Another Quits to Pursue Religious Studies
Marlene L. Johnson, an assistant metro editor at the Washington Times, is retiring from the paper next week to devote full time to pursuing a master of arts in religious studies at Howard University Divinity School, the latest black journalist to consider a more sanctified career path.
“I am finding the classes so exciting and interesting,” Johnson, who has been in and out of newsrooms for 30 years, tells Journal-isms. “I don’t know yet what I will do when I graduate (after another 37 hours and a thesis), but I am sure it will be revealed to me, just as going to divinity school at Howard was — by the good Lord. Right now, I’m enjoying the journey.
“I’m thinking I will keep a journal about the experience, not only because of what I’m studying, but from the viewpoint of a ‘senior’ student and because of the changes in how things are done now in this age of technology.”
Johnson’s move follows that of other black journalists who now wear the cloth, including:
- Angelo Henderson, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1999 while at the Wall Street Journal, who was named in January as associate pastor of worship, vision and emerging ministries at Detroit’s Hope United Methodist Church.
“I feel I was only using part of what the Lord had given me,” Henderson told Journal-isms in May.
Real Times, the company that last year bought the Chicago Defender, Michigan Chronicle, New Pittsburgh Courier, Memphis Tri-State Defender and Michigan Front Page, hired Henderson to help upgrade the African American newspapers.
“Everything is still journalism, whether it’s news on the radio, [or] the entrepreneurial thing with the black church; it’s transforming the community, changing the world,” he said.
- Perry Lang, who was a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle until the early 1990s, co-chaired the Bay Area Black Journalists Association, and was a staff member at the Maynard Institute until 1998, when he left as vice president. He became an interfaith minister and, in 2003, was named executive director of the Black Coalition on AIDS in San Francisco.
[Added Sept. 21: Lang was associate minister of the Fellowship Church in San Francisco for five years before taking the Coalition on AIDS position, and told Journal-isms he was setting up a meditation chapel and meeting room in the Coalition building. He said he used his journalistic skills in producing a CD, “Triumph of the Human Spirit,” in which he interviewed people for a music-and-message compilation that “highlights the resilience of the human spirit through the legacy of the African slave trade.”]
- [Added Sept. 23:
Robbie Morganfield, named this month as executive director of the Freedom Forum’s Diversity Institute in Nashville. He said that perhaps he would use his master of divinity degree to help provide a way for journalists “to understand different religious perspectives.”]
- Ruth Allen Ollison, a former news reporter and news manager at television stations in Texas and Washington, D.C., who is pastor of Houston’s Beulah Land Community Church. She also owns King Country Radio (“Radio for God’s Country”) in Daingerfield, Texas, and is an adjunct instructor in applied theology at Houston Baptist University.
In 1989, she ran for president of the National Association of Black Journalists, losing to Tom Morgan.
The Houston Chronicle wrote about Ollison in May after she enlisted the University of Houston’s English Department to help teach children in her church’s community center to read. The university created an independent study and pedagogy class that allowed its students to take a course and earn credit while tutoring young people in Houston’s Third Ward.
- Barbara Reynolds, a former editorial writer and columnist at USA Today, is now director of Harriet’s Anti-Drug Ministry, in Washington and a talk show host with WOL Radio there, as well as XM Satellite Radio.
Her ministry, started eight years ago at Washington’s Greater Mt. Calvary Holy Church to help women struggling with addiction, is conducting a seminar Thursday on combating the HIV-AIDS pandemic,School, with former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders as the keynote speaker.
Two weekends ago, Reynolds said she took about 40 women to Virginia Beach, Va., for the ministry’s “first annual spiritual makeover retreat.”
“If anyone had told me I would become an ordained minister, a Pentecostal minister, I would have laughed,” she wrote in the January 1997 issue of Essence magazine. “Journalism was quite enough of a profession for me, thank you. But over the years, I experienced a profound change, as if somewhere along the way a seed had been planted that continued to explode in surprisingly different ways. God, the Supreme Architect, had selected me for a major reconstruction job, a makeover.
“I received a sense of the Holy Spirit at two of the darkest periods of my life,” she continued, listing the death of the woman who raised her, and being unemployed in 1981.
- M. Dion Thompson, a reporter at the Baltimore Sun, resigned last month. He had taken a leave of absence two years ago to write a novel, “Walk Like a Natural Man,” about black Hollywood in 1930s, and never returned to the Sun.
“A lot of journalists grow weary of being in the observer role, his wife, Jean Thompson, who also worked at the Sun, told Journal-isms last month. “They become frustrated at not being able to help the people they write about.” Now their family is in New York, where Dion Thompson is pursuing at master’s in divinity at the General Theological Seminary.
Johnson has worked at The Washington Times since November 1994, serving as assistant features editor and arts and entertainment editor, among other positions. She began her journalism career as a general assignment reporter for the Associated Press in Detroit. In 1973, she said, she filed suit against AP on behalf of blacks and women after being unfairly fired. A court upheld her claims of discrimination and handed down a landmark decision on behalf of the class. Her action, she said, was the catalyst for the establishment of a formal minority training program at AP.
Johnson has also worked for the Newspaper Guild, the National Caucus and Center on Black Aged, the National Urban League and the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, and founded Grapevine Communications, a media consulting firm.
A mentor to students working on the NABJ Monitor, the National Association of Black Journalists convention newspaper, she says, “I still plan to stay fully engaged with NABJ.”
Nearly 1,000 at 4-Hour Service for Lu Palmer
“Icons followed legends Saturday as a who’s who of Chicago’s black nationalist and civil rights community turned out to pay tribute to one of their own — dean of black activists Lu Palmer, who died Sept. 12 at 82,” writes Maudlyne Ihejirika in the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Most of Palmer’s colleagues were graying, age having stolen the pep from steps that once routinely marched, picketed, boycotted and strategized with Palmer in the struggle for civil rights, justice and opportunity for blacks.
“Nearly 1,000 people filled Operation PUSH’s great hall on the South Side to celebrate the life of Lutrelle ‘Lu’ Fleming Palmer Jr., a crusading journalist and behind-the-scenes politician whose voice and pen demanded black power during a career that spanned decades.
“‘This man was a powerful leader. Lu Palmer was a man of character who was prepared to stand up and fight wherever he saw the opportunity,’ the Rev. Leon Finney said in his eulogy during the four-hour ceremony. ‘Lu didn’t give a damn about comfort. He was not someone who would sell out his people for a few pieces of silver. Chicago can never be the same.’
“. . . Underscoring the praise was a question that almost thundered in the hall: Where is the next Lu Palmer? And, more specifically, with the recent deaths of crusaders such as Palmer and Vernon Jarrett, who died in June, where is the younger generation that will step up?”
Writing Friday in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, columnist Bill Dries noted that Palmer was editor of the Tri-State Defender in 1960 when the first sit-in protests began in Memphis.
“The black-owned weekly newspaper was an important voice in the coverage of the movement in a Memphis that was racially segregated by law.
“Mr. Palmer was one of four black journalists arrested by Memphis police as they covered 36 black protesters who staged sit-ins March 19, 1960, at the Cossitt Library Downtown and the old Main Library at Peabody and McLean,” Dries wrote.
On Thursday, columnist Mary Mitchell wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times about two incidents. In one, “Nearly 100 citizens converged on the Grand Crossing police station complaining that police had abused three teenagers and their mother after a rock-throwing incident near 72nd and Woodlawn.”
In the other, “Chicago Police officers from the 3rd District nearly triggered a riot when they arrested a young man on an unlawful use of a weapon charge outside the Lawndale public housing complex at 26th and California.
“Had either one of these clashes occurred on the North Side, media types would have camped outside of homes trying to get interviews,” Mitchell wrote.
“Too often the concerns of black citizens are still not a priority,” she added, echoing Palmer’s belief.
“I will miss Lu Palmer. He was wise beyond his years.”
Stella Foster wrote in her Sun-Times column last week that, “In his honor, Congressman Danny Davis, a longtime friend, will establish the Lu Palmer Humanitarian Award at Davis’ annual State of the District Town Hall meeting on Friday at Malcolm X College.”
Derek Ali, 47, a hero to many (Yvonne Latty, Philadelphia Daily News)
“Pacific Time” Radio Show Explores U.S.-Asia Ties
“Public Radio International (PRI) announces the launch of Pacific Time, a half-hour weekday program that explores the ideas, trends, and cultural patterns that flow between Asia and America,” the network announces.
“Produced by KQED/San Francisco and hosted by seasoned journalist Nguyen Qui Duc, Pacific Time covers economics, language, politics, arts, and more to illuminate the growing ties and mutual influences that characterize U.S.-Asian interactions. The program is now available to PRI’s 737 affiliate stations nationwide for broadcast and online streaming. It will also be available to listeners via PRI World, the network’s channel on Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 108.
“Pacific Time probes beneath the bromides that distort much media treatment of Asian nations and Asian-American communities. The program covers economics, language, politics, public policy, arts, sports, and more in lively exchanges, featuring strong voices, first-person stories, commentaries, and interviews. Reporting from the United States and Asia, Pacific Time presents stories that are not covered regularly in the news media -? stories about trans-Pacific connections and collisions, blending, and inexorable change.”
Students Outshone Pros in Questioning Blair
“Jayson Blair’s not such a bad guy — now. But the students were the real stars of the show when he spoke at Winston-Salem State University last week,” writes local columnist John Railey in the Winston-Salem Journal.
“. . . Blair, 28, spent too much of his speech Wednesday to about 200 students pressing for diversity in newsrooms. He’s right about the need for diversity, but he’s not quite EF Hutton these days on such subjects. Understandably, students wanted to him to talk more about what his speech had been billed as being about: his mistakes, ones brought on by Scotch, cocaine and manic depression.
“So as he took questions, students let him have it. For the most part, they outshone the full-time reporters at the event, myself included. Their questions helped Blair explain his story, showing better than he did in his book his remorse, as well as just how he went so wrong.”
France Gets Its First Black News Anchor
“It is immediately noticeable to British or American viewers of French television: there are no black faces. No newsreaders, no chatshow hosts, no gameshow guests; at most, a handful of actors in mainly stereotyped roles,” Jon Henley writes from Paris in London’s Guardian newspaper today.
“So when Audrey Pulvar appeared this month as co-presenter of Soir 3, it caused something of a commotion: the 32-year-old journalist from the French Caribbean island of Martinique was the first black newsreader to present the main evening news on a national French TV station.
“. . . In a damning report earlier this year, the High Council on Integration demanded that the government make it a condition of every broadcaster’s licence that immigrants be “fairly and properly represented”.
“. . . Pulvar is against quotas but recognises some kind of affirmative action is badly needed in France.
“She said: ‘There are huge prejudices. For years, there’s been this fear that if black or Arab or Asian people are allowed on to the television, French audiences will just switch off.’
“A fear that is, apparently, unfounded. Early viewing figures for her broadcast are higher than the equivalent show enjoyed last year.”
The director of New York University’s Africana Studies Program, Mali-born Manthia Diawara, delivered a vivid portrait of French racism last year in “We Won’t Budge: An African Exile in the World” (Basic Civitas Books), which also discussed the author’s time in Mali and in the United States.
“Boondocks,” Inspired by Trump Show, Stirs Pot
“Cartoonist Aaron McGruder, no stranger to controversy, is stirring the pot again this week,” as Mike Holtzclaw writes today in the Daily Press of Newport News, Va.
“From today through Saturday, McGruder’s syndicated strip ‘The Boondocks’ imagines a reality TV show about African-Americans looking for jobs, as viewed through the eyes of the strip’s pre-teen protagonists Huey and Riley Freeman. The strip, known for its biting cultural satire and racial storylines, runs in about 300 newspapers, including the Daily Press.
“This week’s strips focus on a fictional TV show, inspired by Donald Trump’s ‘The Apprentice,’ in which hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons offers contestants the chance to work for him. The name of the show uses an offensive racial epithet with three of the letters replaced by asterisks — not the racial slur known as ‘the N-word,’ but a variation of it that is commonly used in rap music.
“The repeated use of that word, as well as the characterizations of the contestants on the fictional game show, prompted editors around the country to consider pulling this week’s six strips. The editors at the Daily Press, after discussing the subject with the newsroom’s diversity committee and other newsroom staff members, decided to run the strips.”
N.Y. Times Has Two Journalists of Color in Iraq
Add two more to the tally of journalists of color in Iraq: Asian American reporters Edward Wong and Norimitsu Onishi, both of the New York Times.
Onishi, who had been stationed in the Far East, had two pieces last week from Iraq, both on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
Wong has been covering the daily violence from Baghdad.
The tally was prompted by a message two weeks ago from Ismail Turay Jr., a Dayton Daily News reporter who is stationed in Iraq with the Ohio Army National Guard. “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,” Turay said.
Readers subsequently identified Helen Jung of the Oregonian in Portland, who is Asian American,; the Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran, whose American parents were born in India; and black journalist Hannah Allam, Knight Ridder?s new Baghdad bureau chief.
South Fla. Black Journalists Aid Voter Education
“The South Florida Black Journalists Association has created a voter preparation check list to help voters with the election process,” the Miami Herald reported Friday.
“The group will first distribute the list this Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. at the Jamaican Jerk Festival at C.B. Smith Park, 900 N. Flamingo Road, Pembroke Pines.
“The SFBJA Voter Preparation Checklist contains information that voters can use to participate in the electoral process.
“Included in the check list are key voter registration deadlines, phone numbers to reach Broward and Miami-Dade election officials and media contact information.
“The effort is part of the association’s mission to serve the community in a nonpartisan fashion as well as provide media outreach information, said Terence Shepherd, the group’s president.
“SFBJA organizers say it is especially important to help improve voter education in light of the 2000 presidential election and the perception that many black voters were disenfranchised.”
Philly Journalists Win Emmy for Staging Debate
CN8, The Comcast Network and the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists won a 2004 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award Saturday for their production of the Oct. 9, 2003, mayoral debate between Democratic incumbent John Street and Republican challenger Samuel Katz.
The debate was hosted by PABJ in cooperation with Drexel University and the local chapters of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, and the Asian American Journalists Association.
It won in the “Public Affairs Programming/One Time special” category. Arthur Fennell, CN8 news anchor and past president of the National Association of Black Journalists, moderated.
“It’s an exciting moment not only for the coalition of journalism organizations that produced this debate, but also for the communities that were given a voice in the mayoral campaign through it,” Denise Clay, president of PABJ, said in a news release.
Sarah Glover Promoted to Main Inquirer Photo Staff
Sarah Glover, secretary of the National Association of Black Journalists, is one of three suburban photographers promoted to the main unit photo staff of the Philadelphia Inquirer, effective the week of Oct. 3.
Glover has been in the New Jersey Bureau since 1999 and will be the only black woman in the main Inquirer photo unit.
Red Herring Still Hiring as It Plans Revival
The hiring of childhood friend and veteran tech journalist Joel Dreyfuss as editor-in-chief is part of French native Alex Vieux’s plan to revive the technology magazine Red Herring, Allyce Bess reports in the San Francisco Business Times.
“Vieux, who founded the company about 15 years ago, has worked as a journalist, a consultant at the former Andersen Consulting and as a university professor. He holds an MBA from Stanford University, and was named one of the most influential people in the European technology community by Time Magazine’s European edition,” Bess wrote.
“Vieux and Dreyfuss both said Red Herring’s mission will be to report on the tech industry globally, with equal coverage going to companies of all sizes.
“. . . Red Herring is one of several formerly ad-fat magazines, like the Industry Standard, Wired and Fast Company, that either fell on hard times or crashed and burned when the tech bubble burst. Red Herring grew voraciously through the late 1990s, peaking at about $100 million in annual revenue in 2000 before its rapid decline. It ceased publication in 2002.
“The new Red Herring has already been through some turbulence. Dreyfuss follows three previous editors — veterans of Business Week, Business 2.0 and the Wall Street Journal — who left after brief stints.
“. . . Currently, Red Herring has a staff of about 25 reporters and editors; Vieux and Dreyfuss are looking to fill about five senior positions, and continue to hire reporters.”
Dreyfuss is a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Stations Bracing for License Challenges
“A handful of activist groups and individuals is gearing up to challenge perhaps hundreds of local TV license renewals coming due for FCC review over the next three years. Such intervention reflects a bold new tactic by special-interest groups to make their voices heard by lawmakers in Washington,” writes Bill McConnell in Broadcasting and Cable magazine.
“The FCC is now reviewing six petitions to deny licenses for the Mid-Atlantic area, covering stations in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia ?- the first group of 18 renewal ‘windows’ through 2007. The United Church of Christ, which recently hired former FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani as executive director of its Office of Communications, recently filed petitions to revoke the licenses of two Washington-area stations for failing to meet their children’s-programming obligations,” the story continues.
“The FCC is bracing for a crush of requests to deny renewals. ‘It’s plain this is an important moment,’ says Chairman Michael Powell.”
In an accompanying chart giving the history of such challenges, the magazine notes that third parties have been able to oppose station license renewals only since 1969, when a federal judge overruled the Federal Communications Commission and stripped the owner of WLBT-TV in Jackson, Miss., of the right to broadcast because of racist programming.
The ruling opened the way for local citizens to challenge license renewals, the magazine notes.
FCC’s Michael Powell in Midst of “Makeover”
“After nearly four years as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Michael Powell is completing a makeover that has many speculating about his future,” Marilyn Geewax writes for Cox News Service.
“Powell not only has lost weight and shed his eyeglasses, but he has also dramatically reshaped his image as the enforcer of broadcast decency standards. No longer a laid-back deregulator in that area, he now seeks record fines against broadcasters.
“Within days, the FCC is expected to intensify its cleanup efforts by slapping CBS with harsh penalties for its Super Bowl halftime show in which singer Janet Jackson’s breast was bared.
“Some say Powell’s tougher approach will enhance his chances to win elective office. Others believe he wants to boost his popularity on Capitol Hill to ensure he can be confirmed as a federal judge.”