CNN’s Van Marsh First With Images from Tikrit
A spokeswoman for CNN, credited with breaking the news of the capture of Saddam Hussein on Sunday, today said that Pentagon reporter Jamie McIntyre broke the story at 5:03 a.m. but that Maynard Institute graduate Alphonso Van Marsh, embedded with the troops in Tikrit, Iraq, and who had deduced that “something very big has indeed happened,” was the first to show photos.
It was Van Marsh’s reporting that alerted McIntyre, Howard Kurtz reported in the Washington Post:
“‘At 11 p.m. EST Saturday, once the raid had begun, Van Marsh ‘was aware of a lot of excitement and commotion,’ said Chris Cramer, managing director of CNN International. ‘He clearly knew something was going on,’ but military officials ‘weren’t about to tell him anything.’
“Van Marsh, 32, an Atlanta-based producer sent to Tikrit just six weeks ago, alerted the network, and McIntyre confirmed the story after an hour of early morning phone calls. Van Marsh ‘is a very resourceful journalist who has just gotten the scoop of his life,’ Cramer said.”
In a recap Sunday, Van Marsh described the experience on CNN:
“I am here at Raider Base. That is one of the bases where the 4th Infantry Division is staying. Now they regularly go out and conduct these raids, but I noticed last night that something here was very, very different. The troops went out about 7 o’clock at night and came back at about 11 o’clock. That’s about 2 a.m. East Coast time.
“Something was very, very different. . . .
“I could see military leadership giving what looked to be a pep talk to the troops. Their response, an occasional “Hoo-Ha!” ripped through the night air. Then some of the service members pulled out their own cameras and started taking pictures. Posing like a soccer team on the pitch before the match. Bright smiles. Arms over the shoulders. Shaking hands with captain and colonel.
“It was clear this was a celebration for a raid well done. I needed to find out why. . .
“After daybreak and after intense persistence, the pieces of the puzzle came together. I knew U.S. forces had ‘Number One.’ My talented CNN colleagues in Washington confirmed it and the next thing I knew, I’m live from the roof of the guardhouse reporting a CNN exclusive. On this truly historic day, CNN’s nighttime pictures offered a glimpse into how these historic events unfolded. It was the first opportunity for viewers to see U.S. forces reveling in one of their greatest adrenaline rushes since the fall of Baghdad. And those forces included the boys in the Bradleys, celebrating the capture of Saddam Hussein.”
David Bauer of the Associated Press reported that Van Marsh “sent back the first videophone images from the scene.”
A CNN report at 5:03 a.m. Sunday had McIntyre addressing anchor Shihab Rattansi from the Pentagon:
“Well, Shihab, let me just underscore that there may have been a huge development today in Iraq,” he said. “And let me underscore it may have happened today. There — here’s what we do know: there was a raid today in Tikrit conducted by the U.S. military based on intelligence that Saddam Hussein was at a particular location. According to U.S. officials, a number of individuals were captured in that raid and one of them may have been Saddam Hussein. In fact, they believe that one of them is Saddam Hussein. But U.S. officials are being very cautious. They are not yet making an announcement or making a claim that they’ve captured Saddam Hussein because they want to confirm very carefully the identity of this individual that they have in custody.
“But again, after a raid this morning in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, U.S. officials believe they may have captured Saddam Hussein. The raid was based on intelligence that he was there. They believe that among the individuals is an individual who is Saddam Hussein. But they are being very, very cautious.”
Rattansi soon went to Van Marsh in Tikrit:
“Yes. I think it’s very important to mention first off that military officials here aren’t saying anything. There’s no comment so far on this speculation that’s going on,” Van Marsh said.
“I think it’s interesting to share with you some things that I have seen over the past 24 hours. We got some exclusive video; video you’ll see on CNN only, of troops coming back late last night. Now, we noticed that some of the Bradley tanks and some other forces had gone out late in the evening. And when they came back, something that hasn’t happened in the past, I observed some of these troops, some of these U.S. service members from here taking pictures, getting a pep talk from the leadership and doing that sort of thing, which would lead us to perhaps speculate that something very important has happened.
“Now, again, we do want to say that we don’t know any specific details from here. U.S. military officials are not commenting as I would believe that this video, some of these exclusive pictures, would certainly lead us to understand that something very big has indeed happened in these last 24 hours here in Saddam Hussein’s hometown — Shihab.”
Van Marsh is a graduate of the Maynard Institute’s Cross Media Journalism Program at the University of Southern California in 2001, as well as of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, which did a piece on him, “The One-Man Band.” He is also a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and its Atlanta chapter.
A multiple winner in Atlanta Association of Black Journalists awards
Palm Beach Post Probes “Modern Day Slavery”
“Based on a nine-month investigation, The Palm Beach Post ran a three-part series Dec. 7-9 examining the origins, causes, and effects of modern-day slavery in Florida,” reports Editor & Publisher. “Parts of the 32-page series were picked up by other Cox-owned newspapers. The package was also presented online, including audio and photo galleries.”
“‘The over-arching part of this whole thing is that we have to do something about what is indeed slavery,” Post editor Edward M. Sears told E&P. “These people are bought and sold. That has got to stop. I hope we can make a dent in it, make a difference.”
The subjects in the series came “from the south, mostly from Mexico, with fake names, fake social security numbers, and fake IDs.” E&P wrote. “Working under the tropical sun, they are responsible for harvesting the oranges that have become synonymous with Florida. They are illegal immigrants forced to work long hours for minimal pay, bound to their masters, to the land, to their work. They are slaves, by any other name.”
Reporter Kept After Thurmond-Daughter Story
With the family of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., acknowledging that Essie Mae Washington, 78, is the senator’s mixed-race daughter, and today’s disclosure that the chief federal bankruptcy court judge for South Carolina, one of Thurmond’s nephews, is admitting that he served as a pass-through for payments from Thurmond to Washington, kudos are due the Washington Post’s Marilyn W. Thompson, who broke these stories after having followed Thurmond for two decades.
On National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” on Monday, Thompson was asked by co-host Michele Norris why she had chased the story so long.
“I wanted to get the absolute definitive truth, as all investigative journalists want, and I felt like that if it were true, for Thurmond, it was a complete recasting of what everyone had thought about him,” said Thompson, who is white. “And to me, it was the ultimate political hypocrisy. You know, he had gone to Birmingham as a Dixiecrat and said blacks should never be allowed in a swimming pool, blacks should never be allowed in a public school with whites. These were things that came out of his mouth, and to think that at the same time, he was funneling money to a young black woman to keep her quiet, I couldn’t bear it. I just couldn’t bear it.”
Also of interest is a news story by the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun-Herald, which said, “when news broke this weekend about the alleged liaison between the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond and a 16-year-old black family servant that might have produced a daughter, it was no news at all to those who know their state history,” quoting experts in interracial Southern liaisons.
Said Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz on the Post’s Web site: “How different the obits on the 100-year-old Thurmond might have read if he’d owned up to this long-rumored child while he was alive.” (Some did note the omission, as we wrote then.)
And Andrew Sullivan, the conservative-leaning gay writer who once edited The New Republic magazine, wrote on his blog:
“There is a racial closet as well as a sexual one. In the case of Thurmond, both closets were combined. What it reveals is the deep human and necessary hypocrisy of racism; the ancient tendency to sexualize African-Americans as a way to keep them at a distance from full human equality and dignity; and the lingering power of inter-racial sexual taboo. Fascinating also that Thurmond fought so long to maintain miscegenation laws he himself violated so early in his life. He was fighting against himself, against his own daughter, against his own country. And he was never publicly called to account. Better late then never.”
“Pinky” Star’s Obituaries Differ in Interpretation
Actress Jeanne Crain died Sunday at age 78, and most obituaries noted one of her most famous roles, a black woman passing for white in “Pinky,” which brought her a nomination for best actress in 1949.
But obituaries differed on why this white actress was given the role.
Bob Thomas wrote for the Associated Press, in a report used in many papers: “Lena Horne and other black actresses sought the role, but Fox’s boss, Darryl F. Zanuck, decided on a white star with box-office appeal.”
But Adam Bernstein wrote in the Washington Post: “Studio officials picked Ms. Crain, a white actress, over black actresses to avoid alienating Southern audiences during love scenes with a white doctor.”
And in London’s Guardian, Ronald Bergan wrote: “Crain, who was Oscar nominated, was very affecting, though a black actor should have been cast, if that had been possible at the time.”
Indeed, as the AP’s Thomas noted: “‘Pinky,’ which was directed by Elia Kazan, was widely praised by film critics but encountered opposition in the South. Audiences objected to a white man kissing a ‘light-skinned Negro’ and wanting to marry her, being cognizant of her heritage. Marshall, Texas, banned the film, but the town’s film censoring ordinance was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Columnist Issues Apology (in Standard English)
Brent Batten, the Naples Daily News columnist whose hip-hop satire drew protests, finally apologized in print yesterday.
“I never thought I’d miss the days when most of my e-mail was spam,” his shorter-than-usual column began.
“Over the past week, I’ve received well over 100 electronic critiques of my Dec. 2 column on the unsuccessful hip hop concert in Collier County. Most of them have been negative, some scathingly so.
“It is my job to have my finger on the pulse of the community.
“In this case, my finger was asleep.”
Jackson Parents Were Paid for “20/20” Comments
“Joe and Katherine Jackson were so eloquent last week, defending their son Michael on that documentary on ABC’s 20/20. Why, you could hardly tell they were doing it for money,” reads an item in Canada’s Montreal Gazette.
“But they were, according to MSNBC’s gossip queen Jeannette Walls, who reports Jacko’s parents demanded, and got, a percentage of the profits from sales of the show. The documentary, called Our Son Michael Jackson, was made by a British company called Shine, which then sold it to ABC and round the world. The Jacksons get an unspecified cut from each sale.”
McGruder Says He Told Rice She’s a Murderer
“Boondocks” cartoonist Aaron McGruder told a dinner marking the 138th anniversary of The Nation magazine Sunday that, “I’ve met Condoleezza Rice and called her a murderer to her face,” according to the Washington Post’s “Names and Faces” column, compiled by Anne Schroeder.
“From his studio, the cartoonist opined, ‘This is what I do. I am always going to speak honestly. I’m always winging it, and that’s one of the things that gets me into trouble,'” the column item continued.
McGruder also “earned boos for saying liberals need to be meaner if they want to win back the White House.”
Greg Moore: Too Many News Critics Have Agendas
Denver Post Editor Greg Moore, delivering the first Robert McGruder Lecture at Kent State University this month, said that a “vise of criticism from the extremes of the political spectrum is real and I worry that newspapers are bouncing back and forth trying to negotiate the poles and not focusing enough on the real goal — editing a paper that is fair with favoritism towards no one.”
Robert McGruder, the executive editor of the Detroit Free Press, died after a battle with cancer in April 2002 at age 60. Moore, who considers McGruder a mentor, has said he consulted his dying friend before accepting the Denver job that May.
In addition to saying that his service as Diversity Committee chairman of the American Society of Newspaper Editors made him “believe even more deeply in the value of diversity,” Moore discussed criticism of newspapers, which he said has become more polarized.
“I have come to believe that while we open ourselves to the legitimate debate about the left’s or the right’s influence on our journalism, so much of the criticism directed our way seems focused on what I call point of view politics and the expectation that our journalism should reflect an individual’s point of view or it is not legitimate,” he said.
“There is deep anger, disappointment and even intimidation imbedded in this criticism. Often, attacks question whether the story should be written in the first place. These voices say that we should not write about illegal immigration because it encourages Mexicans to sneak into the country and drain our resources; we should not write about police shootings because it might cause a cop to hesitate in a life threatening situation; we should not write about questionable conduct of a politician close to an election because it might influence the vote.
“Maybe those are questions of left or right, but they seem to reflect this desire for point-of-view journalism that has no place in what we do.”
Rene Knott Bumped in D.C.; Tracy Neale in Question
“Longtime WJLA week-night sports anchor Rene Knott is being replaced by Tim Brant, who served as the station’s sports director more than 20 years ago. Knott will take an as yet undefined secondary role at the ABC affiliate,” John Maynard reports in the Washington Post.
“Knott, who’s had the job for the past 11 years, said Brant’s hire was’quite a shock.’
“‘I understand the business and how these things work,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think at any time I was in jeopardy.'”
Meanwhile, Chris Baker reported in the Washington Times that “Tracey Neale has left the building. At least for now. Fox affiliate WTTG-TV (Channel 5) still hasn’t signed its star anchor to a new contract. Her current deal expires tomorrow.
“It is not clear whether Ms. Neale will return to the anchor desk she has commanded since joining Channel 5 in December 1994. She last appeared on WTTG on Dec. 9.”
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