Thurmond Obits Omit Mention of Black Daughter
“In all the words spent on Strom Thurmond’s life and times since his death last week, I have seen no acknowledgment of the most interesting of his sundry racial legacies,” writes Diane McWhorter on Slate.com. “She is Essie Mae Washington Williams a widowed former school teacher in her 70s, living in Los Angeles. Presumably she did not show up for any of the obsequies even though Strom Thurmond was almost certainly her father. Williams is black.
“Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson present persuasive evidence in their 1998 biography, Ol’ Strom, that Thurmond sired a daughter in 1925 with a black house servant named Essie ‘Tunch’ Butler, with whom he reputedly had an extended relationship. Though ‘Black Baby of Professional Racist’ would seem to sail over the man-bites-dog bar of what is news, the story has never really gotten traction.”
Actually, Newsday mentioned Essie Mae Washington in its obit of June 27, saying:
“Rumors flew for years in South Carolina that Thurmond, while still a segregationist, had a relationship with a black woman that produced a daughter. Bass wrote about the incident in “Ol’ Strom,” naming the woman as Essie Butler and saying the daughter, Essie Mae Washington, was born in October 1925.
“‘He [Thurmond] never denied it,’ Bass said, though he kept it under the rug for years, saying nothing, ‘other than to say they were close family friends. That’s always been the story.'”
And Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Sam Fulwood III followed up in his column of July 3.
Thompson, now assistant managing editor/ investigative at the Washington Post, wrote a 3,886-word piece about the relationship in the Post in 1992, and last December, in the midst of the furor over Trent Lott’s praise of Thurmond at his 100th birthday party, Post columnist Colbert I. King wrote about her absence there, saying:
“Now, it could have been an oversight, a deliberate snub or maybe Essie Mae Washington was invited but chose not to come.”
King concluded, in words perhaps also applicable to Thurmond’s funeral:
“Reach out with a thought to the one untouched by the joy of Ol’ Strom’s birthday party: the woman who wasn’t there.”
NABJ Treasurer Quits After Plagiarism Charge
The Kansas City Star has confirmed that it disciplined reporter Glenn E. Rice for a concert review of jazz singer Dianne Reeves in May 2002 that lifted entire paragraphs from reviews published weeks earlier in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale and The Seattle Times, the Associated Press reported late today.
At about the same time as the AP report moved, Condace Pressley, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, informed members that she had accepted Rice’s resignation as treasurer of the organization.
“This incident had nothing to do with his activities with NABJ,” Pressley said. “Nonetheless, NABJ maintains its stance on the issue of plagiarism. NABJ maintains plagiarism hurts all journalists regardless of ethnicity or background.” Text of Pressley’s statement at the end of today’s posting.
The AP had reported that Editor Mark Zieman, responding to an article in the free Kansas City weekly The Pitch, said today that the Star investigated the incident at the time and took a series of disciplinary steps against Rice, including reassignment.
Rice told Journal-isms earlier today that he did not want to comment.
“It was just a stupid concert review,” began the story in The Pitch, which distributes 90,000 copies and calls itself the “area’s leading news and entertainment weekly.”
“As a reporter for The Kansas City Star, Glenn E. Rice mostly covered the Jackson County Legislature; his byline rarely, if ever, showed up on the paper’s entertainment pages. Here at The Pitch, we’re still trying to figure out why he ended up reviewing jazz singer Dianne Reeves’ performance at the Gem Theater a year ago in May — whether he was merely on weekend duty and some editor who cared jack about entertainment writing just handed him the assignment, whether he’s really a jazz expert who volunteered to cover the concert, or whether something went wrong for some other reason we can’t quite fathom.
“This much was obvious, though: Rice lifted entire paragraphs of his concert review from an article published a couple of weeks earlier in a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, newspaper,” the story continued. Matt Schudel, who reviewed Reeves in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, told Journal-isms that he first heard of the allegations when The Pitch called him about 10 days ago. “I looked at the two copies side by side and it seemed pretty clear to me that some — but not all of the review was taken from what I had written a month before,” he said.
The Pitch piece concludes, “Maybe it’s presumptuous of us to suggest that race is the reason Rice kept his job. But we’re not the ones who originally suggested that possibility — that honor falls to the person who told us about it a few months ago, an anonymous tipster, presumably from inside the fortress at 18th and Grand.”
Schudel said he didn’t want to go there.
Chronicle Serves Up Anonymous White Whine
“When I heard nothing for a month, I knew I hadn’t gotten the job,” writes a white journalism professor “at a state university in the South” — using a pseudonym — in the Chronicle of Higher Education. “The department chairman finally called me and said I was ‘overqualified.’ He also mentioned ‘intangibles.’ I wondered what that meant but didn’t lose sleep over it at the time. Then recently I ran into a faculty member from that university who was visiting my campus. I just had to ask about the new hire.
“When the question came up, my friend looked around furtively to make sure nobody would overhear him. ‘He’s a black guy,’ he said. ‘You know how it is.'”
The feature appears as part of the publication’s “First Person: Personal experiences on the job market” series, in which job applicants sometimes are granted anonymity, Chronicle spokesman Michael Solomon told Journal-isms.
In this case, however, readers would be justified in wondering whether the school and the professor who got the job were treated fairly by the publication. Without names, the reader is in no position to judge the qualifications of either candidate, the racial climate at the school, or the school’s record on diversity.
As reported in November, nearly one in four college journalism programs seeking accreditation fails the diversity criterion, according to the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
Standard 12 requires a demonstrated commitment “to increased diversity and inclusivity in their student populations and faculties and to the creation of a learning environment that exposes students to a broad spectrum of voices and views.”
The editor of the Chronicle “Career Network” section, Denise K. Magner, who is responsible for the column, was not available today.
S. African Paper Ending Its Last “Apartheid Edition”
South Africa’s largest and most influential newspaper, the Sunday Times, is getting rid of its last apartheid edition, the Indian Extra, reports journalism professor Anton Harber in a column in South Africa’s Business Day. The Indian edition is being changed into a KwaZuluNatal edition.
“This supplement is a huge money-spinner for the paper and one which [new editor Mathatha] Tsedu’s two predecessors both tried to change but failed in the face of overwhelming financial pressure.
“The Indian Extra is the last of the paper’s apartheid editions, an anachronistic hangover from the days when the paper dealt with its divided audience by giving each group its own separate, but unequal, version.
“This was a common practice of our mainstream newspapers of the 1970s and 1980s which brought the divisions of apartheid directly and tangibly into newspaper editing.
“The Rand Daily Mail, The Star and others produced black, coloured or other ethnic editions to cope with a growing readership that was not white and which wanted news which would alienate conservative advertisers and readers,” writes Harber.
A Max Robinson Story on Big Screen?
Independent Producer Milt Weiss has been trying to get a documentary or movie made about Max Robinson, the first African American anchor of a major network weeknight newscast, Howard Rosenberg reports in the Los Angeles Times. Robinson, a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists, succumbed to AIDS in 1988 at age 49.
“Weiss has pitched Robinson’s story to several cable networks through his L.A. company, Cry Havoc Productions. ‘Everybody loves it,’ he said, ‘but nobody feels it’s right for them yet,'” writes Rosenberg.
“Weiss, who had his own long, fruitful career as a journalist and admired and got to know Robinson well as his producer at ABC News, would call this story ‘Color Bars.’ And on any list of projects demanding to be made, such a documentary or movie ranks near the top.”
Wayne Dawkins Publishes Story of NABJ in ’90s
Wayne Dawkins, unofficial historian of the National Association of Black Journalists, unveiled his latest installment in the story of NABJ, “Rugged Waters: Black Journalists Swim the Mainstream,” at a news conference Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington.
The 225-page paperback covers the organization through the 1990s — “chronicling an era when many members of the National Association of Black Journalists reached professional heights, but the organization as a whole stagnated.” With lessons learned from 1997’s “The NABJ Story,” which was later updated, this installment appears to be more polished. Dawkins said at the news conference that it was important that “we tell our own stories,” and that he wrote the book as a newspaperman for the average reader. “We need to help younger journalists understand that they have a background and a family from which they came,” added Maureen Bunyan, an NABJ founder who is an anchor at Washington’s WJLA-TV and also spoke at the news conference.
The book, published by Dawkins’ August Press at $15.95, even mentions “Journal-isms.”
FCC Releases New Media Ownership Rules
“The Federal Communications Commission was even more generous on media mergers than it initially disclosed. In a 257-page report released last week, the agency unveiled several previously unknown measures that could permit additional television station consolidation,” reports Yahoo! News.
“A single company that owns a top-four station in a market with 11 or fewer TV stations could purchase a second top-four station if the agency concludes the additional outlet is likely to go bankrupt without the deal. Media companies also could petition to own two top-four stations in these markets if the acquirer could demonstrate that it would offer local news programming on the newly bought station that otherwise would not be provided, the report said.”
Savage Dropped by New York’s WABC Radio
Michael Savage, the talk-show host whose crossover to MSNBC was met with protests over Savage’s crude, racist and homophobic radio remarks, is not returning to WABC radio in New York, program director Phil Boyce told the New York Daily News.
“Savage’s syndicated show was taken off WABC when he got into a contract dispute last month with his then-home station, ABC’s KSFO in San Francisco,” the News said.
“As of this week, Savage has taken the show to KNEW in San Francisco, which is owned by Clear Channel.
“‘We made it clear that if he left ABC, he’d be leaving WABC,’ said Boyce. ‘So he made that decision for us.'”
Hearings, Delay Sought on Hispanic Media Merger
Spanish-language network Telemundo is asking federal regulators to delay a decision on rival Univisión Communication’s proposed $3 billion purchase of Hispanic Broadcasting Corp., the Associated Press reports:
”Putting the amount of market clout under one tent, [as] would happen with this, is what concerns us,” Steve Mandala, a Telemundo vice president, said Thursday. “It limits the diversity of viewpoints.”
Meanwhile, Jonathan Adelstein, a Democratic member of the Federal Communications Commission, has asked Chairman Michael Powell to hold public hearings on whether the Spanish-language media constituted a separate market in the United States, a finding that would likely doom, or at least significantly alter, the proposed merger, according to the Dallas Morning News.
“Univision dominates the Spanish-language market with the two largest networks. It also runs the largest Spanish-language music company.
“Hispanic Broadcasting operates the nation’s largest chain of Latino-focused radio stations,” reported Dianne Sols, who interviewed Adelstein in New York at the convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
“Univision calls its Spanish-language programming a ‘format,’ rather than a market, and emphasizes that it has about a 5 percent share of all broadcast viewers.
“Univision suggested it would be discriminatory if federal regulators allowed English-language firms to grow and consolidate but gave a Spanish-language media company far more scrutiny.
“Raul Alarcon Jr., president and chief executive of Spanish Broadcasting System Inc., a rival of Hispanic Broadcasting, said, ‘This merger would create a gigantic monopoly,'” Sols reported.
El Diario-La Prensa Sold for $19.9 Million
Manhattan-based El Diario-La Prensa, the country’s oldest major Spanish-language daily newspaper, was sold to a private investment group for $19.9 million, Newsday reports.
“Santa Monica, Calif.-based Entravision Communications Corp. sold the paper for $18 million and a note in the amount of $1.9 million to CPK NYC Llc, a private investment group led by Los Angeles-based media and communications firm Clarity Partners Lp, Manhattan-based media investor BMO Halyard Partners, Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm ACON Investments and Toronto-based newspaper investment consultant Knight Paton Media.
“El Diario-La Prensa has a daily circulation of 52,601 and 38,474 on Sunday as of March 31, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.”
Gannett Foundation’s $25,000 Aids Ala. Workshop
The University of Alabama’s Minority Journalism Workshop, now in its 20th year, was scheduled to begin yesterday and continue through July 17, helped by a $25,000 contribution from the Gannett Foundation.
“Students will produce a news program for TV, a workshop newspaper and write for Dateline Alabama, the College’s news Web site,” according to the university.
Merv Aubespin, retired associate editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, was to work with students of color on campus for the sixth time, speaking on opening night and staying on for several days as professional in residence.
Teens at J-Boot Camp Feel Scandals’ Effects
The 23 high school students attending the annual Multi-Cultural Journalism Workshop in San Diego, sponsored by the California Chicano News Media Association and other media outlets, are feeling the effects of recent scandals that rocked the newspaper industry, reports California’s Riverside Press-Enterprise.
For example, Riverside Poly High School senior Monty Gardner, 17, said, “In a way, this makes me want to get into the business more to show that not all reporters are dishonest. It provides more of a challenge,” the paper reported.
“During the two-week boot camp, they’ll discover the pressures of writing under deadline, pounding the pavement and working telephones to gather information from sometimes reluctant sources. They’ll produce a newspaper and broadcasts for radio and television — and get lectures about journalism do’s and don’ts drilled into their heads,” said the June 30 story by Joe Vargo.
From NetNoir Online to Herbal Sex Concoctions
When NetNoir Online was launched in June 1995, it became one of the first major commercial online sites to focus on African Americans. In 1998, In These Times columnist Salim Muwakkil quoted co-founder Malcolm CasSelle, a computer scientist who was then 27, as saying, “The question is: How can African-Americans get a piece of that pie while still doing something good for black people?”
Times have changed. NetNoir has since folded, and in a story on “e-mail huckerism,” including spam promising male genital enlargement, the New York Times now reports that CasSelle is “chief executive of Elima Biotronic, the maker of Opus-X, an herbal concoction that is marketed as increasing sexual pleasure.”
Condace Pressley Accepts Glenn Rice Resignation
NABJ Members,
It is with mixed emotions that I advise you that Glenn Rice has tendered his resignation as NABJ Treasurer and I have accepted his resignation. Glenn cited no reason for his resignation. His letter read as follows:
“Condace,
“It is with deep personal regret that I tender my resignation as NABJ treasurer.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed my service to the NABJ membership as a national officer and as a member of the board of directors. I hope to continue to contribute on the local, regional and national levels in the immediate future.
“Respectfully,
“Glenn E. Rice”
As I accepted Glenn’s resignation as NABJ Treasurer, the NABJ Media Monitoring Committee brought troubling news to my attention. The Pitch and www.pitch.com are reporting stories that accuse Glenn Rice of plagiarism. While Glenn was an officer of NABJ, this is a personnel matter between him and his employer, The Kansas City Star. This incident had nothing to do with his activities with NABJ.
Nonetheless, NABJ maintains its stance on the issue of plagiarism. NABJ maintains plagiarism hurts all journalists regardless of ethnicity or background. Those who use these incidents as a platform against diversity have a fallacious argument at best.
We are deeply saddened to learn that this could hit so close to home. Glenn Rice served admirably as a member of the NABJ Board of Directors, four as a director from Region 8 and nearly four as Treasurer. I thank him for his service to this organization and wish him the best in life beyond his service to NABJ. In the remaining 33 days of this term of office, NABJ Executive Director Tangie Newborn and I will continue to rely upon the guidance of the NABJ Finance Committee. Should any of you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me. My e-mail address is nabjpresident@mindspring.com.
Our organization is as fiscally healthy as it has ever been. Our members, our staff, and your board of directors remain committed to “Building the Best” NABJ ever! I look forward to seeing many of you in Dallas next month.
Sincerely,
Condace L. Pressley