Editor Asks, How Many Reporters Can Claim That?
The guest book on the Dayton Daily News Web site went from 14 pages to 24 — about 240 remembrances — overnight, from community members paying tribute to Derek Ali, the News reporter who was shot and killed early Sunday while working as a disc jockey.
Ali, 47, was “more engaged in civic affairs than most folks are,” the paper’s editor, Jeff Bruce, told Journal-isms today in somewhat of an understatement. “He touched so many people’s lives. He just knew everybody in that part of town. How many reporters on any newspaper can claim that kind of intimate knowledge of their community? It’s very, very rare.”
It was a reminder that when black reporters were hired back in the day — a recommendation of the Kerner Commission Report of 1968 — part of the reason was to connect more with the black community and bring that perspective to the paper. Not all reporters of color want that responsibility today, and not all editors value those connections, yet how well those communities are covered remains an issue for many readers, viewers and listeners.
Ali’s community ties were abundant. “Investigators said it was that love of music that engaged him in a sideline business of deejaying parties and private events. It was in that role that he was shot and killed,” as WHIO-TV reported earlier.
On June 17, the News wrote that “Worshipful Master Derek N. Ali, Harmony Lodge 77, was installed during a ceremony at the Prince Hall Masonic Temple.
“His past and present professional and community affiliations include serving as a trustee at Omega Baptist Church, culture and heritage instructor at the Omega Character Academy, former adult leader for Omega Missionary Baptist Church’s Youth Explosion and former member of the St. John Missionary Baptist Church Deacon Board.
“Ali has participated on the boards of various initiatives in the Dayton community,” the piece continued.
“These include the Paul Laurence Dunbar Group, which sponsored the annual Paul Laurence Dunbar poetry competition; the Urban League’s 50th anniversary celebration committee and Urban League Gala committee; the Parity 2000 Blacks and the Media committee; and the Concerned Christian Men’s Young Men of Distinction program.”
That’s apart from his journalism activities. Among other things, Ali was a past president of the Dayton Association of Black Journalists and an adjunct adviser to the newspaper at the School for the Arts that his daughter attended.
Bruce acknowledges that there are two sides to such deep involvement by a journalist. “The more you are in the community, the more you’re going to know what’s really going on,” he said. Yet going too far — such as being connected with politics — would represent a conflict of interest. “Try to strike a balance,” Bruce said. The most important thing is disclosure,” “transparency,” and discussing potential involvements with a supervisor to see if it passes “the sanity test.”
The News has no formal policy manual on such ethical questions, but is working on one, Bruce said.
Ali’s death leaves no black male cityside reporters, which the editor said “speaks to the need and how valuable he was.” The other black male city reporter, Ismail Turay, is in Iraq with the National Guard (see next item).
Today’s Daily News story, “Fatal Shootings Leave Valley Emotionally Charged,” links Ali’s killing with three others in the last week, and said the losses had put the community on edge.
“That’s really the wake-up call for this community,” the Rev. David I. Fox, associate pastor at Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, was quoted as saying.
A number of “Stop the Violence Prayer Vigils” are scheduled, including one on Sept. 16 for Ali at 5:30 p.m. outside the Lakeridge Community Center, 2800 Lakeridge Court, where he was shot and killed.
“A cookout will be Oct. 2 at Higgins Station, 416 E. Main St. in Trotwood to honor Ali, who often worked as a DJ there on Friday and Saturday nights. Rhonda Gosnell, who co-owns the tavern with her husband, Luke, felt compelled to organize a tribute so people who knew Ali could ‘express through music how much he meant to them,'” the story continued.
“The event starts at 5 p.m. and is $5 a plate. Proceeds, along with a portion of that day’s sales, will go to the Derek Ali Memorial Fund she set up at Fifth Third Bank on Tuesday to benefit Ali’s children. Deposits can be made at any Fifth Third Bank location,” said the story by Margo Rutledge Kissell, Tom Beyerlein and Mara Lee. Funeral services are scheduled for Saturday.
Journalists of Color Difficult to Find in Iraq
“In six months, I’ve run into hundreds of journalists in various cities in Northern Iraq. I don?t recall ever meeting any journalists of color. I’m beginning to wonder if there are any here,” messages Ismail Turay Jr., a Dayton Daily News reporter who is stationed in Iraq as a public affairs soldier in the Ohio Army National Guard.
“My unit, the 196th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment, is attached to the 1st Infantry Division in Tikrit. We are halfway through a yearlong deployment that started in February,” says Turay, 30.
This column has chronicled the comings and goings of a number of journalists of color assigned to Iraq for both television and print, but most of their assignments have been completed.
The Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran, whose American parents were born in India, is the only remaining correspondent of color who comes to mind.
What is Turay doing in the National Guard?
“I initially joined the Army National Guard in 1994 to help pay for college ?- I attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,” he explained. “I got out of the guard at the end of my six-year commitment and had no plans of ever getting back into the military.
“But when I moved to Ohio for a job in 2000, I join[ed] that state?s National Guard simply because I missed being a soldier. A year later, 9/11 happened and my infantry unit was sent to Ft. Knox, Ky., for a yearlong deployment. Our mission was to guard the base while active duty soldiers stationed there were battling the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“At the end of the deployment, I left the infantry and switched to a public relations unit, the Columbus, Ohio-based 196th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment. We are halfway through a yearlong tour in Iraq. I?d planned to remain in the guard for 20 years. However, I?m rethinking that because I don?t want to get deployed for a third time.”
Turay adds that one reason is that he plans to get married next August.
No Leads From E-Mails on Missing Black Woman
An e-mail making the rounds notes the case of Tamika Huston of Spartanburg, S.C.
“She has been missing since June 2 and her family has no clues, no leads and is receiving NO HELP from national media. She lives in the South Carolina area but this story touched my heart because here we have a young black lady missing without a trace for almost 2 months and nationally we have heard nothing! However, some young white lady in Utah missing for not even 24 hours and her face was plastered on every media outlet. We may not be able to control how poorly this family is being treated by the lack of national attention the disappearance of Tamika Huston is getting, but we can pass along the information on our own to at least help spread the word. Please pass this on to everyone you know all over the country. Remember it could happen in your family,” reads the message.
Unfortunately, Spartanburg Public Safety Capt. Randy C. Hardy, who appeared with the family at a news conference seeking help on July 26, tells Journal-isms that the e-mailing hasn’t yet produced any leads.
“The case hasn’t changed at all. We don’t know any more now than when we first had the incident report,” he said today.
“I’ve talked to journalists from all over the country,” Hardy said, “some have opted to run the story and some haven’t. We don’t have anything to suggest she’s in Washington or California” or anywhere outside of South Carolina. “We just don’t know.” He said “America’s Most Wanted” expressed interest in doing a piece.
A Web site has been established at http://www.tamika.info/
Eight Years Later, Tupac Killing Still Unsolved
It was eight years ago yesterday that the rap and film star Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip, a crime that is still unsolved.
Not that the Los Angeles Times didn’t try to do its part. In 2002, the paper published the results of a year-long investigation by reporter Chuck Philips that concluded:
- The shooting was carried out by a Compton gang called the Southside Crips to avenge the beating of one of its members by Shakur a few hours earlier.
- Orlando Anderson, the Crip whom Shakur had attacked, fired the fatal shots. Las Vegas police discounted Anderson as a suspect and interviewed him only once, briefly. He was later killed in an unrelated gang shooting.
- The murder weapon was supplied by New York rapper Notorious B.I.G., who agreed to pay the Crips $1 million for killing Shakur. Notorious B.I.G. and Shakur had been feuding for more than a year, exchanging insults on recordings and at award shows and concerts. B.I.G. was gunned down six months later in Los Angeles. That killing also remains unsolved.
The series was attacked by writer Kevin Powell and others in the hip-hop spokesmen for its “unidentified sources, flimsy timelines and even flimsier evidence.”
Two years later, it’s almost as if the series had never been written.
“Nothing has happened,” Philips told Journal-isms today.
“I’m a reporter. I can’t arrest anybody.”
He pointed to the second piece in his series for reasons he said are still true today. The piece wrote said:
“Despite the public setting and the victim’s notoriety, no one has ever been arrested for the killing. Shakur’s family, many of his followers and some black entertainers cite the case as evidence of a double standard in the justice system. Had a white celebrity been gunned down in the open, they contend, police would have found those responsible without delay.
“Las Vegas police say their investigation stalled not for lack of effort, but because witnesses in Shakur’s entourage refused to cooperate.
“That, however, is only part of the explanation. A Times review found that police committed a string of costly missteps.”
FAMU Lacks Funds to Complete J-School Building
“After encountering more than 71 delays, the new 100,000 square- foot journalism building is scheduled to be completed by December 2004,” reports Teesa Johnson in The Famuan at Florida A&M University, quoting Sam Houston, the university’s director of facilities planning and construction.
“Houston said monetary and utility problems are among the setbacks.
“‘Not only did we run into financial issues about payment of contractors, which caused these delays, but in addition there were unforeseen conditions of underground utility lines [which were] not apart of our survey and rainy days,’ Houston said.
“Although most of these issues have been resolved, the school is still short of funds for equipment and technology to be placed in the school after its completion, Houston said.
“‘We do not have all the funds for equipment at this time,” Houston said. ‘We will be requesting from our legislature $1.2 million for additional funds for the 2005-2006 school term for the building.'”
Freedom Forum Graduates 9 Changing Careers
“The sixth class of nine journalism Fellows has graduated from the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute, a training program at Vanderbilt University for people of color who want to become journalists but have not had formal journalism training,” the Freedom Forum announces.
“After graduating from the 12-week program Aug. 27, Fellows joined the staffs of their sponsoring newspapers as full-time journalists.”
New graduates of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute and their sponsoring newspapers:
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.
AllAfrica.com: “Our Own Side of the Story”
Four years ago, Amadou Mahtar Ba and two of his American friends founded the AllAfrica Global Media Group of which he is president, writes This Day newspaper in Lagos, Nigeria, in a profile of Mahtar Ba.
“The popular website on African news, allAfrica.com, is a project of AllAfrica Global Media. It is a site that has become a reference point for anybody seeking information on Africa or the African perspective on any world issue,” the story says.
“What allAfrica.com is trying to do is simple,” Mahtar Ba says in the story.
“Anywhere in the world today, we as Africans have the opportunity to state our own side of the story and telling our own side of the story means that somebody who is in Mongolia for example if he wants to know what is happening in Nigeria, he doesn’t have to go through AFP or Reuters. But the person should be able to have the opportunity to read what THISDAY, Vanguard, Guardian etc are saying about one particular event in Nigeria. That’s what AllAfrica is for. That’s why when we go to a country we try to get a diversity of newspapers including government media so that people will for instance know what is the position of the Nigerian government on an issue because if you base on private newspapers alone you will get one side of the issue but if you get the government angle, the story is balanced.”
Redskins Take on D.C.’s Post, Garcia-Ruiz
“When local power players feel slighted by the Washington Post, they generally channel their grievances through one of several channels?a flaming e-mail to the relevant reporter, a letter to the editor, or perhaps a heads-up to Post Ombudsman Michael Getler,” writes Erik Wemple in the Washington City Paper.
“The Washington Redskins these days, however, show no interest in working within the Post?s feedback loop. Twice in the past week, the Skins have issued nasty press releases savaging the paper?s Sports section. “If there are errors, we decided that at least we can do this for the fans,” says Redskins spokesperson Karl Swanson, referring to the anti-Post screeds on the team’s Web site.
“‘The guerrilla PR moves may well mark a turning point in relations between the storied franchise and the paper. ‘I haven’t ever seen a team attack a media outlet like they’ve done with their past two releases,’ says Post Sports editor Emilio Garcia-Ruiz.
New TV Roles for Michelle Miller, Darrielle Snipes
Notices from Marc Watts, the former CNN reporter who is president and founder of the Chicago-based Signature Management Group:
“Michelle Miller signs on full time with CBS News and will be based in New York. She’ll have dual correspondent and substitute-anchoring duties with CBS news and BET Nightly News. Michelle had been freelancing in similar capacities at CBS & BET for several months. Prior to that she anchored the No. 1 rated morning news in New Orleans at WWL-TV.
“Darrielle Snipes is headed to WBAL-TV in Baltimore as a general assignment reporter. She stays in the NBC universe. For the past three years Darrielle has been a reporter at WDIV-TV in Detroit. She will also have fill-in anchoring responsibilities at WBAL.”
Gwen Ifill a Presenter at News Emmy Awards
Gwen Ifill, managing editor of PBS’ “Washington Week” and senior correspondent for PBS’ “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” will be one of the presenters Monday at the 25th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards, the Discovery Times Channel and the National Television Academy announce.
The black-tie dinner, to be held at New York’s Marriott Marquis Hotel, is to be hosted by Darrell Hammond of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”
Other presenters are Peter Jennings, “World News Tonight,” ABC; Dan Rather, “CBS Evening News”; Diane Sawyer, “Good Morning America,” ABC; Wolf Blitzer, “Wolf Blitzer Reports,” CNN; and Brian Williams, NBC News.
As reported last month, Ifill is also moderating the vice presidential debate between incumbent Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards on Oct. 5.
Peter Johnson reported in USA Today last month that the National Association of Hispanic Journalists was unhappy that no Latino journalists were chosen for moderating roles.
Now, it seems that NBC’s Tom Brokaw is not pleased about his non-role, either.
New York Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove reported last month:
“NBC News’ 63-year-old alpha male — already annoyed that nobody from NBC was picked last Friday to moderate this fall’s presidential and vice presidential debates — is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore.
“He blew a gasket this week after debate honcho Janet Brown told The New York Times that star network anchormen are unsuitable.
“‘For fear that they would overshadow the events,’ The Times explained.
“‘It’s important for the moderators to focus attention on the candidates,’ said Brown, executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates.
“Brokaw took it personally.”
