Columnists Cite Exclusion From Polls, Debate
Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, and Friday’s town hall-style presidential match, will give the candidates a chance to focus on domestic concerns — and those more directly relevant to people of color. And not a moment too soon, according to some black, Latino and Asian American columnists.
“This year, the only people of color involved with this presidential election are in the Middle East, especially Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and even Iran, which has tried to wiggle a toe in here and there by bragging about its newfound nuclear expertise,” Merlene Davis wrote last week in Kentucky’s Lexington Herald-Leader.
“Thursday night’s first presidential debate, billed as pivotal for John Kerry and George W. Bush, came and went without even a passing mention of relations with Latin America or of Latinos in the U.S.,” observed Albor Ruiz in the New York Daily News.
“Yet the Puerto Rican vote, which could have a major influence on the outcome of what is sure to be a tight presidential race, has been completely — and foolishly — overlooked by both campaigns,” wrote Ruiz, a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Hall of Fame.
Columnist Ruben Navarrette of the Dallas Morning News alerted readers Friday to research by the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University. “The basic finding: While both Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush have called the Latino vote critical, neither is making an all-out effort to win it outright. Instead, the strategy seems to be to make targeted attempts to court specific segments of the Latino electorate.”
On the San Francisco Chronicle’s sfgate.com Web site, Emil Guillermo writes: “If George Bush and John Kerry don’t pay more attention, they may get hit with a powerful kick they never saw coming — the invisible swing vote of Asian Americans.
But there’s a more fundamental problem, Guillermo tells readers.
“Look at any poll for a breakdown by race — black, Latino, Asian — and, in the vast majority, there aren’t enough people of color in the sampling to produce any reliable information.
“That’s not necessarily because polls are racist. It’s just that a poll is only as inclusive as the pollster wants it to be. And most political campaigns and media organizations don’t care enough to spend the time or the money to get more than the horse race.
” . . . And then there’s the matter of polling in foreign languages. Can you get Asian or Latino sentiment with pollsters who speak only English?”
As for African Americans, The Washington Post’s Vanessa Williams weighed in Saturday with a news story headlined, “Kerry’s Priorities Leave Some Blacks Cold.”
More commentary from columnists of color:
- Cary Clack, San Antonio Express-News: Debate introduces us to ‘This President’ and ‘My Opponent’
- Carlos Guerra, San Antonio Express-News: Thursday’s debate might prime pump for larger audiences
- Myriam Márquez, Orlando Sentinel: The Slugger vs. the Scowler
- Guillermo I. Martinez, South Florida Sun-Sentinel: A key issue among others
- Ruben Navarrette, Dallas Morning News: Both candidates better improve performance in second debate
- Les Payne, Newsday: Bush is pounded but avoids knockout
- Joseph Perkins, San Diego Union-Tribune: Voting rights, voting wrongs
- Alberta Phillips, Austin American-Statesman: GOP tries new tactics to recruit black voters
- Rochelle Riley, Detroit Free Press: Presidential picture is clearer now
- Barry Saunders, Raleigh News and Observer: Who’d vote for a real-life candidate?
- E.R. Shipp, New York Daily News: Sorry, Mr. Prez, it is the wrong war
Cleveland’s Mark Russell Named ME in Orlando
Mark E. Russell was named managing editor of the Orlando Sentinel, Editor Charlotte Hall announced today.
“Russell, 42, is assistant managing editor/metro at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio’s largest newspaper. In his new role at the Sentinel, he will lead all news-gathering, editing, photo, graphics and multimedia content functions for the paper. He will assume his new position in mid-October,” the Sentinel reported.
Russell is one of the graduates of the famed St. Louis workshop for black high school students interested in journalism, started by the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists.
“Prior to being assistant managing editor/metro at The Plain Dealer, Russell was its business editor for four years,” the story continued. “He joined the newspaper in 1987 as a business reporter and later moved to the city desk and then served as an assistant city editor. He left The Plain Dealer to join The Boston Globe as assistant metropolitan editor in 1993, a position he held for two years before returning to The Plain Dealer.”
Probe of Black Voting Finds Clerk Destroyed Ballots
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=MISCOUNT-DESTROY-10-01-04&cat=AN
A Scripps Howard News Service request to see several hundred questionable votes in Alexander County, Ill., one of three jurisdictions where the American Civil Liberties Union found a high drop-off in African American votes due to a punch-card ballot, has discovered that the clerk destroyed all of the ballots.
“The clerk in Alexander County said she destroyed all of the ballots from the 2002 election shortly before she received a Freedom of Information Act request to allow examination of several hundred questionable votes,” wrote Thomas Hargrove Friday for the Scripps Howard News Service in a story from Cairo, Ill.
“Gloria Patton said she could not honor the Freedom of Information Act request filed Sept. 7 by Scripps Howard News Service to produce 3,451 punch-card ballots cast in the Nov. 5, 2002, gubernatorial election. The wire service is investigating ballots cast in Alexander County that did not register votes for the offices of governor, U.S. senator and Illinois attorney general.
“‘We removed everything,’ Patton said Thursday.
“. . . The ACLU lawsuit three years ago challenged the use of punch-card voting in Alexander County, East St. Louis, Chicago and the city’s suburban voting districts in Cook County, charging that they unfairly disenfranchised black voters. Election experts say punch card ballots are more likely to produce tabulation errors than newer methods like touch-screen electronic voting or optically scanned ballots.
“‘We picked these counties because of a high fall-off rate (in tabulating votes) and a high percentage of African Americans,’ Schwartz said.”
Philly’s Joe Vazquez Fired for Off-Air Remarks
“NBC-10’s Joe Vazquez was fired Friday following a station investigation into off-air comments allegedly made last month about a rape case,” Dan Gross writes in the Philadelphia Daily News.
“The reporter/anchor and a cameraman were discussing graphic details of a story they were covering, involving an alleged rape at La Salle University, and their language and candor, sources say, upset a male intern, who complained to management.
“Colleagues of Vazquez, who joined the station in March 2002 and was considered by many a rising star, told us they felt the punishment was too extreme for the crime.
“We’re inclined to agree, based on the fact that even if inappropriate comments were made, they were made among co-workers, and not on-air or in the presence of the victim or her family,” Gross continued.
“As for the intern, if the words of his colleagues offend him so greatly, we suggest he may not be cut out for the news business, where things aren’t all sugar and spice and everything nice,” he said.
Credibility of Tribally Owned Papers Debated
“Editor Joe Martin has a precarious job. All editors are subject to flack from angry elected leaders ?- whether it?s over a less-than-flattering quote or the front-page airing of an unpopular stance on a controversial issue,” Becky Johnson wrote last month in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountain News.
“But for Martin, editor of the Cherokee newspaper called The Cherokee One Feather, it?s a different ballgame. His salary and his job lie in the hands of the very politicians he?s reporting on. The newspaper is owned and funded by the tribe, making Martin a tribal employee.
“. . . Mark Trahant, a prestigious Native American newspaperman who is now an editor with the Seattle Post Intelligencer, said it?s a rare editor who will risk their job rather than print what they are instructed to, who instead say ‘fire me,'” the story continued.
“‘But that?s the right answer,’ Trahant said.
“Trahant said many tribal papers are little more than a newsletter run by people with no journalism experience.
“. . . Some tribal leaders believe that Martin oversteps his bounds as a tribal employee. Council member Bob Blankenship said he supports free press, but not if the tribe is funding it.
“‘My issue is how can you have a free press with a government-owned newspaper? Do you know of any towns or cities that own a newspaper and call it free press?’ Blankenship asked. ‘It needs to be a public relations paper if it?s going to be funded by the tribe. It should make the tribe look good instead of criticizing its own self and being paid for by the people?s money.'”
Wil Haygood Wins Hurston/Wright Literary Award
Washington Post staff writer Wil Haygood won a 2004 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for nonfiction for his biography of Sammy Davis Jr., and another Post staff writer, Lynne Duke, was a finalist in the category for her memoir of her reporting time in Africa, “Mandela, Mobutu, and Me: A Newswoman?s African Journey.”
“The Hurston/Wright Foundation, started in 1990, also gives awards to black college writers and offers workshops for high school students,” wrote the Post’s Linton Weeks, who covered the black-tie affair Friday night.
“Each category winner received $10,000 and two finalists in each category took home $5,000 apiece.”
As reported in July, actor-director Denzel Washington said he planned to film Davis’ life story, based on Haygood’s “In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr.”
Patrice Gaines to N.C. to Help Women Ex-Prisoners
Patrice Gaines, author of the 1995 memoir, ?Laughing In The Dark: From Colored Girl to Woman of Color ? A Journey from Prison to Power,? and reporter for 16 years at the Washington Post, is leaving D.C. for Charlotte, N.C., where she and a friend plan to start the Brown Angel Retreat Center, a program for women who have been incarcerated.
“Right now the center is just a thought and prayer, so add your prayers to ours, please,” she writes.
The idea is to help women whose lives are fairly stable — “a job, family settled, no emergencies or traumas,” she told Journal-isms. “We want to take them to the next level. Our goal is to make them financially independent, and mentally and spiritually healthy. To that end, we will send them to college, put them in job training programs at companies or schools; send them to vocational or skills training schools. The women will come to Brown Angel Retreat Center for a week, and during that time be pampered and attend classes. They will leave with their personalized plan, which is a map to how they can reach their dream of becoming whatever . . . “
Gaines, who left the Post staff in 2001, says she’s moving to Charlotte Nov. 20 and can be reached through her Web site.
SPJ Not Enough for Some J-Students of Color
“Lara Del Rosario, a Filipino broadcast journalism graduate student, went to a meeting of the Society of Professional Journalists thinking she would join,” Julie Andrews writes in the Daily Orange at Syracuse University. “Del Rosario left, with three other Asian-American graduate students, looking for something more.
“‘It’s kind of funny that we were the only minorities at the SPJ meeting,’ Del Rosario said. ‘When the organizers of the meeting asked what issues people wanted to discuss, people mentioned credibility in the media and Dan Rather. It just didn’t seem like the right place to bring up what I’m interested in — how people’s race might play a factor in their getting jobs in the journalism field.'”
Andrews goes on to describe other students of color who were dissatisfied with SPJ’s priorities, forming chapters of the National Association of Black Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association, but quotes others who say one shouldn’t be limited to just one journalism organization.
“Hubert Brown, professor of broadcast journalism and the faculty sponsor for the SPJ, hopes students of color will continue to join SPJ to add diverse voices to the organization’s discussions.
“I am glad that students want to advocate for journalists of color,” Brown said in the piece. “But, it saddens me a bit that students feel they cannot be a member of both the SPJ and a minority journalism organization. The SPJ needs the voice of Asian-American students and all students of color — diversity is a big part of what the SPJ does.”
Bernard Shaw Roasted Before 400 at Benefit
“Whatever the reason, the 400 guests at Wednesday’s 16th annual roast benefiting the Spina Bifida Association of America were ready for a good time,” Roxanne Roberts writes in her “Out & About” column in the Washington Post.
“In this capital of ours, it feels good to laugh and be laughed at,” said roastee Bernard Shaw, the face of CNN for 21 years and the night’s good sport.
“The first roaster at bat was Walter Cronkite, who’s been friends with Shaw for decades. ‘I did hear he retired at the ripe old age of 61,’ the 87-year old Cronkite told the crowd at the Mandarin Oriental hotel. ‘Oh, to be 61 again!’
“The good-natured mudslinging continued from Rep. Harold Ford; Redskins owner Dan Snyder, who presented a hilarious slide show of ‘Baghdad Bernie’ decked out in Renaissance garb; and Sen. Lindsey Graham, attending at the behest of roast founders Judy Woodruff and Al Hunt.
“‘When Judy called me to do this I said yes, and then I thought about it,’ said Graham. ‘I’m a white Republican from South Carolina about to make fun of a black man in front of every media outlet in the world.’
“All for a good cause. The night raised $375,000 for research and everyone’s spirits even more. Even Shaw left smiling.”
