Honey, Heart & Soul to Be Sold Separately
Jungle Media Group, a small New York publishing house run by three MBAs and described by its CEO as “significantly minority-owned and operated,” today won the bidding for the assets of Savoy magazine, the chief publication of Vanguarde Media, which filed for protection from bankruptcy late last year.
Jungle Media already publishes Savoy Professional, a twice-yearly offshoot of Savoy that was designed to “put a hip, new face on career-related content for the powerful, growing group of African American business managers,” as the publication announced in January 2003.
But though Milton L. Williams Jr., associate general counsel for Time Inc., the publishing arm of Time Warner, was quoted as telling Bankruptcy Court Judge Allan Gropper last week that, “There is every possibility that Time Warner will bid on Vanguarde,” Time Warner did not enter a bid, Joseph Samet, a lawyer representing Vanguarde, told Journal-isms.
As a corporation with a bureaucracy, it might not have been possible for Time Warner to act quickly enough.
Heart & Soul and Honey magazines, Vanguarde’s two other primary publications, will be sold separately, Samet said, with the next court session set for May 12.
Jon Housman, CEO of Jungle Media Group, told Journal-isms he hopes to relaunch Savoy, the lifestyles magazine that was the centerpiece of Vanguarde Media, toward the end of the year, and increase the frequency of Savoy Professional to perhaps three or four times a year.
“This is just hours old,” Housman said, explaining his tentativeness, adding that closing the deal will take another 30 to 45 days. But, he said, “we will be bringing on new folks” for the relaunch of Savoy.
Originally, Housman said his firm was interested only in Savoy Professional, but “over the last couple of months, we got more and more excited about Savoy itself. We talked with advertisers, readers, and it’s just clear that in spite of the bankruptcy” and other problems, “the brand just has a lot of attraction.”
In bankruptcy court in Manhattan this morning, Jungle Media bid $375,000 plus the assumption of consumer liablities, not to exceed $516,000, Samet said.
Earl G. Graves, the publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, who was also interested in the properties, declined to outbid Jungle Media, Samet said. His bid was $350,000, according to Joseph E. Sarachek, managing partner of Triax Capital Advisors, the firm overseeing Vanguarde’s restructuring.
Housman had described his firm as “significantly minority-owned and operated,” though the figure is not 50 percent, and having a strong interest in diversity. Its products include Jungle magazine, described as “a young person’s Fortune- meets-Esquire”; Jungle Law, a sister publication for the legal profession; Hispanico, a Latino business magazine; Break, a travel and lifestyle magazine targeted at those 18 to 25; and Your Career, a forthcoming publication in partnership with the Wall Street Journal.
Vanguarde Media was founded in 1999 by former CEO Keith Clinkscales. It went out of business in November, shutting down the magazines and throwing more than 70 people out of work.
Circulation for Savoy, which aspired to be a “black Vanity Fair,” was 325,000; Honey, a female hip-hop magazine refashioned as “a fashion and entertainment magazine aimed at stylish urban women,” 400,000; and the health-oriented Heart & Soul, also 400,000.
Jungle Media Group Management Team
Magazines Lag Behind Other Media on Diversity
Vanguarde was the ?antidote? to a magazine industry that retains the lily-white look of the Saturday Evening Post’s America, where African Americans are rarely seen and almost never in positions of power, according to Ron Stodghill, Savoy’s last editor, as quoted in Folio, the magazine about magazines.
?The people who lost their positions at Vanguarde instinctively knew that they wouldn’t get the same positions in mainstream media,? Stodghill says in the piece.
“In his job search, Stodghill saw just how backward the magazine business is when it comes to diversity. It was easy to find openings at major dailies where minority readers are important to circ[ulation]. But magazines slots were scarce. ‘At newspapers there are plenty of top editors who are black. Newspapers are farther along than magazines,’ he says. ‘The more you go up the food chain from wire services to dailies to weeklies to magazines, the whiter it becomes.’ Stodghill landed back at Time Inc. as a senior editor at Fortune Small Business,” continues the piece, “The Color of the Magazine Industry” by Susan Thea Posnock.
“While there are no concrete numbers to measure the ethnic makeup of magazine staffs, a 2002 report on the periodicals industry by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shows that minorities ? Black, Asian or Native American ? make up 18.9 percent of the workforce. When it comes to managerial positions, the stats are only 11 percent. Magazines trail other EEOC categories, including television broadcasting, where minorities are 23.6 percent of the workforce, cable TV, 34.4 percent, and newspapers, 22.9 percent. For all industries, minorities make up 30 percent of workers,” Posnock writes.
Writer Links Iraq Prison Horror to Arab Images
“Why are we surprised at their racism, their brutality, their sheer callousness towards Arabs?” asks Mideast reporter Robert Fisk in the Independent of London, discussing the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by Americans revealed first on Wednesday by CBS’ “60 Minutes II.”
“Those American soldiers in Saddam’s old prison at Abu Ghraib, those young British squaddies in Basra came — as soldiers often come — from towns and cities where race hatred has a home: Tennessee and Lancashire,” Fisk writes in a piece reprinted on the Counterpunch Web site.
“How many of ‘our’ lads are ex-jailbirds themselves? How many support the British National Party? Muslims, Arabs, ‘cloth heads’, ‘rag heads’, ‘terrorists’, ‘evil’. You can see how the semantics break down.
“Add to that the poisonous, racial dribble of a hundred Hollywood movies that depict Arabs as dirty, lecherous, untrustworthy and violent people — and soldiers are addicted to movies — and it’s not difficult to see how some British scumbag will urinate into the face of a hooded man, how some American sadist will stand a hooded Iraqi on a box with wires tied to his hands.
“The sexual sadism — the bobby-sox girl soldier who points at a man’s genitals, the mock orgy in Abu Ghraib prison, the British rifle in the prisoner’s mouth — might be a crazed attempt to balance all those lies about the Arab world, about the desert warrior’s potency, the harem, polygamy. Even today, we still show the revolting Ashanti on our television stations, a feature film about the kidnapping of the wife of an English doctor by Arab slave-traders, which depicts Arabs as almost exclusively child-molesters, rapists, murderers, liars and thieves. It stars — heaven spare us — Michael Caine, Omar Sharif and Peter Ustinov and was made partly in Israel.
“Indeed, we now depict Arabs in our films as the Nazis once depicted Jews. But Arabs are fair game. Potential terrorists to a man — and a woman — they must be softened up, ‘prepared’, humiliated, beaten, tortured.”
Jorge Gestoso, Anchor for CNN en Español, Leaving
Jorge Gestoso, the chief anchor for CNN en Español and the only remaining employee who was in the division when it launched in 1988, announced today he is leaving when his contract ends May 31.
?After 16 years as main anchor for CNN en Español and senior correspondent in Washington, D.C., I have decided this chapter of my career is closed,? he said in a news release from Pareja Media Match. “The Uruguayan journalist, who also held the posts of senior editor and advisor to the president, plans to continue his career in television and in the production of first-quality Spanish-language independent journalism,” the news release said.
Gestoso was often considered the Spanish-language equivalent of ABC?s Peter Jennings and has been the face of CNN en Español and the network?s symbol throughout the U.S. and Latin America, the release said. Gestoso was also the first national evening news anchor for the U.S. Spanish-language television network Telemundo, currently owned by NBC.
He is fluent in Spanish, English and French.
Yusef Jackson Hears Details for Sun-Times Bidding
Yusef Jackson, a son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and financial partner Ronald Burkle, a grocery billionaire, were among four bidders who listened to Hollinger International Inc.’s Chicago managers and Lazard LLC conclude a series of financial presentations to bidders for the Chicago Sun-Times and Hollinger’s 100 other Chicago-area publications, according to Crain’s Chicago Business.
The Rev. Jackson’s No. 3 son is a lawyer who heads an Anheuser-Busch distributorship in Chicago’s River North neighborhood.
2 Outlets Say Elvis Mitchell Quit N.Y. Times
“New York Times executive editor Bill Keller is said to be begging movie critic Elvis Mitchell to change his mind about quitting the Gray Lady,” reports the New York Post Page Six column, chiefly written by Richard Johnson.
“Mitchell resigned two weeks ago after colleague A. O. (Tony) Scott was made lead film critic — a title long vacant — by Arts & Leisure boss Steve Erlanger.”
“Many at the Times thought he was, if anything, a bit overappreciated,” writes Carl Swanson in New York magazine.
“Mitchell is known for his opportunism as much as his talent, and he has a great ability to generate opportunities for himself. Often too many, to the point where it could be an editing adventure to track him down to get him to file.”
Mitchell’s phone still rings at the Times. Neither Erlanger nor Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis returned inquiries today from Journal-isms. With his Times platform, Mitchell was the most visible African American film critic.
Weekly “La Raza” Goes Daily Online
La Raza, the Chicago Spanish-language weekly, launched a daily version online Sunday.
La Raza Online will be updated with local, national and international news as well as content from “virtually all departments” in the paper, said Robert Armband, CEO of the paper’s parent, PrensAmerica Corp., Mark Fitzgerald reported in Editor & Publisher.
“We have the largest Hispanic editorial department in Chicago and we generate more news than we can publish in our weekly format,” Editor Elbio Rodriguez Barilari said in a statement. “Therefore, we have decided to offer this news and much more, online.” Content for La Raza Online will be managed by newly appointed Online Editor Monica Valenti, Fitzgerald wrote.
“La Raza will continue to publish about 200,000 copies of the printed newspaper for distribution to heavily Hispanic ZIP Codes throughout the Chicago metropolitan area. Since October, La Raza, which has a mix of mostly free-distribution and some paid circulation, has faced competition from Tribune Co.’s five-day-a-week Hoy, which has a 25-cent cover price during the week and distributes a total market coverage (TMC) product to heavily Hispanic ZIP Codes on weekends.”
St. Pete Times Runs First Spanish-Language Story
Florida’s St. Petersburg Times published its first ever Spanish-language story on April 25, “Following Francisco.”
It traces the history of the 20,000-plus Mexicans living in Tampa Bay. They all hail from five tiny towns in Hidalgo, Mexico, notes Adrienne P. Samuels, who co-wrote the 5,635-word piece along with David Adams, Times Latin American correspondent.
Ombudsman Sees No Obligation to Cover Racists
“Should the media put a spotlight on racists, anti-Semites and other supremacists and allow them to hang themselves with their own words, or should hate groups be left under their rocks on the grounds that their blather could end up creating a weapon of mass deception rather than a noose?”
That question came up in Sacramento as Holocaust deniers planned to meet in the city for a conference, Sacramento Bee ombudsman Tony Marcano explained to readers Sunday.
“Bee Assistant Managing Editor Scott Lebar, who oversees Metro coverage, said those questions are usually considered on a case-by-case basis,” Marcano said.
But, Marcano added:
“Objectivity, however, is not the only criterion for proper media coverage — a notion many critics of the press fail to take into account. Context and perspective are also necessary. The Bee has no obligation to give voice to anyone skulking behind a veil of deceit and half-truths (hold the snide comments about whichever political party you dislike, please). If it did, the paper would have to cover every press conference convened by people claiming to have incontrovertible proof that the world is flat or that a particular ethnic group is all Satan’s spawn. The media can be fair to them only by declining to exacerbate whatever childhood trauma, physiological imbalance or psychological disorder convinces them that such delusions are true.
“To cite something that’s actually true to life, imagine if the press had not taken a moral stance during the civil rights movement. We would have ended up with images of Ku Klux Klan members handing out candy to balance the horrific accounts of Southern blacks being mangled by attack dogs.”
Sherri Brown-Jackson Gets ME Job in La.
Sherri Brown-Jackson, former city editor of The Journal Times in Racine, Wis., returns to her native Louisiana to become managing editor of the Alexandria Daily Town Talk, the Gannett Co. announces.
“Jackson started her newspaper career in 1988 as a reporter at The Sun Reporter, a black-owned weekly in San Francisco. In 1990, she joined the Daily Star in Hammond, La., where she grew up, as a news reporter covering schools. She became a special education teacher in Hammond in 1995. In 1998, she joined The Journal Times as an education reporter. In 2000, she was named assistant city editor, and a year later she was named city editor.”
