Karla Harshaw Becomes ASNE President
Karla Garrett Harshaw, editor of Ohio’s Springfield News-Sun and senior editor for Cox Community Newspapers, has become the first woman of color to lead the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Harshaw, who also serves on the Maynard Institute board, was elected Friday as president of the nation’s largest and oldest organization of daily newspaper editors. She had been vice president.
In her first speech as the society’s president, Harshaw said she will focus on “connecting with communities and cultures,” ASNE reports in a news release.
“We need to reach out to all people if we are to have meaningful coverage,” said Harshaw, who serves a one-year term. “It is not just our mission to cover their problems, but to mainstream their voices into all aspects of coverage, whether on education, government matters or business.”
Harshaw vowed to push hard to increase diversity in newsrooms. “We can do this,” she said. “You, the editors of ASNE, can make it happen.”
ASNE has set a goal of matching the percentage of journalists of color with their percentages in communities by 2025.
Harshaw also said she will focus on newsroom ethics and fighting for open records.
Also elected were: Vice President Rick Rodriguez, executive editor of California’s Sacramento Bee; Secretary David Zeeck, executive editor of the News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.; and Treasurer Gilbert Bailon, executive editor, Dallas Morning News.
Other editors of color on the ASNE board are Milton Coleman, deputy managing editor, Washington Post; N. Don Wycliff, public editor, Chicago Tribune; Gerald M. Boyd, now at Columbia University School of Journalism; Kenneth F. Bunting, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Carolina Garcia, California’s Monterey County Herald.
Among the 16 committee chairs are:
Bunting, Campfire discussion project; Gregory L. Moore, Denver Post, convention program; Coleman, diversity; Wycliff, education for journalism; Caesar Andrews, Gannett News Service, ethics and values; Cynthia A. Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, international; and Bailon, readership.
Gonzalez Warns Against Hiring at Blacks’ Expense
Taking a second look at the latest diversity census from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Juan Gonzalez, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, says that, “it is clear that for the past few years the major companies, in their practice, have been opting to hire fewer blacks and Native Americans, and far more Asians, and to a lesser extent, Hispanics.”
In his president’s column on the NAHJ Web site, Gonzalez said he was speaking for himself and had not cleared his comments with the NAHJ board.
But, he said, “we must be vigilant about disproportionate hiring practices that could lead to resentment and division among us. In NAHJ’s new Parity Project we have already informed the newspaper executives we work with that we oppose any attempts to increase hiring of Hispanics at the expense of Blacks or Asians or Native Americans.
“There are some inescapable facts here: the greatest employment growth the past two years has come among Asians, who happen to be the minority group that is already the closest to relative parity, while the slowest growth, in percentage terms, has come among Blacks,” said the columnist for the New York Daily News.
“We should all be deeply concerned about the slowdown in hiring of Blacks. After all, Black journalists have been fighting to open up the doors of what was essentially a white media long before the rest of us. They were the first to organize themselves on a national level and their early battles paved the way for the entire affirmative action movement. White America still has more difficulty accepting Blacks on an equal footing than any other group.
“I am not claiming there is any conspiracy afoot, or any conscious intent to divide our groups by industry executives. . . . But we must all insist that the slow progress for one group not come at the expense of or complete stagnation for another,” Gonzalez wrote.
ASNE Figures Show Gender Gap Persists
“The latest census from the American Society of Newspaper Editors shows that — instead of leaping over the gaps in gender representation in the newsroom — women are still crawling toward the goalpost of gender equity,” writes Michele Weldon, an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and second vice president of the Journalism and Women Symposium, known as JAWS.
In a piece carried by Women’s eNews, Weldon notes that, “The numbers of women on the staffs of daily newspapers in 2003 increased minutely to 37.23 percent of newsroom employees” and that “men continue to dominate corner offices of upper management. Only 34.2 percent of supervisors are women, the study showed. With 65.8 percent male supervisors, men outnumber women supervisors almost 2 to 1.”
“The position of copy/layout editor is more gender-balanced with 41.4 percent of those jobs held by women,” she observes, adding that, “Though more women work as reporters than at any other position (with 49 percent of female newsroom employees working as reporters), there are still fewer female than male reporters.”
Weldon also observes that “Women represent more than 70 percent of students in journalism schools or at universities with journalism or communication programs. In the newsroom, however, that percentage has been cut in half.”
“There’s something broken with the system if almost two-thirds of the people who are studying journalism are female and less than half of the journalists working in newsrooms are women,” said David Nelson, associate professor and chair of the newspaper department at the Medill School of Journalism, in Weldon’s piece.
Pitts Asks What Kelley Means for White Journalism
Fresh from his Pulitzer Prize for commentary, Leonard Pitts attended last Thursday’s National Association of Minority Media Executives annual banquet, at which PBS’ Gwen Ifill asked whether white journalists would be convened to discuss the Jack Kelley scandal at USA Today.
The remark inspired Pitts’ latest column. Labeled, “An open letter to my colleagues in the news business,” Pitts writes, “You, my colleagues, have not asked the most important question:
“What does this mean for the future of white journalism?
“Granted, you’ve pontificated about our damaged credibility. “You’ve felled forests with your weighty ruminations about what this portends for the future of our profession. But, evidently cowed by political correctness, you’ve ignored the most vital issues.
“Did USA Today advance a moderately capable journalist because he was white? Did some white editor mentor him out of racial solidarity even though Kelley was unqualified? In light of this fiasco, should we re-examine the de facto affirmative action that gives white men preferential treatment in our newsrooms?”
Noting the gusto with which some white journalists noted disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair’s race, Pitts recalls that “some observers felt the circumstances of his hiring were almost as important as the reason for his firing. Columnist Andrew Sullivan claimed Blair got away with snookering the Times because his editors feared offending a black journalist.
“Columnist Richard Cohen told us Blair enjoyed ‘favoritism based on race.’
“Jennifer Harper, a reporter for the conservative Washington Times, wrote that the Blair episode made the New York paper a ‘case study on the effects of affirmative action in the newsroom.’
“A computer search Friday indicates that Sullivan, Cohen and Harper have thus far been silent on the racial dimensions of the Kelley incident. In fairness to those worthies, I’m sure they’re warming up their laptops even as we speak.”
Pitts: Superhero With a Keyboard (Wayne Dawkins, BlackAmericaWeb)
AAJA Gives Broadcasters More Than 150 DVDs
More than 150 DVDs featuring Asian American male broadcasters were distributed last week at the joint Radio-Television News Directors Association-National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, Randall Yip of the Asian American Journalists Association tells Journal-isms.
“We met many news directors, executive producers, other station managers and interested educators. Reaction to the DVD was overwhelmingly positive,” wrote Yip, AAJA vice-president/broadcast and co-executive producer of the project, in an e-mail.
“We distributed more than 150 dvds over the four days. We estimate that the convention attracted about 300 news directors. We had eight AAJA members at the convention helping to distribute the dvds and answer any questions.”
A study commissioned by AAJA in 2002 found only 20 Asian American male anchors and reporters in the 25 largest television markets. To help boost those numbers, AAJA compiled the DVD, which features more than 60 broadcasters.
“We are extremely pleased with the response, and will continue to market the dvd to interested stations,” said Yip, a 2003 graduate of the Maynard Institute management training program.
“The DVDS were available for free at RTNDA. Anybody else interested in the project may order one through our national office. An order form is available at aaja.org.
“The dvd is free, but there is a $15 mailing and handling charge for any dvds ordered through the national office.”
Rich Luna Abruptly Leaves Detroit News
Rich Luna, named metro editor of the Detroit News last July after leaving abruptly that month as managing editor of the Indianapolis Star, now has left the Detroit paper just as suddenly.
A note to the staff Tuesday said Luna had “left to pursue other opportunities,” echoing language used when he left the Star.
Luna was managing editor of the Statesman Journal of Salem, Ore., and served five years on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. All three papers are owned by Gannett.
“We’re just ecstatic about naming him,” said Detroit News Publisher and Editor Mark Silverman, when Luna was named.
“He brings great sophistication and people skills to this job.”
Elvis Mitchell Rumored to Be Leaving N.Y. Times
Elvis Mitchell, who with his New York Times platform is the nation’s highest profile African American film critic, is expected to be leaving the paper as another staffer, A.O. Scott, is named chief movie critic, according to Pamela McClintock, writing in Variety.
Scott, Mitchell and Stephen Holden were equal after lead reviewer Janet Maslin stepped down at the end of 1999, McClintock writes.
“There have been longtime rumblings of dissatisfaction at the Times with Mitchell, who was even rumored at one point last year to be among those under consideration to run the nascent Warner Independent Pictures,” she reports.
“Mitchell, who cultivates a dude-about-town image, apparently irked some at the paper with his numerous outside activities, such as recently hosting Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray events. Mitchell also is a visiting lecturer at Harvard U.’s African and African American Studies Dept.
“There’s some speculation that Mitchell has already turned in his resignation,” McClintock wrote.
Mitchell also reviews films for National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition Saturday,” a job he has held since the show’s inception in 1985. He joined the Times in January 2000 after being film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Detroit Free Press, the LA Weekly and California magazine, according to his bio.
He did not return telephone calls left at the Times.
David Squires Lands at Tribune Co.’s Va. Paper
David R. Squires, who has worked at a slew of newspapers and most recently was editor of the BlackVoices.com Web site and its Black Voices Quarterly magazine, has become deputy sports editor and columnist at the Daily Press in Newport News, Va.
The Daily Press is owned by the Tribune Co., which sold BlackVoices.com to America Online in February.
Will LaVeist, who was executive producer at Black Voices, also went to the Daily Press, starting late last month as a local columnist. LaVeist is a 1992 graduate of the Maynard Institute’s Editing Program for Minority Journalists.
In his most recent Friday column, Squires applauded Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s ruling that Maurice Clarett, Mike Williams and other aspirants from the high school class of ’04 would sit out the weekend’s NFL draft.
Mike Days: “I Was Getting This Job, You Hear Me?”
Michael Days, new managing editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, says he was determined to get the job; that “you’ll never see” again a front page like the infamous 2002 cover showing a gallery of people of color, all murder fugitives; and that he wants to tell the success stories as well as recounting other developments involving African Americans.
Days, 50, was asked by Philadelphia’s City Paper, “If you had not been selected for this post, would you have quit?”
Replied Days: “I made up my mind six years ago, when Ellen Foley got this job, that when it came around again I was getting this job. There was no doubt in my mind that I was getting this job, so that never crossed my mind because I was getting this job, you hear me?”
Defender Boss Vows Plagiarism Won’t Happen Again
The editor and publisher of the Chicago Defender, the venerable African American newspaper that on April 1 acknowledged that it had lifted an entire editorial from another paper in town and presented it as its own, vows that “it’s not going to happen again.”
David Milliner told Journal-isms on Wednesday that there would be no recurrence “because I said so. The newsroom is under new management. There was misinformation” that was directed to the wrong queue, he said in his explanation of how the incident took place.
Milliner did not say when the new management was put in place, who it was or how the incident could have resulted from placing an editorial in a wrong queue. The Chicago Reader said in its story that the plagiarized paper, “The Outlook — a free weekly launched in 1999 by the owners of the Hyde Park Herald to cover Bronzeville — doesn’t even have its own Web site. For this oversight to have occurred, someone had to retype the editorials.”
Milliner, reached while on vacation, said he was leaving the country and asked Journal-isms to put any questions in writing. So far, there has been no response.
A prominent Chicago marketing and public relations executive, Milliner became publisher of the newspaper in January 2003 after Real Times Inc., a Chicago-based multimedia company comprising influential Detroit and Chicago-based investors, acquired Sengstacke Enterprises Inc., which published the Michigan Chronicle, the Chicago Defender, the New Pittsburgh Courier, and the Memphis Tri-State Defender. Milliner was one of the investors.
Chester Commodore, Defender Cartoonist, Dies
Chester Commodore, who became the leading staff cartoonist for Chicago’s Daily Defender in 1950 and was still doing weekly cartoons for the Defender 23 years after he retired, died Saturday at age 89, as Brenda Warner Rotzoll writes in the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Mr. Commodore’s last cartoon appeared in the Defender on April 8, two days before a heart attack claimed his life.
“The final cartoon showed a tortoise labeled ‘income’ pursuing a hare kicking up a cloud of dust labeled ‘high costs,’ with a squirrel at the roadside asking, ‘Think you’ll ever be able t’close the gap a little bit?'”
Interview with Commodore
When Trouble Strikes, Some Turn to Black Press
“Janet Jackson’s ‘Nipplegate’ has proved once again that it takes a crisis of Titanic proportions to get the black press some attention,” writes Ronda Racha Penrice on africana.com, citing a number of examples.
“Most of the times, first-hand stories about superstars like Janet Jackson are reserved for the pages of mainstream media, regardless of the fact that black media, black audiences, have been in their corner since day one. Once crossover success is achieved, black press access is cut off.”
Supporters Celebrate Abu-Jamal’s 50th Birthday
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the one-time president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists who is on death row in the shooting of a police officer, celebrated his 50th birthday Saturday, preceding it with the release of his fifth book, “We Want Freedom: A Life In The Black Panther Party,” and giving an interview from prison to Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy, Now!”
A march and rally had been planned for Saturday, his birthday.
Amy Goodman of “Democracy, Now!” Has Opinions, Will Travel (Los Angeles Times)
McGruder Says He Became “Political” After 9/11
Aaron McGruder, the “Boondocks” comic-strip creator who is the subject of a cover piece in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, says that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, “Journalists stopped being journalists. All this cheerleading started. All of a sudden this lame president was being hailed as a bold national leader. No one was asking questions about how every system designed to protect this country failed. And where were all these flags coming from?
“I was disgusted by the whole thing. And I thought, ‘What am I going to write about now? Puffy? That seems stupid now.’ I suddenly knew what I wanted to do. And the material just wrote itself. It was then I became a political cartoonist,” he says in the piece, written by Greg Braxton.
McGruder is overseeing animated footage for a TV pilot based on his edgy comic strip, the piece says, but, “The tv pilot is just the tip of the evolving McGruder empire. He, [filmmaker Reginald] Hudlin and artist Kyle Baker are putting the final touches on their upcoming graphic novel ‘Birth of a Nation,’ about the chaos that erupts when East St. Louis secedes from the country. A ‘Boondocks’ movie, merchandise and a clothing line are planned.”
McGruder also says that Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, asked to be put into his strip. He did so: In one series, characters Huey and Riley said they needed to find a boyfriend for Rice because, “if she had a man in her life, she wouldn’t be so hellbent on destroying the world.”
FCC Says Crank Call to Castro Warrants $4,000 Fine
“A radio station that crank-called Cuban President Fidel Castro and broadcast the recording should be fined $4,000, the Federal Communications Commission said,” reports the Associated Press.
“The Spanish-speaking hosts of ‘The Morning High Jinks’ used snippets of an earlier prank involving Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to move the call from a receptionist up the chain to Castro in a five-minute broadcast June 17.
“The WXDJ-FM hosts, Joe Ferrero and Enrique Santos, fed pleasantries to Castro before breaking in and calling him an assassin. The conversation ended after Castro denounced the callers with a stream of vulgarities,” AP reports.
