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New Viacom-BET Channel to Target Adults

by richard0493

Cable Spinoff to Include News, Public Affairs

 "Viacom, the owner of BET, is forming a new cable television channel for middle-aged African-Americans, heightening the competition for the minority viewing audience," Brian Stelter reported Thursday in the New York Times.

"The channel, to be named Centric and scheduled to make its debut in October, will be formally announced at an event for advertisers Thursday night. Centric will complement BET, executives say, by appealing to an older and more affluent audience."

The new channel will include news and public affairs programming, and that component will be led by Keith Brown, senior vice president, news and public affairs at BET, Jeanine Liburd, spokeswoman for BET, told Journal-isms.
Keith Brown
The network and BET might share some news programming, and the new Centril might also pull content from Viacom-owned MTV, Liburd said.

TV One CEO Johnathan Rodgers said he isn’t afraid of the potential competition, Thomas Umstead reported in Multchannel News.

"The Viacom announcement is no surprise to us as we’ve always said that the African-American viewing community is so large and diverse that there is probably room for three or four cable channels in the space," Rodgers said. "I guess they were just waiting for us to prove the case."

"The 29-year-old BET, available in 89 million homes, is the dominant network for black audiences," Stelter’s story continued. "It attracts roughly four times as many viewers as TV One, its main competitor, which is owned by Comcast and Radio One and available in about 47 million homes. BET, with its reality shows, movies and music videos, primarily draws a teenage and young adult audience.

"Cable channel start-ups are rare. With hundreds of channels already in operation, new ones often struggle to earn a spot on cable lineups, but Viacom said it would be able to assemble 45 million homes for the premiere of Centric."

Umstead added in Multchannel News:

"BETN officials say it will launch with 45 million subscribers, a sizeable base for a new channel. BET Networks will handle its operations, with BET J executive vice president and general manager Paxton Baker overseeing the new venture."

Later on Thursday, BET announced these initial series for Centric:

  • "Keeping Up With the Joneses." "Follow the lives of Houston’s high society." Premiering first quarter 2010.
  • "Model City." "Takes a look at the world behind the runway, featuring young Black male models trying to make it in New York City." First quarter 2010.
  • "Leading Men." "Meet the LEADING MEN who live their lives in public and allow viewers to take a rare look at their private side. Prominent African American men who have impacted American culture artistically, socially, and politically are candid and revealing." Fourth quarter 2009.
  • "Real Life Divas. "Gives a behind-the-scenes look and an intimate sneak peak into phenomenal divas’ lives as they share their personal accounts about their meteoric celebrity rise to fame, and how they’ve overcome their personal challenges to effortlessly balancing family and demanding careers." Fourth quarter 2009.
  • "Urban Livin’" "Hosted by esteemed interior design guru Helen Bailey, URBAN LIVIN’ inspires viewers with new ideas for decorating and revamping the home." Fourth quarter 2009.

"Leading Men," "Real Life Divas" and "Urban Livin’" already appear on BET’s BET J network.¬†

BET also announced new news programming for BET: "The Bottom Line" with Jeff Johnson, "Heart of the City," which will examine issues related to different cities, modeled after a special on violence in Chicago that aired in March 2008, and "In Depth," which will look at major issues that deserve a more intense look.

 

Unity Calls for Diversity Summit of Newsroom Leaders

Unity: Journalists of Color is calling for a summit of newsroom leaders that would include all the Rafael Olmeda"stakeholders" in newsroom employment, from the leaders of television networks to the Newspaper Guild, after last week’s diversity census showed that black and Asian American journalists left newsrooms last year at a greater percentage than others.

Such a summit could take place at the Aug. 12-15 Asian American Journalists Association convention in Boston, said Rafael Olmeda, president of the umbrella group.

The American Society of News Editors reported last week that, "American daily newspapers shed 5,900 newsroom jobs last year, reducing their employment of journalists by 11.3 percent to the levels of the early 1980s."

The loss of 5,073 white journalists represented an 11.15 percent loss of whites.

"But the number of black journalists, who now comprise 5.17% of newsroom employees, fell by 13.55%, and the number of Asian Americans, who make up 3.14% of newsrooms, fell by 13.36%, Unity said. Hispanic journalists, 4.47% of newsrooms, fell by slightly less than the overall total at 11.0%. Native American journalists, who comprise just 0.6% of newsrooms, actually increased their numbers by 3.17%," as Mark Fitzgerald reported in Editor & Publisher.

In a conference call on Tuesday, the presidents of Unity and the national associations of black, Hispanic, Asian American and Native American journalists said they had been telling the news industry for years that its future lies with a diverse workforce.

Ronnie Washines, president of NAJA, said he was particularly disappointed that the percentage of interns of color decreased from 28 percent to 26.4 percent last year and that only 16 percent of the journalists hired for their first full-time newsroom job were of color, down from 17.6 percent.

"Years of progress were erased," Sharon Chan, national president of the AAJA, said, adding that the only bright spot in the survey was the percentage of journalists of color working in online jobs.

It makes "no sense" for the number of Latinos in newsroom to drop when the number of Latinos in the general population is rising, said O. Ricardo Pimentel, president of NAHJ.

"The headline for me is that diversity has been demoted," added Barbara Ciara, NABJ president. She said the survey showed African Americans were "the single most targeted group for job losses in newsrooms across the country."

Olmeda said he envisioned a diversity summit including leaders of the media chains, the leadership of the broadcast networks, heads of the associations representing journalists of color, the American Society of News Editors, the Radio-Television News Directors Association, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Online News Association and the Newspaper Guild.

"It’s an opportunity for people of goodwill to get together and work out a solution," he said.

Newspaper Guild President Bernard J. Lunzer testifies before Congress Tuesday on "A New Age for Newspapers: Diversity of Voices, Competition and the Internet." (Credit: Andy Zipser/Guild Reporter)

Is Union’s "Last Hired, First Fired" Hurting Diversity?

Given the hallowed union principle that seniority rules should govern who gets cut when layoffs are to be made, some have wondered whether those rules should be faulted for disproportionate cuts of journalists of color, who are often the last hired.

"The assumption . . . is not accurate," Bernard J. Lunzer, president of the Newspaper Guild-Communication Workers of America, told Journal-isms on Wednesday, but he said the issue is one that local units should be discussing.

The union leader said that historically, management has tried other methods, such as buyouts, to reduce staffs. More recently, a number of companies have resorted to layoffs, he said, but the newer trend seems to be "furloughing" employees for short amounts of time.

Still, Linzer said, "we have started the dialogue" over the issue. Should there be "caveouts" created in contracts, meaning that the seniority rules apply except when they would change the ratio of journalists of color?

Some guild locals have negotiated such caveouts, although when the seniority rule was abandoned at the San Francisco Chronicle, he said, the Guild was "whipsawed into it" by the Hearst Corp., which threatened to shut the paper.

Abandoning such rules is not a good idea, he said: "If you hand all the power to management in layoffs, you get the ‘God syndrome’ " ‚Äî where management gets to play God" ‚Äî and nobody gets any protection."

Lunzer noted that Rafael Olmeda, president of Unity: Journalists of Color, broached the subject in January at a "Future of the Media Industry" conference sponsored by the Guild in Baltimore, in a speech excerpted in the Guild Reporter, the union newspaper.

"We’re excited" by the prospect of the summit meeting that Unity has proposed, he said. "Fundamentally, we believe that when newspapers don’t look like the communities they report on, they’re not going to cover" them properly and "their products are not going to survive."

6 Journalists of Color Laid Off at Chicago Tribune

At least six journalists of color were among 53 editorial employees laid off on Wednesday at the Chicago Tribune, including Brenda Butler, who is president of NABJ-Chicago, the local affiliate of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Butler is a senior features editor for the Chicago Tribune magazine.

Others black journalists dismissed are photographers David Trotman-Wilkins and Bradley Piper, picture editor Geoffrey Black and Devona Alleyne, a copy editor and designer, according to Tribune staffers and other sources. Bob Sakamoto, a high-school sports reporter who is Asian American, was also laid off.

"Editor Gerould Kern said in a letter to staff that cuts are part of a newsroom reorganization that ‘will focus us more clearly on our core mission’ going forward with a newsgathering team of around 430," Phil Rosenthal wrote on the Tribune Web site.

‚Äú’With today‚Äôs actions, we are making the leap to a newsroom structure that we believe is sustainable barring further significant declines in advertising revenue,’ Kern wrote. "While some are leaving now, others will join the newsroom over time as we invest in new skills necessary to grow in the future.’‚Äù

"I have been here going on 12 years," Trotman-Wilkins, 55, told Journal-isms. "My anniversary date had just passed. I started out as a Source/Photo Editor in 1998.

"It has been painful to watch good people being turned out with no prospects within the industry. Good thing Obama is going [to] support retraining programs."

Butler, who started at the Tribune in 1974, said she would be looking for a job, but "probably not in this field. I will still be involved in NABJ."

Piper, 38, said he started with the Tribune Co. 17 years ago with CLTV, a 24-hour news channel, then came to the newspaper to help with its video operation and Internet site. He told Journal-isms he didn’t know what he would do next, and it would depend on what jobs were available considering the state of the business.

Unlike some of the others, Alleyne left for the day after being notified. "She was somebody we would like to have kept if conditions were different," said her supervisor, Joe Knowles, assistant managing editor for presentation.

It was just in February that the Tribune laid off Don Terry, a writer for the Chicago Tribune magazine, and perhaps seven or eight others. In August, more than 40 other newsroom employees were laid off. The parent Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy protection in December.

Kern said in his memo: "While some are leaving now, others will join the newsroom over time as we invest in new skills necessary to grow in the future. With a staff of about 430, this newsroom will remain one of the largest and most talented in the country.

"We are expanding our local news operation and establishing a new watchdog unit to increase our consumer and investigative coverage. Our digital staff has grown rapidly in recent months and is getting bigger as we develop new digital channels. A new production department combining copy editing, page design and photo editing will operate with a smarter, more streamlined process. At the same time, other areas are being restructured to align them with strategic priorities."

Magazine Called Out on Photoshopping Obama Image

Photograph of Obama at the beach . . ."The web is buzzing about The Washingtonian magazine’s choice to put a paparazzi photo of a buff and shirtless President Obama on the cover of its May issue," Susan Moeller, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism and its School of Public Policy, wrote Tuesday on the Huffington Post.

"The frenzy of comments about The Washingtonian’s decision are running across the gamut, from a reprise of the drooling appreciation for Obama’s taut abs first seen when the paparazzi photos of Obama on the beach hit in December: ‘Really hot Obama,’ ‘President Beefcake;’ to stinging political rebukes for what some take to be the magazine’s pandering to its audience and/or to the administration: ’embarrassing.’

"But I’d like to call your attention to what Washingtonian did with the original Bauer-Griffin photo. Said Leslie Milk, the magazine’s lifestyle editor, ‘I know we changed the color of his suit to red, and dropped out the background.’ In the original photo the president is wearing a black suit and walking from what appears to be sliding glass doors leading to a living room. What also appears to be altered from the original image is the contrast and the color balance of the president’s skin. On The Washingtonian’s cover the sun striking Obama’s chest makes him appear more golden, almost glistening.

. . . was transformed into one of a 'more gilded' president in D.C."In the world of news, that’s unethical. The rule of thumb is, if you want to change what’s in the photo, choose another photo. Making Obama into a man wearing brilliant red surfer trunks, instead of a more modest black pair, making the image more dramatic by having him walking out of darkness, and changing the exposure so he looks more gilded changes viewers’ ideas about who the man is."

Washingtonian Editor John A. Limpert did not respond to a request for comment, but the magazine asked for reader reaction on its Web site. The comments tended not to be about the ethical issue, but whether the Washingtonian’s display demeaned the office of the presidency.

[On Thursday, FishBowl DC published an internal memo from Washingtonian President and Publisher Catherine Merrill Williams in which she said:

["The only change we made was switching Barack Obama’s bathing suit from navy blue to red. We did it solely for graphic design reasons and to ensure good contrast on the black background of the cover. Our change was nothing more than what nearly every magazine in the country does to cover photos on a regular basis to ensure it conveys the concept clearly.

["We did not alter President Obama’s skin tone in any way. We did not airbrush him, remove or add anything to the picture. Our only substantive change was the bathing suit color, which we will explain on the Feedback page in the June issue.

["As for the accusations that changing the image in this way was unethical, I fundamentally disagree."] 

The American Society of Magazine Editors has not weighed in. It has previously on such issues.

As ethics professor Jeffrey L. Seglin noted in Folio, the magazine about magazines:

"When Us Weekly, ESPN the Magazine and Scholastic Parent and Child recently incorporated advertising elements with their covers, ASME took them each to task. ASME even saw fit to issue a new statement on its Web site addressing the issue: "Advertising on the cover suggests editorial endorsement of advertised products, indicates that editorial coverage is for sale and threatens editorial independence."

Suspect Tells Grand Jury About Chauncey Bailey Killing

"As Devaughndre Broussard spent hours on Tuesday telling a grand jury details about the killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men, his mother waited outside a closed door and said she still doubts her son pulled the trigger," Thomas Peele and Bob Butler wrote Tuesday for the Chauncey Bailey Project.

"’I am lost and confused,’ Audra Dixon said. She said she believes Broussard is ‘still covering up for somebody’ and did not shoot Bailey or the other man he has admitted killing, Odell Roberson.

"Broussard told grand jurors that he killed Bailey and Roberson on the order of former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, and that another man, Antoine Mackey, helped him. He also testified that Mackey admitted to him that he killed a third man, Michael Wills.

". . . Bey IV is jailed without bail in an unrelated kidnapping and torture case. Mackey is in San Quentin Prison on burglary charges. Both, in jail interviews with the Chauncey Bailey Project, denied involvement in Bailey’s killing.

"Broussard told prosecutors that Bey IV kept a hit list of people "he wanted to get rid off" and that Bailey was on it along with other people he didn’t know. Broussard said Bey IV ordered him and Mackey to kill Bailey before the journalist could publish a story about the bakery in the Oakland Post.

"Broussard is to plead guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter for killing Bailey and Roberson . . . In exchange for his testimony he will receive a 25-year sentence. He faced life in prison without parole."

Iran’s Nobel Laureate to Argue Saberi’s Appeal

Iran‚Äôs Nobel Laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi will defend Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi during her appeal of an espionage conviction in Iran, Britain’s Sky News reported on Wednesday.

"Ebadi reportedly told a German newspaper ‘The trial against Saberi was unfair and was not in line with [Iran’s] constitution .; . . On the family’s request, I have now taken over the case and will protest against the judgement," according to Sky News.

Separately, Iran’s judiciary spokesman said Tuesday that Saberi’s eight-year prison term may be reconsidered on appeal, an indication her sentence will be commuted, Ali Akbar Dareini reported from Tehran for the Associated Press.

"Ali Reza Jamshidi’s statement was a rare prediction about a case from the judiciary and was the latest hint Iran could be backing off from the imprisonment of 31-year-old Roxana Saberi on charges of spying for the U.S."

Meanwhile, the Rev. Jesse Jackson has offered to travel to Iran to help release Saberi, CNN reported on Wednesday.

"’If our voices are heard in Iran today, I would be anxious to travel with a delegation to Iran, if we are permitted, and make an appeal for her freedom,’ said the longtime civil rights activist, according to his Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Jackson, 67, was speaking Tuesday at a peace conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia."

Laid-Off Atlanta Graphic Journalist Wants to Go Green

Overshadowed by the 74 people who took buyouts last week from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution were those who were laid off — the entire news art and news research departments.

Among those employees were African American graphic journalists Charles William Jones Jr. and Jemal Brinson.

Jones, who started as an intern at the paper in 1991 and returned in 2005, told Journal-isms, "I’m looking for a spot where I can assist at progressing the understanding of green energy.

"We hear the commercials about it but I see a huge disconnect for regular folk. I don’t think many see how they fit into the movement or how the movement can help them. I see [next] to nothing explaining to folk how it all works and/or why it really matters."

Brinson, 39, had been at the paper since 2005 and said he’d "like to stay in the industry."

Meanwhile, in the absence of a news art department, the newspaper asked Jerome Thompson, a black journalist who had moved from that section to working with digital products, to stay on a little longer. Thompson, 38, had taken a buyout.

Thompson told Journal-isms he would take time off to rest and focus on personal projects.

Short Takes

  • "I’m someone who doesn’t tend to dwell in the past," Mark Whitaker, who left the leadership of Newsweek magazine to become a vice president of NBC News, told Jon Friedman of MarketWatch. "Given what has happened at Newsweek and the world of news magazines, it was pretty clear that I’d left at a good time." Friedman, who sees bigger things for Whitaker, said the network news executive of two years "brings a magazine editor’s sensibility to the TV news world. ‘Newsweek trained me to have a pretty good sense about how big a story is and whether it would have legs,’ he says. ‘I bring a different skill set than a lot of my colleagues. I have different reflexes. They grew up in control rooms.’"
  • "Yahoo Inc. posted drops in revenue and profit in new Chief Executive Carol Bartz’s first quarter on the job, and announced plans to cut about 675 workers from its payroll, as the tech industry showed signs of continued economic battering," Dan Fost reported Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times.
  • "StreetWise, the Chicago publication sold by homeless people, will continue to print its weekly editions after a series of donations far exceeded the $75,000 the magazine said a week ago it needed to survive, said StreetWise board Vice Chairman Pete Kadens," the Chicago Tribune reported on Wednesday. "By this morning, donors had given $190,000 ‚Äî with individual gifts ranging from $3 to $35,000."
  • "In an April 21, 2008, New Yorker story, ‘Vengeance Is Ours,’ Pulitzer Prize-winning geography scholar Jared Diamond describes blood feuds that rage for decades among tribes in the Highlands of New Guinea," the Forbes magazine Web site reported on Tuesday. "Diamond tells the story using a central protagonist: Daniel Wemp, member of the Handa clan, a blood-thirsty warrior bent on avenging his uncle’s death. That quest, writes Diamond, touched off six years of warfare leading to the slaughter of 47 people and the theft of 300 pigs. . . . A two-page complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court on April 20 seeks $10 million from the New Yorker’s publisher, Advance Publications, claiming Diamond’s story falsely accused Wemp and fellow tribesman Isum Mandigo of ‘serious criminal activity’ and ‘murder.’ . . . A Wemp friend and legal adviser, Mako John Kuwimb, explains: ‘When foreigners come to our culture, we tell stories as entertainment. Daniel’s stories were not serious narrative, and Daniel had no idea he was being interviewed for publication.’"
  • "NBC ‘Today’ show news anchor Ann Curry is heading to two war zones this week," the Associated Press reported on Tuesday. "She is traveling to both Iraq and Afghanistan to report on how the wars are being reshaped under the administration of President Barack Obama. Her reports are to air on both the ‘Today’ show and NBC’s ‘Nightly News.’"
  • In Los Angeles, "Sports Anchor Rick Garcia said his goodbyes to the the KTTV FOX 11 News Team on Monday night after a 22-year career with FOX," the station reported, providing Web-site viewers with "a video compilation of the team’s goodbyes from the FOX 11 10 p.m. News on Monday . . . as well as a look back at Rick’s time with the station."

  • Brett Pulley, who reported for the New York Times, Forbes magazine and the Wall Street Journal before leaving journalism in 2007 to head an entertainment listings site, NewYork.com, has joined Bloomberg News. He told Journal-isms on Wednesday he is "working as an at-large reporter covering the media and entertainment industries. I’m based in New York, but assigned to a team in L.A., so I’ll spend time on both coasts. Back on the front lines ‚Äî and it feels great. As for NewYork.com, we made good progress building a company from nothing, but it remains under-capitalized, and this difficult economic environment made it necessary for me to get back to the business of journalism. (Which, by the way, I sorely missed over the past two years.) I still have an ownership stake in NewYork.com, and remain on the board. But now my first priority is my first love: good, meaningful stories."

  • Herbert Lowe, a former president of the National Association of Black Journalists who recently founded Aim High Media, a Web design and communications company, is to receive the Communicator of the Year Award this weekend from the alumni association at his alma mater, the J. William and Mary Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University.
  • Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, former fashion writer at the Wall Street Journal, has started a blog about food, "A Tiger In The Kitchen." "I realize going from fashion to food is a little odd ‚Äî going from an industry where people don’t really eat to an industry that’s all about eating! But the blog’s been fun to write so far," she told Journal-isms. As reported earlier, Tan plans to spend the next year researching and writing a food memoir of the same name that re-creates the dishes of her native Singapore during one Lunar Calendar year. The blog is to accompany her research.

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