Hampton U. Task Force Backs Free Student Press
Seven weeks after the acting president of Hampton University seized the entire press run of the student newspaper, the task force that resulted has unanimously recommended that no administrator or faculty member ever be permitted to halt the distribution of the newspaper, and that the student journalists henceforth be allowed to practice their craft unfettered, members of the task force told Journal-isms tonight.
When the acting president, Dr. JoAnn W. Haysbert, agreed to create the task force back on Oct. 24, she agreed to abide by the task force recommendations, Journalism School Director Christopher Campbell said at the time.
The task force met for the last time in a four-hour meeting on Monday to finalize what would be in the lengthy set of recommendations. If everything members agreed to is in the documents, said Talia Buford, editor of the student-produced Hampton Script, “then I’m happy. We have editorial independence.”
“We should be celebrating,” said the other student member of the task force, Daarel Burnette II, a sophomore who is campus editor of the Script. “Students were saying, ‘this is bigger than the Script. It applies to all the student groups on campus,'” who felt intimidated. “I’m tired of hearing students say, ‘I’m scared. I don’t want to be expelled.'” He said he hoped students would now feel more confident about expressing themselves on campus.
The task force rewrote the handbook that sets operating guidelines for the student paper, giving the publication an adviser with a journalism background. And the documents contain “some pretty strong statements about freedom of the press,” said Campbell, who became director of the new journalism school over the summer.
However, Campbell was cautious about discussing the recommendations in deference to the administration, which had not had a chance to review them, much less accept them.
The task force chair, veteran journalist Earl Caldwell, said he could confirm only that the report was delivered to Haysbert. He added, however, that he planned to write a strong letter to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, which pulled a program training high school journalism teachers in reaction to Haysbert’s action.
Caldwell said he wanted to know where ASNE had been on other issues of concern to black journalists, such as Mort Zuckerman’s firing of a disproportionate number of black reporters at the New York Daily News when Zuckerman bought the paper in 1993; the News’ refusal to run a column of Caldwell’s about a police officer under investigation for allegedly raping five black livery drivers while on duty, a dispute that led to Caldwell’s leaving the paper in 1994; or the lack of black journalists in endowed chairs, like the one Caldwell holds at Hampton, at majority-white universities.
The administration confiscated the student newspaper Oct. 22 after Haysbert demanded that a letter from her be placed on the front page and the students instead placed it on page 3, alerting readers to it on page 1. The letter explained the university’s response to findings of health-code violations in the student cafeteria.
The paper was republished in time for that Saturday’s homecoming game, with both the letter from Haysbert and a large disclaimer from the students on the front page. The students agreed to publish Haysbert’s letter on the front page in exchange for the creation of a task force on the relationship of the paper to the administration.
The university announced formation of the task force on Oct. 24, quoting Campbell saying, “I?m pleased that the university administration has agreed to abide by the recommendations of a task force that will examine the operation of the Hampton Script.”
Meanwhile, an outcry from the journalism community protested Haysbert’s seizure of the paper and her lack of remorse over having done so.
The task force, which met at least once a week, provided an education to the non-journalism members of the task force, whose understanding of the difference between journalism and public relations had to be refined, members said. “There were a lot of strong personalities going head to head. We all learned something,” said Buford.
To Burnette, one of the most important recommendations is having an adviser to the newspaper who knows journalism. Currently the paper is advised by Margaret Lee, an English professor; Jennifer Wood, an assistant professor of journalism and Yuri Rodgers, a university spokeswoman.
“I see what other advisers do,” Burnette said, adding that he wanted someone to be there when the students are assembling the paper, to advise them on proper journalism as situations arise. Another recommendation gives the paper an advisory board that would address issues such as the one that precipitated the seizure.
Burnette also said that if the recommendations are adopted, it would show that the student journalists made the right decision in printing Haysbert’s letter on the front page in exchange for the task force, a bargain for which they took some criticism.
“We felt that by negotiating with the administration, we felt we could make a change — and we have,” he said.
Posted December 12, 2003
Latinos Portrayed as “Dysfunctional Underclass”
Two-thirds of all Latino-related stories that aired on the network news programs in 2002 were about crime, terrorism and illegal immigration, according to the latest “Network Brownout Report” from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
“There were 47 stories alone dealing with Latinos as either perpetrators or victims of crime. Of those crime stories, more than half were about kidnapping. The kidnapping and murder of five-year-old Samantha Runnion (18 stories) in California, and the subsequent arrest of Alejandro Avila for the crime, dominated that coverage,” the association said in a news release.
?When Latinos are covered by the networks, the stories are too often unbalanced and fail to accurately reflect the role that Latinos play in the United States,” said NAHJ President Juan Gonzalez, a columnist with the New York Daily News, in a statement.
“The report found that out of approximately 16,000 stories that aired in 2002, only 120 ? less than 1 percent (0.75) — were about Latinos. In 2001, only 99 stories (0.62 percent) were about Latinos. Hispanics now make up more than 13 percent of the nation?s population.”
For the first time in the eight years of the study, NAHJ conducted focus groups in New York and Los Angeles.
“The qualitative analysis found that Latinos continued to be portrayed as a dysfunctional underclass that exists on the fringes of mainstream U.S. society. Despite the growth of the Latino middle class and resources, Latinos were often depicted as living in poverty and as criminals. Illegal immigrants were depicted as a security threat to the country,” the organization said.
Naples Columnist Defends His Hip-Hop Column
Naples Daily News columnist Brent Batten rejects criticism of the column he attempted in “hip-hop” language, saying, among other things, that the piece was not racist because “the hip-hop audience is black, white and Hispanic. If I am insulting the hip-hop fans, I’m insulting a multiracial, diverse group.”
In his Dec. 2 column in the Florida paper, Batten wrote about a failed concert that, his paper reported, drew only about 700 people when 7,000 to 10,000 were expected.
In a statement Tuesday night, the National of Black Journalists called the column “patently offensive, intellectually condescending and journalistically unfocused.”
Returning a telephone call from Journal-isms, Batten, 44, called the language he used “an obvious exaggeration,” and he said he had researched hip-hop speak before writing the piece. He said he was familiar with “Eminem, Tupac [Shakur], Snoop [Dogg] — the ones that are kind of mainstreamed a little bit.”
Batten, who has been at the paper 18 years, seven as a columnist, said he had not seen the NABJ statement but was elaborating on a letter he had written in response to other criticism on the Jim Romenesko Web site at the Poynter Institute. He said he’d received “tons” of e-mails, mostly critical.
The Scripps Howard paper, located in an affluent area with a concentration of retirees, reported having 1.2 percent people of color on its news staff for the annual census of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Batten said he had been told this was due to a lack of competitive pay at the paper and because “minority journalists were really in demand” elsewhere.
The paper did have an African American features editor who sat on the editorial board, but that journalist, Jenise Morgan, left in November 1999, he recalled.
Morgan, who is now senior editor of a book distribution company outside of Atlanta, told Journal-isms today she had been chairman of the paper’s Diversity Task Force. She said she thought the column an isolated example, but that had she still been on the editorial board, “I probably would have expressed my concern had I seen something like that coming up.”
The paper made outreach efforts during her time at the paper, Morgan said, but “Naples isn’t one of those cities” with nightlife and other big-city attractions. A Naples native, she said she left because “I just wanted something different.”
The newspaper today ran the NABJ statement, by Bryan Monroe, NABJ vice president/print, as a “guest commentary.”
Prentis Rogers, Atlanta Columnist, Dies at 50
“Prentis Rogers, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution editor and sports columnist, died Tuesday following surgery Monday at South Fulton Medical Center,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
“Mr. Rogers, 50, of East Point was the Journal-Constitution’s assistant sports editor for baseball, NBA, NHL and boxing coverage. For 14 years, he had been radio and TV sports columnist for the paper, which he joined in 1979. He had appeared on PBS to talk about television sports coverage,” wrote Kay Powell.
Pay Gap Will Affect Women Boomers’ Retirement
The gender wage gap is smaller for some jobs in the television industry “like news director — where women make $4,000 a year less than their male peers; however, male print journalists pocket $9,000 more a year than their female cohorts,” the National Association for Female Executives, reports in its annual salary survey.
Overall, in 21 fields analyzed, men’s earnings continue to average over $10,000 a year more than women’s for identical jobs, the group reported.
“Women in the fields of accounting, advertising, law, or public relations may pocket approximately $20,000 less per year, a discrepancy that persists despite comparable years of experience,” it continued.
“If you think the wage gap’s bad now, just wait,” said Betty Spence, president of NAFE, in a news release. “Women live longer than men, so we need more retirement savings, but we earn less than men do, so it’s harder to save.” She said she was concerned that few understood the crisis facing baby boomer women: a gender pension gap of 50 percent. “Women have half of what men have to retire on, and baby boomers are not prepared,” she said.
Longevity Growing for Female News Anchors
“Longevity for female news anchors is something that has grown over the past two decades,” reports Richard Huff in the New York Daily News.
“Some of that has to do with an influx of more women to the business, both on the air and behind the scenes ? and some because of a groundbreaking lawsuit filed by Christine Craft.
“In 1981, Craft was dropped as an anchor by a local station in the Midwest. She said then she was told by her bosses she was ‘too old, unattractive and not deferential enough to men’ to be on the air.
“She was 38.”
Huff says the list of New York anchorwomen who have lasted for two decades includes WNBC-TV’s Sue Simmons and WPIX-TV’s Kaity Tong, as well as WABC-‘s Diana Williams; former WABC anchor Roz Abrams, “expected to soon turn up elsewhere”; WNBC’s Jane Hanson; and WNYW’s Rosanna Scotto.
“Not that age isn’t still an issue for the women sitting at local TV news anchor desks,” Huff cautions.
Detroit’s Harry Hairston Lands Philly Job
In Detroit, “Harry Hairston had been free-lancing for WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) since Channel 50 chased everyone out of its newsroom and contracted with WXYZ to produce a 10 p.m. newscast,” reports Neal Rubin in the Detroit News.
“Last week — a year to the day after being let go — he signed on with WCAU-TV, the NBC station in Philadelphia.
“He’ll be an investigative reporter and sometime anchor, much as he was with WKBD but in a larger market and with a more prestigious newscast.”
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