Naples Columnist Now Sees His Mistake
A day after the editor of Florida’s Naples Daily News apologized to readers and to the National Association of Black Journalists for a column that attempted to portray hip-hop language, the columnist told Journal-isms that “on reflection, I can see it was somewhat insensitive.”
“You write a goof column, you don’t expect to cause a lot of bad feeling,” Brent Batten said today. “I could have written the column a little differently. I feel bad about that.”
Batten, who was on vacation, said he came in to write another column reacting to the controversy that he expected would run Tuesday.
He continued to maintain that “no way was there any racism” involved in what he wrote, and said he would write that in his column.
Editor Phil Lewis yesterday wrote a column saying, “To my fellow journalists in the NABJ, those offended by the column and our other readers, I apologize.
Referring to Eric Deggans, a member of NABJ’s Media Monitoring Committee and television writer for the St. Petersburg Times, Lewis said, “Both Deggans and the NABJ noted that our news room is overwhelmingly white. They wonder if a more diverse staff would be a benefit.
“Fair question. In November 1999, Jenise Morgan, our features editor and a member of our editorial board, left to take a job in Atlanta. We haven’t had an African-American in an editing position since. We are in need of both black and Hispanic journalists.
“We do believe we would produce a better newspaper if our staff were more diverse, more representative of the communities we serve. And, for the record, we are involved in new programs designed to help us recruit minority photographers, reporters and editors,” a reference, he said, to the Parity Project of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Lewis told Journal-isms today that he had received about 50 e-mails from readers since the column appeared, most of them thanking him for his explanation, but a couple “backing up the contention that the column itself had more than hip-hop in mind.” They displayed a “racial bias,” saying “this stuff should be banned.”
But Lewis also said he had received five e-mails from black journalists with offers of help. Addressing his statement that he wanted to diversity the newsroom, he said he had a copy-editing position opening in early January and that his newsroom of about 100 people has about 20 percent turnover a year. “I’m looking for about 20 journalists a year,” he said.
“I was a little naive; that was a good lesson,” concluded Lewis, who is 50.
“I definitely would have spoken out against the column had I still been at the paper,” Morgan told Journal-isms today. “No question about that.”
We Sho’ ‘Nuff in Da Hood Now! (Amy Alexander, africana.com)
Newsday Editor Called “Responsive” After Meeting
Some 14 African American reporters and photographers at Newsday met late today with editor Howard Schneider and expressed, “forcefully,” one said, their concerns that progress on diversity at the newspaper continue.
Schneider reportedly replied that he would come up with a communication on the issue.
As reported last week, much of the dissatisfaction focused on the case of foreign editor Dele Olojede, who was offered the job of assistant managing editor for Long Island – “a promotion that would have put him in line to take over the paper one day,” as Cynthia Cotts wrote in the Village Voice. “But the decision seemed to already have been made without consulting Olojede, who felt utterly disrespected.” Some considered Olojede’s case symbolic.
Cotts also reported that “Schneider has a history of favoring his cronies, most of whom happen to be white, middle-aged, Jewish men.”
Schneider, who became editor of the Long Island, N.Y., newspaper in August, told Journal-isms last Thursday that “when there is a change in editorship after 16 years, it’s understandable that there are a lot of questions” and that he was committed to continuing the paper’s diversity initiatives.
William Raspberry Takes Buyout, Keeps Column
Syndicated Washington Post columnist William Raspberry is among a number of veteran journalists at the paper accepting what is described as a generous buyout offer, but he says he plans to continue his once-a-week column as a contract writer.
“My thought has been that I was staying at the paper a couple of [more] years, and then this thing came along and they said, ‘we’ll pay you for a couple of years,'” he told Journal-isms.
He said he had no idea how long he’d continue to write the column. “I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do at this point,” Raspberry said. “On the other hand, I don’t want to die at my desk.”
Raspberry, 68, started at the Post in 1962, working in its library. He began his column in 1966, “the year my life began — I got married.” The column became syndicated in the early 1970s.
He won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1994, put together a collection of pieces in 1991 in a book called, “Looking Backward at Us,” and is the Knight Professor of the Practice of Communication and Journalism at the Dewitt Wallace Center and the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University.
He said he planned to continue teaching at Duke.
Raspberry agreed with those in a Washingtonian magazine piece on the buyouts who said the Post was losing some of its institutional memory. “It can be devastating in a way, more devastating for local news in Metro than for the national and foreign news. You can remember what happened in presidential elections, even if you weren’t here. You don’t remember the tales of Walter Washington,” the city’s first elected mayor, “if you were at the [Nashville] Tennesseean or some place. You lose the . . . feel of the history of this town,” he said.
Young, Black and “Scared to Death” in Iraq
Last week, we wrote about Theola Labbe of the Washington Post, who was just back from a three-month stint as the only African American print reporter covering the war in Iraq. But that description didn’t include news services, or, specifically, Hannah Allam, 26, who reported for the Knight Ridder News Service.
“After four years at the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press, she is returning to Iraq for a longer stint,” Tiffany Black writes on the Web site of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Black asked Allam to talk about her scariest moment.
“I was scared to death meeting the guerrilla fighters. But that was not my scariest moment,” Allam replied. “A humvee had been bombed in a shopping district. Whenever we saw a smoke plume we would go to that location because it might be a story. We got there about five minutes after it was hit. One person died and two were wounded. My translator and I tried to get into the restricted military area. The second we crossed the military line all hell broke loose. We didn’t know that three insurgents were still loose in the area. Gunfire broke out everywhere and I dropped to the ground. I could see the bullets and shells pinging on the ground all around me. We couldn’t find any cover because it was an open shopping district. We ended up using a Volkswagen beetle for cover.”
“The military was trying to return fire and couldn’t see where it was coming from. So they were randomly shooting,” she continued.
“Soldiers were radioing back, ‘I can’t get a target. Can’t see to return fire.’ I was so terrified but I felt like I had to get from behind that car. I told a soldier I had to get out of there. He said, ‘I suggest you stay fucking low.’ My translator and I scooted from behind the car and some Iraqis at a leather factory pulled us inside to safety. I never felt so terrified, exposed, vulnerable. That was the most terrifying experience in my life. I had never been in a situation where I was that close to gun fire and could see bullets flying past me.”
Speaking of journalists of color in Iraq, add CNN’s Alphonso Van Marsh to the list. A graduate of the Maynard Institute’s Cross Media Journalism Program at the University of Southern California in 2001, he filed one of the first stories yesterday about the capture of Saddam Hussein.
ABC News Leaves Black Candidates, Kucinich
“A day after ABC ‘Nightline’ anchor Ted Koppel generated criticism for over-emphasizing strategic issues as moderator of the Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire, ABC News confirmed yesterday that it has pulled three “off-air producers” from the campaigns of Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, former senator Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, and the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York,” the Boston Globe reported Thursday.
“Asked if the decision was related to the three candidates’ low standing in the polls and longshot status, ABC spokeswoman Cathie Levine said, ‘as we prepare for Iowa and New Hampshire, we are putting more resources toward covering those events. We’ll continue to cover these candidates as other news organizations do. To date, we’ve logged more hours with these candidates than any other news organization.”
However, the latest Quinnipiac University poll of 1,071 registered voters, conducted Dec. 4-8, shows that Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., has lower poll numbers than Sharpton.
“The underlying assumption here is that Edwards belongs — but the colored folk don’t,” argued veteran journalist Joel Dreyfuss to his colleagues in the National Association of Black Journalists.
The Quinnipiac poll showed 22 percent would vote for Howard Dean; 13 percent for Joseph Lieberman; 12 percent for Wesley Clark; 9 percent for Richard Gephardt; 8 percent for John Kerry; 8 percent for Sharpton; 5 percent for Edwards; 3 percent for Moseley Braun; and 2 percent for Kucinich, with 18 percent saying they didn’t know.
CNNfn Begins Series on “Poverty in America”
CNNfn Tuesday begins a five-part series on “Poverty in America,” with each piece three to four minutes, producer Alturo Rhymes tells Journal-isms.
A Census Bureau report last week showed that 1.4 million more people were sent into poverty in 2002, the network says: “It’s currently estimated that 34m Americans currently live in poverty and roughly 17% of America’s children are wallowing in an impoverished environment.”
The series covers “The Working Poor”; “Welfare to Work”; “No Child Left Behind,” on children in poverty; “No Place Like Home,” on affordable housing; and “A Hand Up,” on food pantries. Rhonda Schaffler, senior business correspondent, is the reporter, and the series airs throughout the day, starting at 9:50 a.m.
Azteca America Launches U.S. News Programs
Azteca America launched two network news programs that aired Dec. 1, reports Pareja Media Match. “Noticiero Azteca America and Noticiero Azteca America Ultima Edición represent the network’s totally revamped national news broadcasts. These current events shows will be produced in Washington D.C.
“Noticiero Azteca America will feature national breaking news, as well as the latest headlines from Mexico, Central and South America gathered by TV Azteca’s Fuerza Informativa Azteca, a team of exclusive broadcast journalists based in Mexico who uncover the latest news. Veteran broadcast journalist Armando Guzman will host the program. Noticiero Azteca America will air Monday through Friday at 6:00 pm PST and EST, 5:00 pm CST. To round out the news shows, Azteca America also launched a morning version of Noticiero Azteca America on Dec. 15. The program will be aired at 6:00 a.m. PST and EST, 5:00 am CST.”
In addition, “TV Azteca has increased its coverage by adding two new affiliates in Denver, Colorado and Yakima-Pascoe-Richland, Washington. The additions increase the network’s coverage to 31 markets, representing 69 percent coverage of US Hispanic households,” the report said.
Latino Youth Network Offers 24/7 Programming
“LATV, an entertainment, lifestyle and information network for young Latinos, announced it is making its Los Angeles programming available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to cable and satellite providers across the United States,” Pareja Media Match says.
“Featuring 20 hours of originally produced shows a week, LATV programming spans culture, music, politics and issues important to both U.S. born and immigrant Latinos. LATV programming features in-studio audiences, live performances, real-time call-ins, and the incorporation of Internet and chat-room content from LATV.com.
“The network was founded in January 2001 by Walter Ulloa, the co-founder and CEO of Entravision. LATV is led by Daniel Crowe, a veteran in Hispanic media, who’s previously held management positions with Univision, Telemundo and Galavision as well as successful start-up companies in television and radio.”
Richard Parsons Revitalizes Time Warner
Richard Parsons, CEO and chairman of Time Warner, has “led a methodical, unglamorous, yet successful effort to stabilize a media and entertainment giant that almost collapsed under the weight of history’s worst deal ever,” reports Johnnie L. Roberts in Newsweek.
“Time Warner’s stock reached a new yearlong high of $17.47 last week. And in less than a year, Parsons has also chiseled the company’s debt to $20 billion from $30 billion. Most of its divisions are thriving, especially its Hollywood studios and mammoth cable-TV businesses. Cooperation has supplanted infighting among top executives. Even AOL, though still mired in federal probes of possible financial misdeeds, has a stronger pulse.
“Time Warner is so revitalized, in fact, that it’s openly exploring major acquisitions again.
“. . . Parsons’s own future is more secure than ever. He is likely to be awarded a huge bonus this year. Only his legacy and successor are in question,” Roberts writes.
Gore to Mark Whitaker: “I’m Taller Than Bush”
In an interview with Media Week, Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek magazine, notes that the “most surreal moment” of his editorship “was in 2000 when it went into overtime in Florida. All of a sudden Al Gore started calling me every Friday, clearly to see if our cover was going to hurt or help him.
“The second week [of the recount] we had an illustration of Bush and Gore fighting, each with black eyes and so forth. He called me up the following Friday, and in the middle of the conversation he said, ‘Mark, you know, I’m taller than George Bush.’ Because the illustration made it look like Bush was taller. Apparently, the taller candidate has won the presidential election nine out of 10 times in our history.”
Maybe the rule of thumb should refer to winning the popular vote, not the election.
Alarm Growing Over Foul Language on Live TV
Members of both parties in Congress are demanding that the Federal Communications Commission “crack down harder on broadcasters, while some FCC members want to toughen the penalties the agency imposes,” writes Frank Ahrens in the Washington Post. “At the same time, lawmakers are grappling with the fact that the government’s limited enforcement powers over the public airwaves do not apply to cable channels, which are grabbing more and more viewers.
“Parent groups and socially conservative organizations that monitor broadcasts agree that television and radio content is getting racier and raunchier. Members of the Parents Television Council, a group that monitors television broadcasts and whose celebrity advisers include Pat Boone and Jane Seymour, have filed more than 85,000 complaints about broadcast indecency and obscenity at the FCC this year.”
Ads for Hard Liquor Gain Foothold on Cable
Call it a victory for Bob Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television.
“Commercials for distilled spirits, once relegated to the fringes of the television landscape, now appear on two dozen national cable networks from AMC to WE, more than 140 local cable systems and 420 local broadcast stations,” writes Stuart Elliott in the New York Times.
“That patchwork network lets the liquor marketers take advantage of the benefits of selling on television — primarily the ability to reach large numbers of consumers quickly and frequently — even if its most potent form is barred to them.”
“‘At this point, liquor ads have saturated cable,’ said George A. Hacker, director for the Alcohol Policies Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, who has long fought against such commercials because of fears that they are more visible to children than print ads and glamorize drinking more.
“‘We’re satisfied that at least the barrier against broadcast remains, but it’s very hard to have a big enough thumb in the dike,’ he added.”
The piece does not mention Johnson, but he was an early advocate for relaxing the rules on accepting liquor ads.
In 1999, he noted that beer manufacturers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on television and radio ads each year.
”Distilled spirits spend virtually none,” he said then in a statement. ”Yet the notion that these products should be subject to different advertising standards, as some are now proposing, is without foundation.”
Actress Sues Snoop Dogg, MTV Over Appearance
“An actress has sued rapper Snoop Dogg and MTV over an episode of the television show ‘Doggy Fizzle Televizzle,’ in which she claimed she was unwittingly made to appear as if she were naked and engaging in sexual relations with another actor,” the Associated Press reports.
“In a lawsuit filed Friday, Doris Burns accuses Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, and MTV of breach of contract, fraud, invasion of privacy and defamation. She is seeking unspecified damages.”
The words in blue (on most computers) are links leading to more information.
