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“Bigger, Richer, Happier”

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Reagan Policies Changed Landscape for Media

The news media’s week-long coverage of the times of Ronald Reagan has largely ignored the 40th president’s impact on, of all things, the news media.

But consider this Associated Press dispatch by Bill McCloskey, dated Aug. 7, 1985:

“WASHINGTON — Henry M. Rivera, who blocked abandonment of equal employment opportunity rules for broadcasters and led an unsuccessful fight for more regulation for children’s’ television, said Wednesday he was resigning from the Federal Communications Commission.

“‘Other than my service in Vietnam, it has certainly been the most challenging period in my life,’ Rivera said in announcing his resignation at a meeting of the five-member commission.

“Referring to his sometimes lonely battles to help minorities and monitor TV aimed at children, Rivera said, ‘Being the “Rambo” commissioner on many issues has not always been easy.’

“. . . The Albuquerque, N.M., native said he remained on the commission as long as he did because he feared minority and children’s issues would not be well represented if he left. Rivera is the only minority-group commissioner on the panel.”

Robert McChesney, a media historian at the University of Illinois, told Journal-isms that the Reagan legacy was “making the media companies bigger, richer and happier.” It was that administration that relaxed media ownership rules, loosened enforcement of antitrust regulations, declined to review mergers, and set up the climate for the massive media mergers that we have today, McChesney said.

Rivera noted today that not all media policies were the province of the FCC — some came under the Justice Department, that the FCC is an independent agency and that FCC actions cannot be attributed personally to Reagan. But Reagan did have the power of appointments, including naming a new FCC chairman, Mark Fowler, and Rivera told Journal-isms that “It’s fair to say those people were philosophically in tune with the administration.”

In the 1970s, the FCC had adopted an “ascertainment requirement” that required broadcasters to question members of the community to determine local needs in 19 areas ranging from agriculture to religion. If the broadcasting didn’t make acceptable efforts to be responsive to community concerns, that would be a factor in whether their licenses would be renewed.

It was a weapon that empowered community groups, who used the threat of license challenges to make gains in programming and employment for people of color.

“In 1981 the FCC eliminated its rules and policies that required radio stations to keep program logs and conduct ascertainment of community problems, imposing non-entertainment programming requirements and limiting the amount of commercial time. The FCC similarly deregulated television, eliminating ascertainment and other requirements in 1984,” as the Senate Commerce Committee was reminded in 1993.

Also eliminated was the Fairness Doctrine, adopted by the FCC in 1949, designed “to ensure the right of reply and the fair and adequate coverage of controversial issues of importance,” as Tim Gardam, a former director of programs at Britain’s Channel 4, wrote in an April 24 Financial Times piece.

“To the Reaganites, who saw information as no different from any other commodity, impartiality was redundant, a relic of a prohibition era. The free market should deliver a democracy’s news. A free market of ideas would be a fair one. Fowler is best remembered for his description of televisions as ‘toasters with pictures’. Thanks to the FCC, American television is the most deregulated in the world, with a lower level of public service intervention than in any other major country.”

The elimination of the Fairness Doctrine led to the proliferation of right-wing talk radio, as broadcasters were no longer obligated to attempt to be “fair and balanced.”

On the other side of the ledger, Rivera said, the Reagan-era commission extended policies of tax relief to encourage minority ownership of broadcast outlets, a recommendation of a committee he chaired. But the policy on tax certificates was eventually abandoned after it being abused, Rivera recalled.

More Black, Latino Columnists Comment on Reagan

 

Papers Honor “National Treasure,” Ray Charles

“He was a true American original who rose from humble beginnings to reshape his times for all who followed. Fans mourn his passing like few that came before. He made tens of millions proud to be an American,” writes Greg Mitchell, editor of the trade publication Editor & Publisher, and former executive editor of the rock magazine Crawdaddy.

“No, not Ron. Ray.

“When the great Ray Charles passed away unexpectedly on Thursday at the age of 73, newspapers scrambled to bring a sense of his genius and significance to the standard wire service reports, one of which opened by calling him ‘the Grammy-winning crooner.’

“The Orlando Sentinel certainly improved on that with: ‘Ray Charles has the distinction of being both a national treasure and an international phenomenon.’

“Richard Harrington, The Washington Post music critic, said he couldn’t believe Ray was mortal, calling him the most soulful singer of the century. He imagined that if Walt Whitman was still around, the poet would write, “I hear Ray Charles singing.”

“Reuters recalled Frank Sinatra calling Ray ‘the only genius in the business,’ Mitchell continued in his brief survey of newspaper coverage.

On Monday, “The Tavis Smiley Show” on National Public Radio plans to broadcast an interview with Charles originally recorded in August 2002. Local broadcast information is at www.npr.org/wheretohear. You can also listen online; click link below.

NPR coverage

Judge Rules for Eminem, Against The Source

“Comparing Eminem to Benny Goodman, Elvis Presley and Paul Simon, a federal judge ruled yesterday that the company that publishes a leading hip-hop magazine was in contempt of court for failing to comply with orders in a copyright battle with the rapper,” Michael Brick reported Thursday in the New York Times.

“In two separate orders released yesterday, Judge Gerard E. Lynch of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York awarded some monetary damages to Eminem’s record company, Shady Records, and dismissed counterclaims against Eminem himself, whose real name is Marshall B. Mathers III.

“Judge Lynch ruled that the publisher of The Source, Source Enterprises, had violated his injunction by publishing on its Web site (www.the source.com) lyrics ascribed to Eminem. The lyrics, which disparage black women, are several years old, written before Eminem acquired his fame. The judge said their publication by The Source carried the potential to impair the credibility of Eminem, who is white. Eminem has acknowledged writing them but described them as a product of adolescent heartbreak.

“Mathers is the most prominent of the handful of white hip-hop artists who have been artistically or commercially successful,” Judge Lynch wrote. “Like other white musicians who have been successful in musical genres or forms pioneered by Africans or African-Americans, from Benny Goodman to Elvis Presley to Paul Simon, Mathers has been accused of exploiting black culture; he in turn has asserted his respect for his black role models and peers, and has maintained that he comes by his hip-hop success honestly, as a young man from a poor urban background who has long been associated with African-American friends, neighbors and mentors.

“The magazine cast its publication of the lyrics as a journalistic exposé» Eminem and his record company cast it as copyright infringement, and the parties took their dispute to court. The main copyright infringement claim is still being litigated,” Brick wrote.

Sporadic Africa Coverage: “Deja Vu All Over Again”

An estimated 3.3 million people perished in a five-year war in the Congo and nearby countries, mainly through war-induced disease and famine, the Associated Press reports. And in renewed fighting this week in the Congolese town of Bukavu, at least 100 civilians have died in the past 10 days. Today, officials said a coup attempt by members of the presidential guard had been thwarted overnight in the capital, Kinshasa.

To the north, in the Sudan, “for the past year, Arab militias allied to Sudanese government forces and sometimes supported by the army and air force have driven people from their land in a counter-insurgency that has left thousands of villages in ruins and over 1m people displaced,” William Wallis reports today in the British-based Financial Times.

“UN and human rights groups say ethnic cleansing and war crimes have been committed. There is evidence across Darfur that large numbers of the displaced have been living and dying in virtual captivity at the hands of Arab militiamen known as Janjaweed, whose cattle are now grazing the empty farmland.”

Howard W. French, chief of the New York Times’ Shanghai bureau, was back in the States briefly to promote his new book, “A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa,” (Knopf, $25) based on his time in the ’90s as Times bureau chief for West and Central Africa.

Journal-isms asked him for this impressions of U.S. Africa coverage.

“As for Darfur, watching the sporadic way the media has focused on the crisis, it’s a case of deja vu all over again,” he wrote in an e-mail from China.

“The attention of the media in bringing crises to light in Africa is more important than in any other part of the world, because of the low diplomatic priority accorded to the continent. Unfortunately, this gives way to a cycle of negative reinforcement. Much of the press takes its cues from diplomats and from the world of officials, and since there is little enthusiasm for focusing on an African crisis, especially in the midst of the Iraqi crisis, bureaucrats mostly go through the motions on Sudan.

“To the crisis in Darfur, I’d like to add the crisis in eastern Congo, where issues left unresolved since the 1997-98 war to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko are festering badly. Although we hear little of it in the news, the eruption of a new war in eastern Congo poses catastrophic risks for all of Central Africa.”

One has to wonder whether death tolls that high on other continents would receive equivalent media coverage.

Africans at G8 Summit Meeting (allafrica.com)

Anchor Michael Hill Lands in New Orleans

Michael Hill, the early morning and noon anchor at Dallas’ KTVT-TV who left the station May 26 “to take some time off and tend to my health, family and house,” has landed in New Orleans.

He is going to WGNO-TV, the Tribune-owned ABC affiliate, to co-anchor the station’s 5, 6 and 10 pm newscasts Monday through Friday, the station announces. He starts Monday.

Globe’s Patricia Wen Wins Casey Award

Patricia Wen of the Boston Globe’s “Barbara?s Story: A Mother, Her Sons, Her Choice,? described as a “wrenching profile of a mother who gave up her two sons for adoption,” won the top Casey Medal Citation for a project or series in the over-200,000 circulation category.

“After a brutal rape sent her into depression, Barbara Paul struggled with an already tenuous grip on motherhood,” a news release says. “Neither an addict nor an abuser, Paul nonetheless was found by the state of Massachusetts to be an unfit mother. Charges of parental neglect led her two sons, ages 8 and 13, into foster care and then adoptions to which she reluctantly agreed. Wen?s account is carefully detailed and beautifully, sparingly written, illuminating a rarely seen corner of the child welfare system and its effects on a lost family.”

The Casey Journalism Center on Children and Families is a national, nonprofit program of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland in College Park.

“Barbara’s Story” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing this year, but the board decided not to award a prize in the category.

List of Casey winners

Kerry’s Ad Man for Hispanics Resigns

Three weeks ago, we reported that the John Kerry for president campaign had selected Armando Gutierrez, a veteran of Democratic campaigns based in Albuquerque, N.M., to run the advertising effort to reach Hispanics.

Now Guiterrez has resigned, Matthew Sturdevant reports in the Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times. The Kerry campaign “pulled a television commercial off the air Sunday after concerns that it may violate copyright laws because many of the photos appeared to be taken from the Caller-Times book ‘South Texas Heroes.’

Michael Ayala Leaves CBS’s Chicago Station

“Michael Ayala, whose contract was not renewed after three years as morning news anchor at WBBM-Channel 2, has left the CBS-owned station. His last day on the air, originally announced as June 17, was moved up by two weeks,” Robert Feder reports in the Chicago Sun-Times.

“It didn’t work out,” said a Channel 2 spokeswoman.

According to a bio, Ayala began his career as a criminal defense attorney in New York City and later became a business and legal affairs attorney with Warner-Music International.

Prior to joining WBBM, Ayala worked as a producer and reporter for Court TV, where he also served as an anchor for the program “Open Court.” Ayala joined WBBM in June 2001.

Dispute Over Black Newspaper Reading Habits

“While new research suggests that mainstream newspapers may not be the best way to reach Black newspaper readers, the real story may not be so black-and-white. The study, conducted by Amalgamated Publishers, which represents a nationwide network of Black newspapers, showed that the vast majority of Black newspaper readers do not read mainstream daily newspapers,” Michael Shields reports in Media Post.

“But Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research, which conducted the study for API, acknowledged that the findings are open to interpretation — that mainstream papers do reach African-Americans as well. The study does actually measure what percentage of African-Americans read a Black newspaper.

“In fact, annual newspaper readership research conducted by Scarborough Research for the Newspaper Association of America indicates that more than 50 percent of African-Americans read a mainstream daily newspaper in 2003 (based on a study of the top 50 markets). That compares with 54 percent of whites.”

9 Try Journalism as Diversity Institute Fellows

The Freedom Forum Diversity Institute welcomed its sixth class of journalism fellows Sunday, the Freedom Forum announces. The 12-week training program at Vanderbilt University is designed for people of color who want to become journalists but have not had formal journalism training.

New fellows at the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute and their sponsoring newspapers are:

Chris Amos, Advocate-Messenger, Danville, Ky.; Dana Arellano, Imperial Valley Press, El Centro, Calif.; Tarana Burke, Selma (Ala.) Times-Journal; Cynthia Franklin, Houston Chronicle; Elizabeth Green, Longview (Texas) News-Journal; Elwin Green, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Nishia Livingston, Wichita Falls (Texas) Times Record News; Mai Ly, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times; and Anthony Pennington, Norman (Okla.) Transcript.

Nielsen Names 11 Blacks, Latinos to Task Force

“Nielsen Media Research has announced the names of 11 Hispanic and African American community leaders from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago appointed to the Task Force on Television Measurement designed to help Nielsen ensure that its national and local samples are representative of the diverse TV audience,” Melissa Grego reports in Television Week.

“The panel was part of a deal brokered by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., when Nielsen agreed to delay the Local People Meter service for two months in New York in the face of continuing, even increasing criticism and questions about fault rates and data about viewing patterns among Hispanics and African Americans,” she writes.

“Chairing the task force will be former Illinois Congresswoman Cardiss Collins, who in 1996 convened an examination of Nielsen’s impact on African American TV producers and advertising agencies.

“Among the announced task force members is Bob Barocci, president and CEO of the Advertising Research Foundation, who had offered his group’s help in getting the stalled task force up and running.

“Other task force members include Melody Spann-Cooper, president and general manager of WVON-AM in Chicago; The Rev. James Deemus III, executive director of the Southside NAACP in Chicago; Ray Durazo, chair of the Latin Business Association in Los Angeles; Mary Gonzales Koenig, president of the Spanish Coalition for Jobs; Scott McDonald, senior VP for market research at Condé ?ast Publications; Byron Lewis, chairman and CEO of UniWorld Group; Guillermo Linares, former member of the New York City Council; Manuel Mirabal, president of the National Puerto-Rican Coalition; and Eleanor Tatum, publisher of The Amsterdam News in New York.”

Univision Sues Nielsen Over Ratings System (Los Angeles Times)

Memphis Says It Now Has What NABJ Wants

“A city that doesn’t have a hotel with 500 plus rooms can forget about the big national conventions. They’re not even interested. Memphis finally can claim it has such a hotel ,and it could put the city in line for bigger, more lucrative conventions,” reports WMC-TV in Memphis.

“Workers put the finishing touches on the new Marriott tower downtown, adding 200 new rooms, and giving the Marriott a total of 603 under one roof. But it’s too little too late for organizations like the National Association of Black Journalists, who recently scratched Memphis from a shortlist of future sites for its national convention because the city did not have enough hotel rooms.

“Memphis does not fit our convention model. Our people like to be in one to two hotels and we need to be close together,” said Stephanie Jones the Region 6 Director for the NABJ.

But, she said, “Any time the situation changes we would certainly look at Memphis again,” the station reported.

Elvis Mitchell Shopping Richard Pryor Book

“Elvis Mitchell, former New York Times reporter, has landed in the middle of a book auction. His proposal for a book about the comedian Richard Pryor is currently on the desks of several prominent New York editors,” reports Sara Nelson in the New York Post.

“The proposal is ‘unusual,’ says one editor who has seen it. It is nonlinear and suggests that the book will be part cultural history of America, part tour of the comedy world, part dishy anecdotes about Pryor ? including one in which the comedian’s scatological language made New Yorker writer Lillian Ross not just blush, but faint,” Nelson writes.

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