AAJA Joins Controversy Over Restaurant Name
The Asian American Journalists Association has weighed in on a controversy over the name of “Chink’s Steaks” restaurant in Philadelphia, so named in 1949 because its white owner, the late Samuel “Chink” Sherman, “had slanty eyes . . . and the kids started calling him ‘chink,'” according to his widow, Mildred Sherman, as quoted in the Philadelphia Daily News.
“Many people didn’t learn of his real name until they attended his funeral in 1997,” she said in the Daily News. She said the nickname is etched on her husband’s gravestone.
The newspaper sided editorially with the restaurant and with readers who are saying 9-to-1 that they oppose changing the name. On Tuesday, the paper plans to run a an op-ed piece with an opposing view, Michael Schefer, the Daily News’ letters and op-ed editor, told Journal-isms. He said he hadn’t yet seen the AAJA letter.
“AAJA-Philadelphia members helped influence their newsrooms to bring attention to this matter, and so far, two TV stations — Fox29 and ABC-6 — as well radio station WHYY and the Philadelphia City Paper have covered the issue and the Asian-American community’s concerns about the word ‘Chink,’ AAJA President Mae Cheng says in a note on the organization’s Web site. “The coverage has sparked other organizations, including the Organization of Chinese Americans, to get involved.”
“‘Chink’ is a racial slur, plain and simple,” Cheng wrote in her letter to the Daily News, also posted on the AAJA Web site. . . . The Daily News’ editorial board neglected its duty to show leadership in the community. Instead of providing a voice of reason on the power of language and words or helping to mediate a resolution, the paper summarily dismissed the concern as a ‘silly waste of people’s time and energy.’ That is unconscionable.”
Tomorrow’s op-ed is by Stella Tsai and James E. Elam. Tsai is on the executive committee, Asian American Bar Association of the Delaware Valley, and Elam is president, Barrister’s Association of Philadelphia.
In addition, a five-member Asian American delegation, mostly of lawyers and activists who were “accomplished, well-spoken and extremely upset,” met with the Daily News editorial board for an hour and 15 minutes, Schefer said.
The controversy has ended up on a Fox Web site on controversies about presumed “political correctness.”
Text of Daily News editorial at the end of today’s posting.
FCC’s Powell Wants Probe of Janet Jackson “Stunt”
“Expressing outrage over the Super Bowl halftime show in which performer Janet Jackson’s breast was bared, FCC chairman Michael Powell ordered his agency to launch an investigation into the incident,” Brooks Boliek reports today in the Hollywood Reporter.
“‘I am outraged at what I saw during the halftime show of the Super Bowl. Like millions of Americans, my family and I gathered around the television for a celebration,’ he said. ‘Instead, that celebration was tainted by a classless, crass and deplorable stunt. Our nation’s children, parents and citizens deserve better. I have instructed the Commission to open an immediate investigation into last night’s broadcast. Our investigation will be thorough and swift.’
“It is unusual for the chairman of the commission to order an investigation into a possible indecency violation, but the FCC has come under increasing pressure to crack down on smut on TV. Just last week Congress conducted a hearing on the issue and legislation that would increase the fines a station faces for indecent broadcasts to $275,000 an incident, up from $27,500 is on the fast track.”
Meanwhile, ABC News’ “Nightline” plans to devote its show tonight to the issue of television decency in light of the incident. Discussing it will be syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, Frank Rich of the New York Times and Robert J. Thompson, founding director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.
Tagliabue Vows to Avoid Repeat (washingtonpost.com).
Mary Gardner, Latino Journalists’ Mentor, Dies at 84
Mary Gardner, a longtime journalism professor at Michigan State University who was known as a pioneer, died June 22 at 84. She had Alzheimer’s disease.
Gardner “opened doors for many Latino journalists in the U.S. and Mexico,” says a statement from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and she was inducted to the association’s Hall of Fame last year during NAHJ’s New York convention.
Gardner was the first woman to earn tenure as a journalism professor at MSU and the first woman elected president of the Association of Journalism and Mass Communications, Michigan’s Lansing State Journal reported.
She also helped establish the “Hispanics in Journalism Program” at MSU, the first of its kind.
“Dr. Gardner devoted much of her career to mentoring and nurturing the careers of Latino journalists in the United States and Mexican journalists in Mexico,” NAHJ said. “Dr. Gardner wrote extensively about issues affecting minority and Hispanic journalists in the United States. She also published numerous articles and papers about journalism in Latin America, including ‘The Press of Guatemala’ and ‘The Evolution of the Inter-American Press Association.'”
Presstime Takes Look at Diversity Efforts
Presstime, the magazine of the Newspaper Association of America, the trade association for newspaper publishers, takes a look at diversity efforts this month.
Some quotes from the piece, written by Travis Loop:
- “The challenge we face with diversity is so great that we just have to talk about it openly, critically and constantly,” says Gregory Moore, editor of The Denver Post.
- “Too many people believe diversity means having a few more people of color on staff,” says Ernest Sotomayor, Long Island editor for Newsday in Melville, N.Y., and president of Unity. “It means having a wide spectrum of thought in your newspaper — wide representation across racial, ethnic, political, gender, economic, age, sexual orientation, religious and other social lines.”
- “Sometimes [diversity] is just boiled down to a numbers game, but ultimately it is about coverage that is reflective of the entire community and the ability to be successful as a business enterprise,” says Peter Bhatia, executive editor of The Oregonian in Portland and president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. “Newspapers are the last mass market product and for them to be successful, they must be relevant to all perspectives.”
- “I get the sense that people are tired of hearing the word ‘diversity,’ that the message has been repeated so much it is falling on deaf ears,” says Mae Cheng, national president of the Asian American Journalists Association and a Newsday staff writer.
- “Some are moving away from the ‘D’ word because it has become contaminated, defined differently and is a code word for quotas or political correctness,” says Aly Colón, ethics group leader and diversity program director at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg.
- “Some would say that diversity is everyone’s job, and that is right, but if it’s everyone’s job, then at too many papers it is nobody’s job,” says David Yarnold, San Jose Mercury News editor and senior vice president, and ASNE diversity chair.
- “The industry should shine a light on the accomplishments of minority journalists so that they aren’t represented by a 27-year-old con man named Jayson Blair,” says Herbert Lowe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists. “We should highlight achievements of people like Sonya Ross, an African American reporter who was aboard Air Force One on Sept. 11, 2001, reporting for The Associated Press.”
Meanwhile, the Gannett Co. has started a special diversity section on its News Department Web site.
E-Mailers Criticize Juan Williams Talk With Cheney
National Public Radio received e-mails of protest from listeners who thought interviewer Juan Williams went easy on Vice President Dick Cheney, though the Jan. 22 session “was the most in-depth interview the vice president has given any broadcast news organization for some time,” writes NPR’s ombudsman Jeffrey A. Dvorkin.
However, Dvorkin says, “While the interview may not have achieved the argumentative tone that some listeners would have liked, it was for the most part, a solid interview. Journalism, like politics, can also be described as a marathon, not a sprint. NPR coverage can be judged by single interviews; it can and should also be judged by what else it does in other reports.
“NPR has reported on the role of Halliburton in the reconstruction of Iraq and of Vice President Cheney’s past and continuing associations with the company.”
Questions Raised About Malcolm Gladwell Deal
“The career of Malcolm Gladwell, a writer for The New Yorker and an author whose book, “The Tipping Point” (Little, Brown, 2000), popularized the term to the point of ubiquity, may be reaching an inflection point of its own,” writes David Carr in the New York Times.
“Mr. Gladwell’s theories of how change is often accelerated by ‘social epidemics’ has been followed rabidly by many companies, many of whom have paid him to speak at their conferences. Now one firm has developed a ‘Tipping Points index,’ and has formed what it calls ‘a research advisory alliance’ with Mr. Gladwell.
“. . . At many publications, however, writers are prohibited from doing business with companies that they could potentially write about,” Carr continues. “Mr. Gladwell said that Simmons Market Research paid him for the use of his ideas and for speaking fees, but that he has no continuing business or consulting arrangement with the firm. He said he saw no conflict in speaking for and collaborating with various companies, even though he occasionally writes about business.
“David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, declined to comment on Mr. Gladwell’s burgeoning sideline.”
Gladwell, who was born in England and raised in Canada by his white English dad and black Jamaican mother, explored his roots as a chapter in a 1998 book edited by Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn, “Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural.”
Find Racial Voting Data by Congressional District
“FairData, in association with Techpolitics, has published on the Web a series of interactive maps showing constituency and political data for the 108th Congress,” writes Ken Colburn,” a former legislative director of the Congressional Black Caucus. The material focuses on African American and Latino voters.
“These are exceptionally useful maps that show race, ethnicity, income, election results and party by congressional district. They permit zooming in to view geographic areas down to several blocks. The maps are based on census data contained in interactive tables on the Techpolitics web site.
“Go to the middle column at http://congress.techpolitics.org. The map is three clicks from that page, and the introductory material helps. The map is reached directly at athttp://216.55.182.132/FairData/Congressional/map.asp?command=scope&map=0, but you will miss links to state maps with detailed voter registration data.
“By clicking on the commands above the map and then clicking on the map, you may zoom in and out, find specific addresses and bring up data for the congressional district. At close-in levels tags show median household income for several block areas, and maps may be changed at any level to show colors reflecting other constituency information. The maps display best with Internet Explorer.”
Museum Series Tracks Evolution of Gays on TV
The Museum of Television & Radio is presenting “‘Not That There?s Anything Wrong with That’: The History of Gay and Lesbian Images on Television,” which it describes as “a comprehensive look at how gays and lesbians, in both drama and comedy programming, have made the journey from invisibility to mainstream prominence over the past 40 years.”
The screenings run from March 26 to June 27 in both New York and Los Angeles.
Philly Daily News Editorial on Restaurant Name
THE NAME GAME
Jan 13, 2004
EVEN though it’s been called “Chink’s” since the late ’40s, the popular Wissinoming restaurant is now the target of protests from some Asian-Americans.
We, too, are not amused . . . by this silly waste of people’s time and energy. Isn’t there enough real racial and ethnic strife in the world without having to manufacture some?
Just a casual look around reveals a host of businesses and products that could be labeled anti-semitic or racist: from Hymie’s Deli on the Main Line to Uncle Ben’s rice mix.
Even as clean a product as Spic-N-Span can sound foul. So let’s save the outrage for real acts of racism and injustice.
The words in blue (on most computers) are links leading to more information.
