Journalists Asked for Help in Hanging Case
When Roy Veal’s body was found hanging from a tree in Woodville, Miss., in April, it became a source of controversy after some said they smelled a lynching, while officials ruled it a suicide. The real story, others said, was about land title loss by African Americans in Mississippi.
“Roy Veal was a familiar figure in the Wilkinson County clerk of courts office, researching a lawsuit to defend his family?s land, when turkey hunters in April found the 55-year-old hanging from a massive pecan tree,” as the New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote.
After we reprised the controversy two weeks ago, linking to Times-Picayune stories on the different media perspectives and on the deaths of Veal and three other black men who died in like manner, a friend of Veal contacted Journal-isms.
“Roy was living with me prior to his trip to Mississippi. He was like a brother to me.” wrote Charles V. McClain III from Washington state.
“I knew him for over fifteen years. He was estranged from his family and had not talked to several of them in years. I lent him one of my cell phones to take with him in case something happened on the trip. He carried a red journal my wife had given to him to write out ideas for a book on his great great grandfather who as it turns out was one of three free blacks in Mississippi in the early 1800’s.
“I did legal research on the lawsuit that was filed and he took over 150 pages of that research with him to Woodville to give to the family attorney. I received a call from him on the Sunday before his body was found. I detected optimism not depression. He said he would call me on the following Saturday. He left his car in Snohomish and drove his truck.
“I have proof of the oil on the land. I also can show that the deed to the property that was sold by his relative was corrected to include mineral rights. . . . I have never been contacted by any one doing any investigation and now since his death has been ruled a suicide two news stations have changed their minds on doing a story. I would like to know what really happened but I need some help. . . . He was a true friend and a good man. He deserves better.
“I have several items such as phone records, Deeds, land maps and mineral leases. I do not believe Roy committed suicide, although I will at least submit it could have happened under some extraordinary circumstance and even then I have doubts.”
McClain may be contacted at cvm.third@verizon.net.
After Civil Rights Apology, Paper Reaches Out
Now that the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader has apologized for neglecting “to cover the civil rights movement,” the paper plans to “try to solicit readers to tell the untold stories of that time,” the director of last Sunday’s corrective project tells Journal-isms.
“CLARIFICATION: It has come to the editor’s attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission,” is the way “The Struggle for Civil Rights in Lexington,” by Linda Blackford and Linda Minch, began on the front page Sunday.
“John Carroll, the editor of the Los Angeles Times, who edited this newspaper from 1979 to 1991, recently proposed a correction like the one above during a speech on journalism ethics. Today, as the nation celebrates its liberties and marks the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this report looks back at the hidden history of Lexington’s civil rights struggle — and how this newspaper covered it. Or failed to,” it continued.
John Voskohl, the paper’s assistant managing editor for projects, said staffers were discussing Carroll’s May speech when they decided that they should in fact correct the record. The weekend of Independence Day and the 40th anniversary July 2 of the Civil Rights Act seemed an appropriate time, he said. Even though the reaction has been “99.5 percent positive,” Voskohl said, most of it has been from outside Lexington. None of those on today’s newsroom staff were at the paper during that era, he said.
Speaking on Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy Now”, reporter Blackford called the response “really overwhelming. Just emails and, phone calls from everywhere, just people really pleased, really interested in this kind of story. It makes me wonder since I think that the majority of southern newspapers sort of had the same attitude. A lot of southern newspapers had the same attitude as the Herald-Leader. It’s interesting that people are just so interested in this kind of thing.”
The Herald-Leader wasn’t the only Southern paper to revisit past sins of omission last weekend.
In Mississippi, the Hattiesburg American ran “Newspaper Largely Silent About Summer Struggle,” a piece about 1964’s Freedom Summer, when three civil rights workers were killed.
Janet Braswell wrote:
“As for coverage of the civil rights movement, Victoria Gray Adams said nothing positive ever appeared in the Hattiesburg American. Adams was in the forefront of the civil rights demonstrations in Hattiesburg and Palmer’s Crossing,” the Hattiesburg story said.
Recall heroes of movement (Editorial, Baton Rouge Advocate)
By Any Means Necessary (Review of book on Deacons for Defense, The Nation)
“Homeland Security” Threatens 20,000 Journalists
“A crackdown by US authorities on issuing visas to foreign journalists threatens to cause chaos for overseas broadcasters and newspapers just five months before the presidential election,” Owen Gibson reports in The Guardian of London. “The new rules, which come into force next week, will ban overseas reporters and news crews stationed in the US from renewing their visas without leaving the country first.
“Just five months before American voters decide who will be appointed to the most powerful office in the world, the US state department said it would no longer allow overseas journalists to renew visas from within the country.
“From next week the estimated 20,000 foreign journalists stationed in the US, who used to be able to renew their visas with ease in any major city, will be forced to leave the country to do so.
“Rather than applying to renew their visas in Washington or New York, they will be forced to leave the country and re-apply at a US embassy or consulate abroad, delaying their application for between four weeks and six months.
“The state department said it was taking the action to comply with new homeland security legislation, which requires all visas issued after October 26 to include biometric information, including fingerprints.”
Are Blacks Dying Disproportionately in Iraq?
The Rev. Al Sharpton, in a conference call with black journalists Wednesday on behalf of the John Kerry for President campaign, said that blacks were dying disproportionately in Iraq.
Figures from the Department of Defense, however, indicate the percentage of blacks killed is about the same as the percentage of blacks in the U.S. population.
Defense Department charts put the number of military deaths of blacks or African Americans during “Operation Iraqi Freedom” at 13.06 percent. Twenty-three were killed through April 30, 2003, the day before President Bush declared that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” and 88 died from May 1, 2003, to June 26, 2004.
In the 2000 Census, 12.9 percent identified themselves as black or African American.
The Defense Department’s racial breakdowns of military deaths as of April 30, 2003, and after May 1, 2003, are in PDF format. Other categories include American Indian or Alaska Native; Hispanic or Latino; multiple races, pending or unknown; Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and white.
On Film Treatments, Alex Haley Got There Before
Reporting Wednesday on Denzel Washington’s plans to make a movie of Washington Post writer Wil Haygood’s biography of Sammy Davis Jr., we asked, “When was the last time the work of a newspaperman of color was picked up by a Hollywood studio? In fact, was there ever such a time?”
John Britton of Meharry Medical College in Nashville provides the name of one who got there before: Alex Haley.
Haley, who died in 1992 at age 70, had both his books “Roots” (1976) and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” (1965) transformed to the screen; “Malcolm X” as a 1992 movie by Spike Lee and “Roots” as a record-setting television mini-series in 1977.
Haley wrote for such publications as the Atlantic, Harper’s, Reader’s Digest, Playboy and the New York Times Magazine.
7 Media Figures Among SI’s “Influential Minorities”
The June 28 issue of Sports Illustrated lists seven people with media ties among its “101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports.”
They are:
(Number 38) Jorge Hidalgo, 41, executive vice president of sports, Telemundo; (40) David Rone, 42, senior vice president of network development and rights acquisitions, Fox Sports; (49) Kery Davis, 46, senior vice president of programming, HBO Sports; (78) Donna Bryan, 36, vice president of business affairs, NBC Sports; (84) Lino Garcia, 43, general manager, ESPN Deportes; (91) Magic Johnson, 44, vice president, Los Angeles Lakers, TNT analyst and (94) Stuart Scott, 38, ESPN anchor.
Univision L.A. Station to Get Special Emmy
The 56th annual Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards will include presentation of a Los Angeles Area Governors Award to Univision station KMEX’s “34 a Su Lado” (“34 by Your Side”), which provides lifesaving and life-changing information to the Latino community, officials said, according to Television Week.
Court Backs Kansas State Paper’s Adviser, for Now
“Former Kansas State Collegian adviser Ron Johnson temporarily was reinstated to his position on July 6 after a federal court issued a restraining order that requires university administrators to allow him to resume his position,” the Student Press Law Center reports.
“U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson also issued a temporary order that prevents Kansas State University administrators from hiring a new adviser.
As reported last month, Johnson was reassigned after weeks of controversy surrounding coverage by the student newspaper. The Black Student Union asked for Johnson’s removal after the paper failed to cover the Big 12 Conference on Black Student Government, which brought 1,000 students to the campus in Manhattan.
The Society of Professional Journalists announced that it formed a task force to investigate the firing and the board of College Media Advisers voted to censure the university.
Inquirer’s Eric Hegedus Elected NLGJA President
Eric Hegedus, a page designer at the Philadelphia Inquirer, was elected to a two-year term as president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association at the group’s June 24-27 convention in Brooklyn, N.Y.
He succeeds Steven Petrow, senior vice president/editorial, Waterfront Media, Inc., according to a news release.
Hegedus had been NLGJA vice president for print and new media since September 2002. Karen Bailis, news editor at New York’s Newsday, and current NLGJA treasurer, succeeds Hegedus in that post.
Among those selected for one-year terms as appointed board members was Walt Swanston, director of diversity management, National Public Radio, and a former executive director of the National Association of Black Journalists and of Unity: Journalists of Color.
“We are making a substantial difference in how journalism is done. But I want the NLGJA to be fully recognized within the industry as a peer organization that makes journalism better — as the most innovative, effective and forward-thinking organization for news professionals out there,” Hegedus said.
Felix Gutierrez, Jay Harris Granted Tenure at USC
Journalism faculty members Felix Gutierrez, Jay Harris and Diane Winston have been granted tenure at University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication, USC Provost Lloyd Armstrong Jr. has announced.
“Gutierrez specializes in social diversity in the media. He rejoined the USC Annenberg faculty in 2003 after serving as the first executive director of the California Chicano News Media Association and the senior vice president of the Freedom Forum and Newseum,” an announcement says.
“Harris holds the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Journalism and Communication and is the founding director of The Center for the Study of Journalism and Democracy. He joined USC Annenberg in 2002 after serving as publisher of the San Jose Mercury News.”
Soyinka, African Groups Lobby for Press Freedom
“As African heads of state gather this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the third summit of the African Union, a delegation of free expression organisations, including the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), has called on member countries to adopt treaty level guarantees for media freedom,” reads a news release from the International Freedom of Expression Exchange Clearing House, based in Toronto.
“MISA and IFJ’s Africa bureau have joined forces with Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka, CREDO for Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights, FAHAMU and the Open Society Justice Initiative to lobby the African Union. Last week, they met with the chair of the Commission of the African Union, Professor Alpha Konare, and impressed upon him the urgent need for a ‘legal and institutional framework’ in Africa for an environment conducive to media freedom.
“The delegation argued that several countries, including Uganda and Ghana, were already moving in this direction and were laudable examples for other African governments to follow. Ghana has repealed criminal defamation laws and Uganda’s highest court has ruled that ‘false news’ provisions are incompatible with international standards on free expression.
“The delegation warned that with attacks on journalists and media outlets increasing across the continent, the need was critical to set timelines for providing legal guarantees on media freedom. According to CREDO, there have been 102 reported cases of attacks on the media as of June 2004. If this trend continues, it could total more than 200 cases by year’s end — an increase of nearly 20 per cent from 2003.
“The lack of media freedom and freedom of expression is holding back the democratic development of Africa, the delegation warned.”
Dorothy Johnson, Kansas City Journalist, Dies at 88
“Dorothy H. Johnson, longtime civic leader and chronicler of Kansas City’s civil rights history, died Wednesday. She was 88,” Mary Sanchez reports in the Kansas City Star.
“Dorothy Johnson was remembered by Kansas City civic leaders not only for being one of the city’s leading African-American journalists, but also for how she used her skills to bring social reforms, often working with her husband.
“Herman Johnson was a Tuskegee Airman, a Missouri legislator, a local leader in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and owner of a real estate and insurance firm,” Sanchez continued.
“She worked at The Call, Kansas City’s African-American newspaper, from 1937 to 1944.”
Editor José Cardinali, Known as Don Pepe, Dies at 74
José Cardinali, a longtime newspaperman and founder and editor of the New York newspaper Noticias del Mundo, died of respiratory failure July 4 at age 74. “Everyone knew him as Don Pepe,” New York’s El Diario reports.
“He had been working on a book about his 24 years as a newsman in the U.S., told from his unique perspective as an immigrant, businessman and journalist in this country. It promised to be his most compelling composition.
Cardinali started his career in Argentina. “In 1980 he was invited to participate in a new adventure: to come to the United States and found Noticias del Mundo,” El Diario said in its tribute.
“In 1996, while Don Pepe was still editor of Noticias, the parent company, News World Communication, sent him to Buenos Aires to launch Tiempos del Mundo, a weekly newspaper that covers Latin America.
“Then, on April 30 of this year, Noticias del Mundoo folded after 24 years of publication.”
Investigative Reporting Missing Black Concerns?
“Most issues of greatest concern for African-Americans continue to face a mainstream media blackout, panelists told investigative journalists at the 2004 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Atlanta,” Bankole Thompson writes in the Michigan Citizen.
?I want to see the media investigate how the Iraq war is affecting low-income minorities, because families are losing their loved ones in the war,? Georgia Congressman John Lewis was quoted as saying. ?I want to see the media investigate the health disparities in this country, when health care is supposed to be a right and not based on your zip code and where you live.?
Laura Washington, “former editor of The Chicago Reporter, an investigative magazine, said mainstream journalists are disconnected from the communities they cover, especially when they are communities of color,” the story continued.
?Reporters are now part of the middle and upper class. We don?t live in the communities we cover; we live in the suburbs,? Washington was quoted as saying.
