Mystery Writer: “White,” 80; Wrote “for Free”
As reported by weeklies in Memphis and in the San Francisco Bay area, “for several years, the weekly newspaper that calls itself ‘The Mid-South’s Best Alternative Newspaper’ on its editorial-page masthead has been ripping off other weekly newspapers’ stories, changing the datelines and place-names, and running them as its own ‘lead story’ under the byline of Larry Reeves,” as the weekly Memphis Flyer put it this week in reporting on Memphis’ Tri-State Defender.
Now the Flyer reports that “Reeves is something of a mystery, and it is by no means certain that he actually exists. Although his byline appeared on over 140 stories between 1995 and 2002, no one at the newspaper can recall meeting him in person or knows where he is today.”
Reached in Los Angeles, Tom Picou, the president and CEO of Real Times, which bought the Tri-State Defender and four other black community newspapers in January, “said he too had never met Reeves face-to-face,” the Flyer said.
” ‘He’s a white guy, probably about 80 years old now,’ Picou said. ‘I have not talked to him since 1996.” He amended that to say he assumed Reeves was white by the sound of his voice.
“Picou, the nephew of the late Tri-State Defender founder John Sengstacke, said Reeves ‘did some research pieces for us’ but was never paid. He submitted his stories electronically, Picou said.
“Asked why Reeves would write so many stories for free, Picou said, ‘Writers are a dime a dozen, and I don’t mean to be facetious. But we had a lot of people who wanted to write for the Tri-State Defender. Some people just like to write.’ “
SPJ Begins “Ethics in Journalism” Week
Boston Herald reporter Jules Crittenden is stopped by U.S. Customs and a large painting is seized along with various Iraqi war souvenirs. Benjamin James Johnson, a satellite truck engineer for Fox News Channel, is charged with trying to smuggle a dozen Iraqi paintings into the country. In Washington state, King County Journal Editor Tom Wolfe agreed with law enforcement requests to run a fake story about a staged arson. CNN’s chief news executive, Eason Jordan, writes a column for the New York Times revealing that CNN had not reported on various abductions, torture and murders committed by the regime of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
With these cases and others in mind, the Society of Professional Journalists is holding its Ethics in Journalism Week, which began April 24 and continues to May 3.
Copies of SPJ’s Code of Ethics are to be distributed to newsrooms and to individual reporters in all parts of the country. Local SPJ chapters are being encouraged to recognize good — and bad — ethical behavior and to hold discussions and workshops on ethical journalism.
BBC Chief: U.S. Media Flag-Waving Harms Credibility
“U.S. broadcasters’ coverage of the Iraq war was so unquestioningly patriotic and so lacking in impartiality that it threatened the credibility of America’s electronic media, the head of the BBC said on Thursday,” reports Reuters.
“BBC Director General Greg Dyke singled out for criticism the fast growing News Corp. Ltd.’s Fox News Channel, owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, and Clear Channel Communications Inc., the largest operator of radio stations in the United States, with over 1,200 stations, for special criticism,” said Reuters.
“Personally, I was shocked while in the United States by how unquestioning the broadcast news media was during this war,” Dyke said in a speech at a University of London conference, Reuters reported. “If Iraq proved anything, it was that the BBC cannot afford to mix patriotism and journalism. This is happening in the United States and if it continues, will undermine the credibility of the U.S. electronic news media,” the news agency quoted Dyke as saying.
E&P Scolds Papers on Ignorance of Readership Area
“An industry committed to diversity should be shocked . . . that many editors simply don’t know who lives in their coverage areas,” says an editorial in the April 21 issue of Editor & Publisher. The editorial, reporting on the annual census of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, notes that “there was no genuine outrage at ASNE’s convention, even though daily newspapers failed — by a wide margin — to meet the first benchmark on the way to an industry goal of demographic parity between newsrooms and their markets that has been pushed off literally to the next generation, to 2025.” It goes on to cite many editors’ ignorance of the amount of diversity in their circulation areas, as reported in a survey by Stephen K. Doig and Bill Dedman. Text of the editorial is at the end of today’s posting.
“Time Out for Diversity and Accuracy” Starts Monday
With special reporting assignments, training sessions and critiques of their own newspapers, journalists across the country are to begin a weeklong effort Monday to focus on diversity in their coverage, the Associated Press reports.
“The premise of Time-Out for Diversity and Accuracy, now in its fifth year, is that a newspaper cannot be accurate unless it fully reflects the community it serves.
“Newspaper newsrooms and Associated Press bureaus around the country are participating in the project, a joint project of the Associated Press Managing Editors and the American Society of Newspaper Editors diversity committees. Their partners are the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, the Freedom Forum, and the Society of Professional Journalists.
“Participants also can use the Maynard Institute’s new online software to check on how often minority voices get into their newspapers. And they’ll also be directed to the SPJ’s Internet database of diverse sources, called the Rainbow Sourcebook.” AP reports.
Judge Quashes Subpoenas to Sniper-Case Reporters
The Virginia judge overseeing the Washington, D.C.-area sniper case quashed subpoenas to four Washington Post reporters and denied defense attorneys’ requests for an investigation into leaks about the case to press, reports the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
“Lawyers for suspect John Allen Muhammad had asked the court to impanel a special grand jury or appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the source of documents and information leaked to The Washington Post.
“On April 16, Muhammad’s attorneys served subpoenas on four reporters — Sari Horowitz, Tom Jackman, Josh White and Maria Glod — and five law enforcement officers to give testimony in the case,” the committee reported.
In court papers the Post said: “Based on the history of this case, the defendant can only be seeking to identify the source of certain information in The Post.” The court quashed the subpoenas without hearing from the Post’s lawyers, the committee reported, noting that Prince William County, Va., Circuit Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr., said that there was no evidence that a court order had been violated.
Administration Wants Action on Ownership Rules
“Commerce Secretary Donald Evans on Thursday urged the Federal Communications Commission to quickly conclude its review of media ownership rules to ensure the regulations reflect ‘the realities of the modern media marketplace,'” reports Media Week.
“The request in a letter to FCC Chairman Michael Powell put the Bush administration on record against calls to delay the impending reform of major rules that limit TV network size, restrict local broadcast concentration and prohibit common ownership of daily newspapers and nearby radio or TV stations.
“Powell, a member of the FCC’s Republican majority, has set a June 2 date for a vote on the rules, even as the five-member agency’s two Democrats have argued for a delay in order to gather more information. The issue has attracted letters to the FCC from about 30 members of Congress, with about half urging delay and half urging a prompt vote.” Media Week reports.
Approaching People of Color “On Their Terms”
“I’ve never viewed my being white in covering a non-white community — I’ve never viewed my ethnicity — as hampering it in any way,” says John Bathke, reporter, anchor and talk show host at News 12 New Jersey.
“I’m very sensitive about it and aware of it. When I go into a community where I may be the only white person, I want to make sure that I am covering the people living there somewhat on their terms. It doesn’t mean that I’m not asking tough questions or doing what I need to do as a journalist, but I also can’t just walk in like I own the place.”
Bathke spearheaded News 12 New Jersey’s series of reports on immigration and anchored a live town meeting about immigration, which set station records for viewer response. His work has been honored by Lincoln University, the Society of Professional Journalists. the National Association for Black Journalists, the South Asian Journalists Association, the Garden State Black Journalists Association and the North Jersey Press Club. He is interviewed by News Watch, a project of the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism of the San Francisco State University Journalism Department.
Author Acknowledges Flaw in Rap Video Study
A study that proclaimed that risky behavior and a heightened incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among African-American female adolescents may be linked to high exposure to rap music videos might be flawed, the head researcher has acknowledged to a student journalist.
“Gina M. Wingood of Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health admitted that she didn’t know whether overexposure to rap videos caused the girls studied to behave badly or whether the study only reflected interests they already had. But she made clear that there is definitely a connection,” reports Brooks Newkirk of North Carolina A&T State University in a column on the Black College Wire.
“But more research is needed in order for the study to be taken seriously. The idea that rap videos cause black teen girls to behave badly is a pretty big pill to swallow,” concludes Newkirk.
Although severe acute respiratory syndrome was first reported in some countries in Asia, SARS should never be referred to as an “Asian disease,” in the same way that HIV/AIDS should not be called a “gay disease,” or mad cow disease a “British disease,” says an advisory from Rene M. Astudillo, executive director of the Asian American Journalists Association.
“Some rumors have spread that Chinese restaurants in Asia and the United States are potential sources of SARS. Focusing on the facts – symptoms, risk factors, as well as known or probable cause of SARS will help dispel these rumors,” Astudillo says.
The group recommends that the following Web sites, updated daily, be consulted for information, travel alerts and media resources on SARS:
U.S. Centers for Disease Control fact sheet on SARS,
U.S. Centers for Disease Control SARS Web site.
World Health Organization SARS Web site, and
World Health Organization SARS press site.
O.J. Interested in Robert Blake Trial Commentary
Contrary to widely circulated reports, one mentioned in this column on Wednesday, O.J. Simpson says he won’t be the star of a reality television show. But he might consider becoming a news commentator for actor Robert Blake’s murder trial, the Associated Press reports.
Blake is accused of murdering wife Bonny Lee Bakley in Los Angeles in 2001. He’s free on $1.5 million bail and is scheduled for trial in October.
Editor & Publisher Editorial: “The Strangers in Town”
More depressing than the latest diversity census is the ignorance many editors have displayed about their changing hometowns.
The reaction to results of this year’s newsroom diversity census by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) provided the clearest proof yet that the annual release has become an honorable exercise drained of passion, if not of meaning. It might be compared to a memorial service for Armistice Day: The observation may be sincere and respectful, but no one these days can claim to be moved in a deeply personal way by the long-ago sacrifices of the young men who marched off to World War I.
There was no genuine outrage at ASNE’s convention, even though daily newspapers failed — by a wide margin — to meet the first benchmark on the way to an industry goal of demographic parity between newsrooms and their markets that has been pushed off literally to the next generation, to 2025. Instead, there was more a collective sigh of relief that dailies had taken another baby step toward, and not away from, parity by slightly increasing the percentage of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans in their newsrooms.
This extremely modest achievement — to 12.53% from 12.07% last year, in a nation that is already 31% minority — was met with a rather desultory reaction even among associations of journalists of color. There was asuggestion that ASNE break out percentages of the four groups at individual newspapers next year. How this would make any significant difference in hiring newsrooms that look like America was left unclear.
The real news from the ASNE survey was ferreted out independently by a couple of investigative reporters turned journalism academicians, Stephen K. Doig and Bill Dedman. An industry committed to diversity should be shocked by their finding that many editors simply don’t know who lives in their coverage areas.
But the evidence of ignorance is clear. Newspapers responding to the ASNE survey are asked to supply the percentages of minorities in the general population of their circulation areas. It’s no surprise that rather than look the numbers up in the 2000 U.S. Census data, most editors prefer to guess. What is disturbing is that they also mostly guess low. Doig and Dedman found that 184 of the 935 responding editors underestimated the minority populations in their markets by at least 25%, and 75 of them thought that the communities where they direct news coverage were home to less than half the percentages of minorities who actually live there.
America’s hometowns are changing rapidly. New arrivals prepare Oaxaca-style mole in the shadows of grain elevators in Nebraska and Vietnamese pho soup in the strip malls of North Carolina. Editors who lose track of who is — and isn’t — reading their newspapers would be a drag on the industry in any era. At a time that newsrooms are playing demographic catch-up, they are especially unhelpful.