Broadcast Media Pick Up on Ga. Teen’s Case
Defenders of Marcus Dixon, an African American scholar-athlete in Floyd County, Ga., who has been sentenced to a mandatory 10 years in prison after having sex with a 15-year-old white classmate, are succeeding in drawing broadcast media attention to what they call a grave injustice.
“Four of the jurors who convicted Dixon, then 18, have said since that they did not expect such a severe sentence,” Mark Niesse of the Associated Press reported.
“Dixon claimed the sex was consensual, and the jury cleared him of rape, sexual battery, false imprisonment and aggravated assault. By doing so, jurors found that Dixon had not forced the girl to have sex.”
The case, which went today to the Georgia Supreme Court, is to be the subject of ABC-TV’s “Nightline” tonight.
In the last week, the Dixon case has been explored on Fox News’ “Big Story, Weekend Edition” (Saturday) and the “CBS Evening News” (Monday), and in People magazine (Jan. 19 issue).
But Carolyn Kresky, a spokeswoman for the Children’s Defense Fund, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, said she hadn’t seen a lot of print reporting on it. “A press release went out, and they’re not biting,” she said.
Media attention slowly began to build after Bryant Gumbel and his crew went to Rome, Ga., to report on the former Pepperell High football player’s case for his “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel,” which aired on HBO Oct. 28. In fact, it was the Gumbel show that first alerted the Children’s Defense Fund, Kresky told Journal-isms.
“Most media portrayed the Dixon case as Old South justice and a sentence that was far too severe for the crime,” wrote Norman Arey Tuesday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which has been one of the few general-circulation newspapers to write about the case, along with the Nashville Tennessean and the Dallas Morning News. “Others, especially African-American broadcast outlets and Web sites, said the sentence was stern because Dixon was black and the girl was white.”
Web site on the case: http://www.helpmarcus.com
Are Reporters of Color on ’04 Campaign Trail?
The appearance on the Washington Post’s front page of an Iowa caucus story by Vanessa Williams, a Post assistant city editor and past president of the National Association of Black Journalists, gave some hope that the press corps covering the 2004 campaign would be more diverse than the largely monochromatic one that reported on the campaign of 2000.
That would be a good subject for a new Web site devoted to analyzing reporters’ coverage of the presidential campaign.
As Jacques Steinberg reported in the New York Times last week:
“The site, the Campaign Desk (http://campaigndesk.org), is a venture of The Columbia Journalism Review and its publisher, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Journalists are the Web site’s primary audience, but it is also for readers, viewers and listeners of the coverage.”
Asked about the idea, Steve Lovelady, the site’s managing editor and a former managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, told Journal-isms that looking at the diversity of the press corps “is just a logical thing to look at at some point. In all likelihood, we probably will.”
As reported in August, Democratic candidate Al Sharpton already has contended that “when you look at the lack of diversity in the newsrooms, when you look at the lack of diversity from the editors and those in power, then you see them as automatically dismissive of anything that is not like them, which is white males.”
L.A. Times to Hire 60 Journos for New L.A.”Hoy”
“A Los Angeles edition of the Spanish-language daily Hoy will be launched in March, Tribune Co. said Monday,” reports Roger Vincent in the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune newspaper.
Louis Sito, publisher of Hoy, said in the piece that he expected to hire about 60 journalists and 40 advertising and support workers to produce the Los Angeles edition, which would be headquartered downtown.
“The announcement came on the heels of a report last week that the parent companies of La Opinion, the dominant Spanish-language daily in Los Angeles, and El Diario/La Prensa, a New York newspaper published in Spanish, would join forces and expand their empire through acquisitions,” Vincent wrote.
“Tribune already publishes editions of Hoy in Chicago and New York. The 5-year-old newspaper, with total circulation of 94,000, is the second-largest Spanish-language newspaper in the country after La Opinion.
“The newspaper will devote pages each day to news from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Los Angeles is the largest Spanish-language market in the country, said Sito,” the piece continued.
Indian Leaders Say Reporters Aren’t Trusted
Over the years, Indians in California “have learned that the press isn’t a place to find ‘fair and balanced’ information about tribes, writes Indianz.com.
“‘There’s so little trust,’ said Mary Ann Andreas, a prominent tribal leader who is running for state office.
“‘There’s no trust,’ Louis Sahagan, a reporter for The Los Angeles Times, quickly added.
“Sentiments like these were expressed at the 9th annual Western Indian Gaming Conference, which took place in Palm Springs last week,” the story continued. “A panel held on Thursday morning brought together three members of the mainstream media with the people they are assigned to write about.
“The session gave tribal leaders a chance to air complaints about the press. They said reporters too often dwell on the negative aspects of Indian Country, portraying tribes and sovereignty as something to be feared.”
Janice Min Scoring With Us Weekly
“A funny thing happened once Bonnie Fuller left Us Weekly — circulation kept going up. Now it appears poised to rise even further, despite widespread problems with single-copy sales across the magazine industry,” writes Keith J. Kelly in the New York Post.
“Under Bonnie successor Janice Min, the magazine is expected to report a 19 percent increase in total paid circulation to 1,308,722 for the six-month period that ended Dec. 31, 2003, sources said.”
30 Picked to Learn Newspaper Management
“The Newspaper Association of America has chosen 30 newspaper-industry professionals to participate in the first half of its 2004 Minority Fellowship program,” the association announces.
“The fellowships are presented twice yearly and are designed to broaden opportunities for minority professionals to advance their careers in newspaper management. The program began 23 years ago, and more than 800 newspaper professionals have participated in it.”
The names of those chosen are listed in the NAA news release.
Del Walters to Head Baltimore Investigations Team
“Longtime Washington television news reporter and anchor Del Walters is to join WMAR-TV later this month to head up its investigative efforts,” writes David Folkenflik of the Baltimore Sun.
“‘He has won more awards than you can count in the investigative area,’ WMAR general manager Drew Berry says. ‘Everybody knows how strong he is.’
“Formally, Walters will become managing editor of the investigative team. He will also serve as an anchor on one of the station’s evening newscasts. Walters says he recognizes the station’s challenges. Its news shows are perennial ratings laggards, and WMAR is searching for its fourth news director in as many years. But Walters says it is committed to smart, hard-hitting journalism,” the piece continues.
“Soldiers Without Swords” at Indiana State Museum
“‘The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords,’ a 90-minute documentary film that chronicles the rise and significance of the black press, from the antebellum period through Reconstruction, the Great Migration, World War II and the civil rights era,” is playing at the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis, Martin DeAgostino reports in the South Bend Tribune.
His story calls Stanley Nelson’s 1998 film “a compelling and insightful tribute to an overlooked institution that helped shape the nation.”
“Three heroes emerge in the telling,” he continues. “Charlotta Bass, the longtime publisher of the California Eagle; Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender; and Robert L. Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier, who also served as an assistant U.S. attorney general under Franklin D. Roosevelt.”
Divas Not Fighting Over Cover, Essence Says
Essence magazine is dismissing a gossip item in the New York Daily News Tuesday that has Beyoncé Knowles and Janet Jackson fighting over who will get the center spot when they appear on an Essence cover with Mary J. Blige.
George Rush and Joanna Molloy reported that “word is that Knowles now wants the center spot in the photo — a position Jackson is said to have already reserved.
“Knowles’ rep tells us: ‘Beyoncé and Janet never discussed this cover. Whoever is feeding [this] is trying to taint three successful women.'”
An Essence spokeswoman told Journal-isms there is “no conflict, no fighting or internal discussion” and that the selection of who will be where on the cover has not been made. “A cover is like art — you can’t determine art” in advance, she said. She would not say which issue’s cover would feature the three singers.
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