a racial divide — is much larger than the gender gap. While 78% of whites favor the war, just 29% of blacks do, for a gap of 49 points. Nearly 7 in 10 blacks, 68%, oppose the war.
There is no consistent pattern by age — approval of the war is lowest among 18- to 29-year-olds, at 66%, and highest among 30- to 49-year-olds, at 75%. Sixty-nine percent of 50- to 64-year-olds favor the war effort, as do 73% of those aged 65 and older. The current level of support among older Americans represents a shift in attitudes. For many months prior to the start of the war, Americans aged 65 and older tended to be the age group least likely to favor the war.
About two in three Americans residing in the East favor the war, the lowest level of support among the four regions of the country. This compares with 73% support in the Midwest, 71% in the South, and 77% in the West.
Throughout much of the prelude to the war, Americans with postgraduate educations were among the groups least in favor of military action against Iraq, and that is still the case now. Although a majority of postgraduates, 60%, favor the war, that level of support is significantly lower than that found in other educational groups. Roughly 7 in 10 Americans at other levels of educational attainment favor the war — 69% of college graduates with no postgraduate education, 77% of those who attended college but did not receive a degree, and 72% of those who did not attend college at all.
There are clear income differences in the data. Among those whose household incomes are less than $30,000, just 58% favor the war. This compares with 78% of those whose incomes exceed $30,000 (there is essentially no difference in support among income groups above the $30,000 threshold).
Political leanings have always been a major factor in support for the military action against Iraq, and that trend continues. Ninety-three percent of Republicans favor the war, compared with 66% of independents and 53% of Democrats. Similarly, 84% of conservatives favor the war, as do 70% of moderates but only 44% of liberals. A majority of political liberals, 54%, oppose the war.
The starkest difference occurs when the data are divided according to Americans’ evaluations of President Bush. Ninety-two percent of Americans who approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president favor the war. Among those who disapprove of Bush, 21% favor the war and 76% oppose it. . . .
Presidential Job Approval, Race Most Strongly Related to War Views
. . . many of the variables show an independent relationship with support for the war even when the impact of other variables is taken into account. For example, even though blacks are overwhelmingly Democratic in their partisan orientations, they still are much more likely to oppose the war (nearly five times more likely) than are non-blacks when their party identification and other characteristics are taken into account.
The analysis shows that of all the variables described above, approval of President Bush has the greatest independent impact on support for the war. Even though Republicans and conservatives show overwhelming support for the war (and are also highly likely to approve of the job Bush is doing as president), when the effects of these and other demographic variables are taken into account, Bush’s job approval has the strongest independent relationship with support for the war.
Specifically, those who approve of the president are 7.1 times more likely, on average, to favor the war than are those who disapprove of Bush, taking into account the effects of other relevant variables. By comparison, Republicans are 3.4 times more likely than Democrats (and independents) to favor the war, and conservatives are 3.6 times more likely than liberals to favor it, taking into account the influence of other factors. The stronger influence of presidential approval can be probably explained by the reality that most Democrats and independents who support the war also approve of Bush, while most Democrats and independents who oppose the war also disapprove of Bush’s job performance.
. . . These results are based on telephone interviews with combined randomly selected national sample of 2,028 adults, 18 years and older, conducted March 22-23 and March 24-25, 2003.