Newspaper Co. Has 18.6% Journalists of Color
The Gannett Co., announcing the results of its annual “All-American Review,” told its member papers that 36 newspaper staffs met or exceeded the percentage of minorities in the community’s Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) or home county/counties; 34 newspapers had news-management staffs that met or exceeded the MSA benchmark, 60 newspapers met or exceeded the MSA benchmark for newsroom hiring, and 44 met or exceeded the MSA benchmark for hiring or promoting news managers of color.
George Benge, a news executive at the nation’s largest newspaper company, wrote that:
“Both the total number (1,054) and the percentage (18.6) of journalists of color at Gannett newspapers reached record levels in 2004. The previous records of 1,011 journalists of color and 18.3 percent were set in 2003.
“The number (258) and percentage (18.7) of managers of color set Gannett records. . . .
“The number (89) and percentage (33.2) of people of color promoted or hired in management positions also set Gannett records. This means that one-third of all promoted or new Gannett managers in the past year were people of color.”.
“When it comes to this year’s All-American Review: Mainstreaming and Diversity, the glass is definitely more than half full,” Phil Currie, senior vice president/news, wrote separately.
“The internal concern is that too many newspapers slipped in this review compared with the 2003 review. Often the overall-rating decline was small — even as little as a quarter point — but any drop is a move in the wrong direction. Those who experienced this decline need to examine all aspects of their efforts and push for improvements over the next year.
“In Gannett, we now have 18.6 percent people of color in newsroom professional jobs and 18.7 in managers. That’s good and way beyond the industry averages of 12.95 and 10.5, as reported by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
And, he said, “nationally, the minority total is 31.7 percent, still a far distance from our overall number.
“As we all know, the nation is becoming more diverse and growth among people of color is far more rapid than among non-minorities.
“So we must — we must — press on to keep at this goal of increasing the mix in our newsrooms to come closer to the mix in our nation.”
Despite Agreement, Hampton’s Troubles Continue
After a rough-and-tumble year in which the acting president confiscated copies of the paper and a task force was created to prevent such a situation from recurring, the student newspaper at Hampton University finds itself without a faculty adviser for its editorial product, a condition for getting out the first issue of the new school year.
The adviser resigned after the university would no longer allow her to receive credit for the hours spent on the student newspaper, The Script, a concept known as “release time.”
“This semester I have a four-course load,” the former adviser, journalism Prof. Kim LeDuff, told Journal-isms, and thus had no time left for the Script. Previously, the Script service could substitute for one of the courses. The Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications installed a new dean over the summer, television host Tony Brown.
The Script’s advisers last year were LeDuff, Yuri Rodgers Milligan of the school’s public relations office, who served as business adviser, and Dr. Christina Pinkston-Betts of the English Department, who told Journal-isms she was a “co-adviser” working under the editorial adviser, LeDuff.
Milligan told Journal-isms last week that the university was conducting “a search” for an adviser and was confident that the first issue of the paper would be published Wednesday as planned.
The task force recommendations accepted by Acting President JoAnn Haysbert last December declared that, “Oversight and guidance from a faculty advisor (or advisors) with adequate journalistic knowledge and an appreciation and commitment to the Hampton model are necessary.” The students wanted an adviser who knew about journalism.
The recommendations also provided that, “An Advisory Board be established and empowered to resolve issues between the editors and advisers.”
The chairman of the advisory board, Dr. Bennie G. McMorris Jr., dean of students, told Journal-isms today that the status of the advisers was “an internal issue that we’re dealing with that’s being handled by the university. It’s not an issue that’s open for public discussion at this particular point in time.”
Mariani-Belding to Head Honolulu Editorial Page
Jeanne Mariani-Belding, deputy editorial page editor of California’s San Jose Mercury News, has been named editorial and opinion editor at the Honolulu Advertiser and starts there Oct. 4.
Mariani-Belding thus becomes one of the first, if not the first Asian American journalist to oversee a big-city newspaper’s editorial page.
In fact, she told Journal-isms, “I don’t know of any other Asian American, or Asian American woman in this role at a metro paper. (Or even a smaller one for that matter).”
She was previously the Mercury News’ senior editor for recruiting and special projects and its race relations and demographics editor. She was also a representative on the Asian American Journalists Association’s national board and was a 2003 Knight fellow at Stanford.
The move marks a return to Hawaii for Mariani-Belding, who once covered city hall for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
From her bio:
“While at the Mercury News, Jeanne created and led the paper?s Race & Demographics Department, the first of its kind in the nation. She also developed the ‘satellite system’ for mainstreaming diversity in coverage, which has been cited as an industry model. Under her leadership, the race & demographics team produced several award-winning and groundbreaking projects, including a five-part series called ‘Majority of None,’ the first comprehensive look at the dramatic demographic shift, with whites no longer holding an ethnic majority.
“Jeanne?s career also includes reporting and writing about a variety of issues, from education to politics to urban affairs. She is a 2003 John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University, where she studied international business with a focus on emerging ethnic communities. She has held numerous national leadership roles with the Asian American Journalists Association and co-chaired UNITY 2004, the world?s largest conference for journalists.”
Air America Starts Tuesday in Bay Area
“Comedian Al Franken is bringing his ambitious attempt to create a liberal talk radio network to the Bay Area’s airwaves starting Tuesday,” reports Dan Fost in the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Air America, which got off to a rocky beginning after its start in April, will take over the slot now occupied by KABL on 960 AM. The new station will be called KQKE, ‘the Quake.’ KABL, which plays American standards from the 1940s and 1950s, will move to 92.1 FM, broadcasting out of Walnut Creek.”
KABL General Manager Joe Cunningham “acknowledged the irony in Clear Channel taking on the liberal talk of Air America. Many liberals love to lambaste Clear Channel — both for its corporate leadership’s support of President Bush and for stations like KNEW (910 AM), a conservative talk station starring San Francisco’s Michael Savage,” Fost continued.
But he quoted Clear Channel Senior Vice President Ed Krampf, who oversees a region stretching from Fresno to Alaska, as saying, “We’re capitalists. We put on what the listening audience wants.”
Eugene Kane Lauds Palmer, Connects With Cosby
The late activist Lu Palmer’s “legacy in journalism is his desire that blacks in the media always remember their ‘blackness,’ particularly when it comes time to expose injustice and bias in society’s institutions,” local columnist Eugene Kane writes in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
“I wish I could have attended Palmer’s funeral; it would have felt like paying homage to a man I never met but who nevertheless played an essential role in my life.
“When people ask me why I write about race, the answer is that black journalists like Lu Palmer would have wanted it that way.
“That’s good enough for me.”
Meanwhile, Kane, who is also president of the Wisconsin Black Media Association, has used a contact he made with Bill Cosby earlier this year to bring Cosby to a community forum in Milwaukee, co-sponsored by the Black Media Association.
Kane began a conversation with Cosby after criticizing in his column the entertainer’s comments about “lower-economic people.”
The columnist told fellow NABJ members on the organization’s e-mail list that, “Cosby is attending free of charge, he’s paying all of his expenses; his only interest is to spark some grassroots reaction and generate thought-provoking debate. His only requirement was the event be held in the black community, not some downtown auditorium or hotel ballroom.”
Cosby had invited Kane to a similar forum in Newark, N.J., the columnist wrote.
“I’m here to report it was pretty impressive. Milwaukee could use something like this,” he told readers.
Martin Described as “Wind of Change” for Defender
“At the Chicago Defender, we have a B.C. and a A.D.,” new editor Roland S. Martin recently told a gathering of black journalists, Johnathon E. Briggs and Rob Kaiser reported Sunday in the Chicago Tribune.
“The B.C. was July 11,” the day before he arrived at the Defender.
“I am confident under Roland’s leadership they will increase the circulation,” George E. Curry, head of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a trade group for black papers, said in the story. “But he questions whether the paper can survive as more than a weekly,” the writers continue.
“Martin is running the Defender with a skeletal crew, including only one reporter. Many staffers have left since he came.
“He threw the fear of God into a lot of people,” Joe Ruklick, a Defender reporter who left in August, is quoted as saying.
Ombudsmen Take on “The Boondocks”
Last week’s controversial “Boondocks” comic strip — in which hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons created an “Apprentice”-style reality show dubbed “Can a N—a Get a Job?” — drew reactions from two ombudsmen over the weekend.
In the Washington Post, Michael Getler wrote:
“One year after refusing to publish a week’s worth of the ‘Boondocks’ comic strip drawn by Aaron McGruder, The Post did it again last week, only this time it didn’t tell readers. The Post says that comics are edited just like any other feature of the paper and denies that this is censorship. Editors say last week’s offering was racially offensive and used negative stereotypes of African Americans to lampoon TV reality shows. Last year The Post was the only paper, among 250 that buy ‘Boondocks,’ to drop it. This time seven other papers dropped it, including the Boston Globe. I disagreed last time, and this time, too. I think McGruder, who is African American, is a brilliant artist who has created young, black characters speaking with razor-sharp, satirical candor who say things that make us uncomfortable but also make us think.”
In the Sacramento Bee, Tony Marcano said that given Bee editor’s notes warning about the content, his paper might have engaged in overkill:
“By assigning a full article on last week’s installments of ‘The Boondocks’ — and let me be clear that the article itself was fine – The Bee in effect elevated the issue to news. A warning to readers, as issued in the editor’s note, was absolutely warranted, but did the strip’s contents warrant a news story?” Marcano asked.
