CNN Shutting Down Its Financial Channel
“CNN will shut down its struggling CNNfn financial news network in mid-December, giving up its attempt to compete with CNBC after nine years,” as the Associated Press reported yesterday.
“A handful of programs will be shifted to the main network.”
“Sixty jobs will be eliminated, but CNN said it will add about 100 new jobs across the company, many related to the Headline News plans,” the story said.
CNNfn’s only executive of color, Darius Walker who was vice president of CNN business news in New York, is now in CNN’s Washington bureau. He was named senior director, news coverage there effective June 7.
Journalists of color at the financial news outlet include host Valerie Morris of “The Flip Side,” reporter Fred Katayama, and producers Alturo Rhymes, Ruben Ramirez, Carmina Perez [added Oct. 31:] and Elizabeth Choi.
Rhymes told Journal-isms that he had not decided whether to stay until the Dec. 31 termination date, and that his understanding was that CNNfn employees would not receive preference for the new CNN jobs. “If you’ve only done financial news,” you won’t fare as well there, he said. “People are nervous, but other people are fine.”
Houston Chronicle Cuts Workforce 10 Percent
“The Houston Chronicle has cut nearly 10 percent of its work force, or 243 positions, as part of a previously announced program to reduce operating expenses, the company said today,” the paper reported on its Web site Tuesday.
Sources at the paper listed three black and one Hispanic journalist who took buyouts. And some of them apparently were not happy.
“I really don’t want to talk about it, thank you,” said one, ending the conversation. “It’s nobody’s business,” said another.
LaMonica Everett-Haynes, a general assignment reporter who also covered education, told Journal-isms today that she had decided to go to graduate school at the University of Arizona to study higher education. She had planned to attend graduate school in Houston, “then this happened.”
“Virtually all of the positions in the news and advertising divisions remain intact,” the Chronicle story said.
“In a letter to employees, Chronicle Publisher and President Jack Sweeney said it was important to cut costs to pay for initiatives that will add circulation, readership and advertising revenue.”
Dallas Paper Reiterates Diversity Commitment
Officials at the Dallas Morning News reiterated the company’s commitment to diversity today, even as the effect of the paper’s layoffs on the composition of the staff continued to be discussed among some of those who were laid off.
As reported Wednesday, the Morning News laid off 60 to 70 people in what some were calling a “massacre” that involved several long-serving employees, including at least 10 journalists of color.
“Any time you’re making reductions in force of this type it’s difficult,” said Carey Hendrickson, vice president of investor relations and corporate communications for the parent Belo Corp.
In making the decisions, the company was “trying to match the strategic needs of the company going forward with the work force we would need to accomplish the strategic needs,” he told Journal-isms.
“The Dallas Morning News is very committed to diversity,” as is the rest of Belo, he said. “You may know that we have contributed to the Maynard Institute for its minority managers program.”
Ed Choate, sports editor in the Collin County bureau and apparently the only Native American journalist laid off, said he thought that what had happened was first of all “a human tragedy.” But he said he did believe that “journalism lost in diversity in the last couple of days, no question about that.”
Timothy O’Leary, a Latino editorial writer who was laid off, said that by his calculations, Latinos were disproportionately affected. He said that while Latinos were 3.3 percent of the news and editorial staff, 25 percent of them lost their jobs.
The figures were difficult to confirm, since management is not releasing a list of those who were let go and informal lists circulating in the newsroom came with no guarantee of accuracy. O’Leary, 47, also said he might have been targeted because he had been hired by a previous editorial page editor.
Nicaragua-born Meyla Hooker, who is of African and Hispanic heritage, was in the sports department and graduated from Florida A&M University in 2001. She told Journal-isms she was now looking to become a sports information director/assistant at the collegiate level.
Hooker is a graduate of the Associated Press Sports Journalism Institute, designed to get more journalists of color into news organizations.
Choate, 43, who is a Chocktaw, said he was not ready to leave the business. There are other ways to have an impact in journalism, he said, as a teacher, mentor or working in other publications.
History repeats itself in Dallas (Ben Winton, Maynard Institute)
For job hunters: available jobs (Jennifer LaFleur, Dallas Morning News)
Carol Morton, KNBC News Exec, Dies at 57
“Veteran KNBC news executive Carol Morton died Sunday night at Cedars Sinai,” begins a memo to the staff of KNBC-TV Los Angeles from News Director Bob Long. It is posted on the Web site of the Black Journalists of Southern California, of which she was a founding member.
“She had been fighting leukemia for a number of years, a fact known only to close friends. Beverly White is among the last of our group to have seen her, when Carol called from Cedars to complain about hospital food and demand something better to soothe her soul. Beverly took her greens and yams and expected to visit her again this week with more of the same. Reva Hicks remembers Carol as a big sister when they were working together as vacation relief writers here in ’79, supportive and wise.
“Carol became staff in ’90 and shepherded Today in LA into an unprecedented run as the dominant morning newscast in Los Angeles. Reva and Beverly agree that Carol was remarkable for being tough but not hard-headed; focused but not narrow; demanding but not graceless.”
“Carol was a 1970 graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism and was 57 at the time of her death. She is survived by a daughter, Kimrie, an actor out of NYU, and a son, Billy, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and works for American Express.”
“Memorial Service will be Saturday, November 6th at 10 AM at the First AME Church. (2270 S. Harvard Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90018).”
Julia Scott Reed blazed a trail in journalism (Norma Adams-Wade, Dallas Morning News)
Gerald Boyd Explains What Makes Journalists Tick
“Most journalists are insecure. . . . Paradoxically, most journalists are arrogant. . . . Most journalists have egos, huge ones at that. And those egos can be stroked or manipulated by skillful operatives, no matter how much journalists try to resist,” explains Gerald M. Boyd, the former New York Times managing editor now writing a column for the Universal Press Syndicate.
“Most journalists are fiercely competitive. . . . Most journalists are gossips. . . . Most journalists are driven by a sense of righteousness that means different things to different people,” he continues.
“The journalists who write what appears in your newspapers or magazines or what you see or hear in broadcasts possess some, if not all, of these traits. That’s why they generate such intense reaction from readers like you. At best, they are confusing and even contradictory. At worst, they seem defensive and defiant.
“In a free society, journalists are a necessary burden. I’m not suggesting that you marry one or even have one over for dinner. But you should understand what makes them tick, warts and all. After all, they are not going away anytime soon, nor will the need for them.”
Mixed Views on Media Coverage of Campaign
“By now, [President] Bush has figured out that he can lie to the American people anytime he wants to ï¿œ- and most of the time, the news media will not call him on it,” writes George E. Curry, editor of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service.
Meanwhile, on the local level, the Radio-Television News Directors Association reports today that “nearly nine of 10 Americans believe local broadcasters are providing ‘the right amount’ or ‘too much’ time covering the 2004 elections, a nationwide poll of 1,001 Americans has found.”
“The nationwide poll, commissioned by the National Association of Broadcasters and conducted October 22-25 by Wirthlin Worldwide, surveyed 1,001 Americans on their views related to election coverage provided by local radio and television stations. The pollï¿œs margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percent.
“Among the pollï¿œs key findings:
- Forty-two percent of adults believe local broadcasters are providing ‘too much time’ covering the elections, while 47 percent say local stations are providing ‘about the right amount’ of coverage. Only 10 percent of Americans think broadcasters are providing ‘too little time’ covering elections.
- Local broadcast coverage of elections, whether in the form of news reports or candidate debates, was viewed by 48 percent of Americans as the ‘most helpful’ factor in selecting a candidate, compared to 24 percent of adults who picked cable TV news coverage and 9 percent who picked newspaper coverage. Paid radio and TV advertising was listed by only 1 percent of poll respondents as the ‘most helpful’ factor in selecting a candidate.
- “By an overwhelming margin -ï¿œ 69 percent to 28 percent ï¿œ- poll respondents oppose government-mandated free airtime for political candidates.
- “By more than a 2-1 [ratio], Americans believe that if political candidates were offered government-mandated free airtime they would use the time for ads attacking their opponents (65 percent) as opposed to informing the public on issues through speeches, forums and debates (31 percent).
- ” By a nearly 3-1 [ratio], poll respondents reject the suggestion that political candidates would raise less money (25 percent) if they did not have to pay for political advertising. Instead, they believe candidates would ‘continue raising money, and spend it on something else,’ (71 percent).”
Rights Groups, Caucus in Bed With Cable Industry?
“When a conservative member of Congress floated the idea of allowing consumers to pick which channels they want to pay for rather than having to buy a ‘bundle’ of channels they may never watch, it seemed like a pretty good idea,” writes John Dunbar for the Center for Public Integrity.
“Rather than pay a flat fee for dozens of channels, consumers could choose a handful of channels ‘a la carte,’ or from a menuï¿œand possibly pay far less for their service.
“Among the hundreds of initiatives tracked by the cable television industry and its army of lobbyists, a la carte is among the most feared.
“Surveys by J.D. Power show a low level of public satisfaction with cable service providers.
“. . . But rather than spark an uprising of consumer support, the proposal to offer channels on an a la carte basis was blasted by elected officials at every level of government. Joining the chorus were nationally known and respected civil rights organizations and a large collection of women’s groups, all of whom appeared to be singing from the same page.
“. . . Over the past few years, the nonprofit Congressional Black Caucus Foundationï¿œa separate and distinct entity from the caucus that nevertheless boasts 11 caucus members on its board of directors and two caucus members among its top officersï¿œhas drawn considerable support from the cable industry.
“In its 2002 annual report, the foundation, which ranks donors within ranges, lists Time Warner (then AOL Time Warner) as contributing between $50,000 and $99,999. In the 2003 report, the company jumped a tier, contributing between $100,000 and $249,999. Comcast also upped its contribution, from between $30,000 and $49,999 in 2002 to between $50,000 and $99,999 in 2003.
“. . . In addition, Comcast, the NCTA, Time Warner and Viacom are all regular sponsors of the caucus’s annual legislative conference. In all, over the two years, those companies contributed as much as $589,991.
“. . . According to publicly available IRS filings, the [Leadership Conference on Civil Rights] and the Leadership Conference Education Fund have received at least $400,000 in contributions from the Time Warner Foundation in 2001 and 2002. The conference’s Web siteï¿œwww.civilrights.orgï¿œ was made possible through the “generous support” of the Time Warner Foundation, according to the organization.
“Among contributions to other nonprofits who signed letters opposing cable a la carte, the AOL Foundation has given $300,000 to City Year, $100,000 in 2000, 2001 and 2002; and the Comcast Foundation has contributed $50,000 to the National Urban League, $78,600 to the Women in Cable & Telecommunications, $70,000 to City Year Philadelphia and $50,000 to City Year Detroit.”
In D.C., Peterson to Reunite With Bunyan
Gordon Peterson, who in his 35 years at Washington’s WUSA-TV, the CBS affiliate that was formerly WTOP-TV, shared anchor duties with two founders of the National Association of Black Journalists, Max Robinson and Maureen Bunyan, is reuniting with Bunyan at the ABC affiliate, WJLA-TV.
“Peterson will replace Leon Harris, who is nearing his one-year anniversary at the station, at 6 p.m., but the former CNN anchor will continue to co-anchor at 5 p.m. with Kathleen Matthews and at 11 p.m. with Bunyan,” John Maynard reports in the Washington Post.
Fred Ryan, WJLA general manager, said in the story that Peterson’s new role does not diminish Harris’s standing at the station. “Leon is our chief anchor,” Ryan said. “Leon actually has been part of this process. He has met with Gordon. When we talked about Gordon, right from the start [Harris] embraced the idea.”
“Harris said he felt threatened for ’10 seconds’ when he first heard that his bosses were courting Peterson. ‘Then I thought about it and said: “This is the equivalent of the Lakers bringing in Magic Johnson. Here’s a chance to have some old Lakers fans come on board and revive the franchise,” ‘” Maynard reported.
Tavis Smiley to Play Thurgood Marshall on TV
Talk-show host Tavis Smiley has said he is not a journalist, but who knew that he was an actor?
NBC announced Wednesday that “radio-television talk show host Tavis Smiley (‘The Tavis Smiley Show from NPR’ and PBS’ ‘The Tavis Smiley Show’) — known for his political commentary and emphasis on African-American community issues — will portray Thurgood Marshall, one of the most renowned American civil rights figures who would become the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, on NBC’s ‘American Dreams,’ Sunday, Nov. 7 (8-9 p.m. ET).
“In the episode, ‘What Dreams May Come,’ African-American freshman Sam Walker (Arlen Escarpeta) leaves his University of Pennsylvania studies to spend Thanksgiving dinner at his girlfriend’s home — and has a fortuitous meeting with another guest in the Honorable Marshall, 12 years after the landmark 1954 decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education and just before his appointment to the nation’s highest court.”
Gene Robinson Said to Be ME Finalist at D.C. Post
“The Washington Post is poised to pick a new managing editorï¿œthe person who likely will succeed executive editor Len Downie at the topï¿œand the palace intrigue is worthy of a David Ignatius spy novel,” writes Harry Jaffe in the Washingtonian magazine.
“Ignatius, now a Post columnist, could write it in first person; heï¿œs a leading candidate. Daily tracking polls Friday showed Ignatius the most-mentioned among Posties likely to know,” he wrote last week.
“. . . Ignatius and Style editor Eugene Robinson appear to be the two top candidates.
“. . . Style editor Robinson is the newsroom favorite, though Ignatius has the stature, gravitas, and Ben Bradlee swagger.
“. . . Should Robinson succeed Downie, he would become the first African-American to run one of the nationï¿œs top dailies unless Dean Baquet, now the number-two editor at the Los Angeles Times, first replaces editor John Carroll.”
Joel Dreyfuss’ New Magazine to Go Weekly
“Red Herring, one of the signature new economy magazines of the 1990s that foundered and went belly-up in the dot-com bust, has come back to life, with plans to go weekly,” Dan Fost reports in the San Francisco Chronicle.
As reported last month, the magazine hired veteran journalist Joel Dreyfuss, a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists, as its editor.
“. . . 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 San Francisco Business Times reported.
“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.”
Fost wrote that “Red Herring, owned by entrepreneur Alex Vieux, faces significant hurdles in trying to reclaim its popularity. But Editor Joel Dreyfus[s], 59, the former editor of Information Week and PC magazines and a former Tokyo bureau chief and tech columnist for Fortune, believes his staff can deliver timely information to savvy technology and business readers.
Dreyfuss told Fost that that this time around, Red Herring won’t have its laserlike focus on venture capitalists and tech startups. “We’re going to be broader to reflect the maturing of the tech industry,” Dreyfuss is quoted as saying. “It’s also important to be much more global than it was.”
Tony Marcano Said to Find Sacramento Bee Tedious
It was just last week that Tony Marcano announced he was leaving his job as ombudsman at California’s Sacramento Bee to become Sunday/enterprise editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.
And this week comes the assessment of his tenure in the alternative paper, the Sacramento News & Review.
“A common theme running through several of Marcanoï¿œs columns addresses the detrimental effects that inevitably flow from the capital cityï¿œs lack of daily-newspaper competition,” Stephen James wrote.
ï¿œ’Papers in one-newspaper towns tend to go in one of two directions–either they maintain the competitive drive that led to their survival, or they rest on their laurels and become little media outlets for coupons and comic strips,’ Marcano wrote in a column last February. This absence of competitive motivation leads to bland, formulaic stories, according to Marcano. . . .
“The repetitive tediousness, he explained, was pervasive throughout the Beeï¿œs corporate culture. ‘I donï¿œt really know one way or the other if thereï¿œs some sort of concerted or deliberate effort to make the paper sound essentially the same, [and] I donï¿œt know whether people are adapting themselves to what they see is the newspaper style or whether the newspaper demands that style. So, itï¿œs kind of a chicken-and-the-egg thing. I donï¿œt know which came first,’ he said.
“Marcano also speculates that the Beeï¿œs banality may stem from a legitimate fear of offending readers. ‘Iï¿œve noticed that there are a lot of Bee readers who want the paper to reflect their sensibilities, more than whatï¿œs really going on in the world (to those folks, if it doesnï¿œt meet their worldview, it isnï¿œt news),’ he wrote.”
Marcano was a 1985 graduate of the Maynard Institute’s Summer Program for Minority Journalists and program manager for Maynard’s 1993 Los Angeles Total Community Coverage program, and he took part in both the 1994 Total Community Coverage program in Atlanta and the 2000 program in Oakland, Calif.
E.J. Mitchell Interviews for Nashville Job
“E.J. Mitchell, the managing editor of The Detroit News, arguably the best paper in the Gannett chain, interviewed on Tuesday to become the next editor of The Tennessean, sources tell Desperately,” writes Matt Pulle in the alternative Nashville Scene. “He joins Idaho Statesman editor Carolyn Washburn as a leading candidate to move into Frank Sutherland’s office.”
The less-than-flattering piece begins, “He’s a Gannett chain climber, and he uses Dilbertish phrases like ‘sophisticated layering’ and ‘beatadvisory panels’ when he talks about journalism. He says that when newspapers need to convey important information, they should do so in bullet form and ‘whenever possible, in big type.’ He approaches editing a newspaper in much the same way as McDonald’s markets Happy Meals, caring more about reaching than informing readers.
“In other words, he may be just what the Gannettoids may want to run the newsroom at 1100 Broadway. . . .
“There’s a lot of promise in his candidacy: Mitchell, who’s in his early 40s, is one of the highest-ranking African American journalists in the country. Because the editor of The Detroit News also doubles as publisher, Mitchell has more responsibility than most managing editors. Unlike Washburn, who reeks of lazy, small-town journalism, Mitchell has been the managing editor of a paper that has tackled complex issues like urban school reform, gun violence and the effects of tax policy on the working poor. Mitchell also has a lot of experience, having already served as the executive editor of the Statesman Journal in Oregon.
“But like a child raised by wolves, Mitchell seems to have a limited perspective about how his world operates. Like Washburn, Mitchell has spent almost his entire career in the Gannett system and the last 13 or so on the Gannett editor track. This weakness is apparent in a soul-numbing lecture Mitchell gave earlier this year about Gannett’s ‘Real Life, Real News’ program, which is basically a companywide campaign to make newspapers more ‘accessible” to people who have given up on them. That’s a fair enough premise, but Mitchell seems to think that means pandering to readers at every step and creating a messy bureaucracy that hinders relevant, aggressive reporting.”
CEO of Univision Is a Big Bush Backer
As reported Wednesday, Univision plans to air interviews with both President Bush and Democrat John Kerry as part of an election package Saturday night.
The interviews will air on ￜSￜbado Giganteￜ (Gigantic Saturday), hosted by Mario Kreutzberger, better known as ￜDon Francisco.ￜ
Columnist Juan Gonzalez writes in the New York Daily News that, “Democratic insiders familiar with the political leanings of Univision’s chief executive, Jerrold Perenchio, will watch carefully to make sure Don Francisco treats both candidates fairly.
“In his native California, Perenchio routinely dispenses major contributions to Democrats and Republicans alike, but on the national level he has long been a huge contributor to the Republican Party and George W. Bush.
“Between 1998 and September, Perenchio and his family gave nearly $2 million to Bush and other national Republican efforts, according to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. He gave another $1.2 million to GOP-leaning issue organizations like Progress for America and the Republican Governors Association.
“And in March, he threw a party at his Southern California mansion that raised another $3 million for the President’s campaign.”
“We would all like to think his boss’ big support for Bush will not affect a veteran showman like Don Francisco. Not on the last ‘Sabado Gigante’ before the big election,” writes Gonzalez, immediate past president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
