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Hair Out as CNN’s U.S. News Chief

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African American News Exec Lasted 14 Months

Only 14 months after he was named to the job, Princell Hair, one of the top African American executives in television news, was replaced today as general manager of CNN/U.S.

And in another CNN announcement, “Ken Jautz is assuming broader responsibilities as executive vice president of CNN News Group. In addition to executive oversight of CNN Headline News, Ken will be responsible for operations and administration, media operations and program and talent development for the News Group.”

Rolando Santos, one of the highest-ranking Latino news executives in television, was executive vice president and general manager of CNN Headline News. He now reports to Jautz. It is unclear how his job is affected by the change.

Jim Walton, president of CNN News Group, said in a news release that, “Jonathan Klein, an accomplished former CBS journalist and producer and, more recently, a pioneering media entrepreneur, is joining our ranks as president of CNN/U.S. Effective mid-December, Jon will assume management oversight of all programming, editorial tone and strategic direction for our domestic news network, reporting directly to me.”

“Princell Hair, who had served as executive vice president and general manager of CNN/U.S., is assuming a new role as senior vice president of program and talent development, working across the entire CNN News Group portfolio of television networks and businesses.”

In a conference call with journalists who cover television, one reporter said it had been the sixth change at the top since Fox News Channel was launched.

Specifically asked why Hair was transferred, Walton said, “Princell came in here with a monstrous challenge.” CNN needed to merge and integrate parts of the company, Hair accomplished that, and “he should be very proud of that. We needed to put some new thinking in on the strategic direction of where we’re going. We were able to come up with a job where [Hair] can have an important [role]. We were fortunate to find Jon and here we are.”

Hair was not on the conference call. However, it became clear that Walton valued the priority Klein would give to compelling story-telling and strategic planning, and his experience in the Internet world.

“This is about the future of CNN,” Walton said, mentioning the potential of such technology as TiVo and other time-shifting devices. CNN must “use technology to our advantage,” he said. Walton also maintained that the change was not about competition from Fox News. He began by saying that CNN is forecasting its best year financially and that gains made by Fox News had come at the expense of broadcast networks, not CNN.

Klein, who from 1996 through 1998 was executive vice president of CBS News, where he oversaw “60 Minutes” and other newsmagazines, said he viewed as competition other networks that tell stories, such as the Discovery Channel and Court TV. “We have a host of competitors — dozens and literally hundreds” of channels competing for viewers, he said.

Klein was asked by Journal-isms about comments by Johannesburg bureau chief Charlayne Hunter-Gault at last month’s National Association of Black Journalists awards banquet, at which she said that only two of any 20 stories she files make it to CNN broadcasts in the United States; and about a BBC survey of Africans that showed that residents of that continent have largely positive attitudes about their lives, contrary to the impression given by the Western news media.

“A great story is a great story. I’m always on the lookout for a powerful story,” Klein replied. As an example, he cited one about “the prince” going off to Africa to work with children who have AIDS, presumably a reference to Britain’s Prince Harry‘s recent visit to Lesotho.

Advised that Hunter-Gault’s point was that there was more to Africa than disease, famine and war, Klein said he had worked with CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour while at CBS and that she was good at telling human stories.

Hair, a former television news director in Los Angeles and Baltimore who had overseen the news operations for Viacom’s 39 television stations, was named CNN/U.S. general manager in September 2003. He was then 36. His appointment was greeted with skepticism by the television media writers, who cited his largely local-news experience.

The New York Daily News reported then: “CNN News Group President Jim Walton said he believes Hair’s experience in highly competitive local news gives him the skills to handle the new approach.

‘He can work with high-end talent, and he needs to do that here,’ Walton said.”

Robinson to Become Washington Post Columnist

Gene Robinson, the Washington Post assistant managing editor for the Style section whose failure to be selected the paper’s managing editor has precipitated a newsroom-wide discussion about the paper’s commitment to diversity, today was named an associate editor and op-ed columnist.

“The column, which will also be offered for syndication by the Washington Post Writers Group, will begin after the new year. It will be about politics, culture, race, immigration, daily life and many other things, taking advantage of Gene’s experience in and knowledge of local news, foreign affairs and everything in between,” said editorial page editor Fred Hiatt in a memo to the Post staff.

Meanwhile, about 35 people from the Post newsroom met for two hours tonight to discuss strategy for a meeting Dec. 1 with executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. on diversity.

They targeted as problems recruitment, training and development, salaries, assignments, retention, and above all, what they termed an insider, macho culture. “I’ve worked at five papers, and this is the same laundry list you hear all the time,” said one speaker.

Although the diversity issue was raised first by African American staffers, black journalists were in the minority at the meeting. At least a third were concerned whites, with a number of Asian Americans, Latinos and white women voicing similar complaints.

The diversity issue highlighted a Post staff meeting last Thursday that had been called to discuss circulation, redesign and other issues and to introduce Phil Bennett, the assistant managing editor for foreign news who was chosen for the number 2 job over Robinson and Liz Spayd, assistant managing editor for national news. Robinson would have been the first black managing editor; Spayd the first woman.

No replacement for Robinson as Style editor was named.

Radio One Buys Majority Interest in Tom Joyner Co.

Radio One, Inc. announced today that it has signed “a definitive agreement” to acquire 51 percent of radio host Tom Joyner’s Reach Media, Inc. for approximately $56.1 million in a combination of cash and Radio One stock.

“The purchase would give Radio One an Internet presence and ownership rights to one of the nation’s top morning shows among black radio listeners,” as Krissah Williams wrote in today’s Washington Post.

“Radio One chief Alfred Liggins III wants more ‘multi’ in his media firm,” she wrote.

However, while there was much discussion about programming content and extending the brand into new technologies during a conference call today featuring Liggins, Joyner and other principals, news and journalism did not come up.

“No change,” Neil Foote, a Reach Media spokesman, told Journal-isms. “We’ve already got great content with TJMS,” — “The Tom Joyner Morning Show” — “website, special events — Plans are to continually improve content of all these elements with more distinguishable and distinctive content.”

Liggins said he was impressed by Joyner’s ability to attract such advertisers as Proctor & Gamble, and wanted to “bring more content into the Radio One fold.”

“Both companies’ wish is to reach African Americans and African American consumers through media,” Joyner said. “We can reach our goals better if we join forces.” But his Reach Media “will be a separate entity,” Oscar Joyner, the Reach chief operating officer, said. “We will just have a bigger parent company.”

Liggins said Radio One wanted to be ready for the expansion of satellite radio, was looking to integrate Joyner’s BlackAmericaWeb.com with the Radio One Web sites and mentioned the possibility of a syndicated television show for Joyner. Radio One owns an interest in the new cable network TV One.

“The acquisition, when combined with [Radio One’s] portfolio of 69 radio stations and cable network TV One, fortifies the company’s place as the nation’s largest black-owned media company,” Williams wrote in the Post. “Joyner’s Reach Media Inc. is the parent company of the Tom Joyner Morning Show, an urban radio show broadcast in 115 markets and BlackAmericaWeb.com, a Web portal that had 539,000 visitors last month, according to Web tracker ComScore Media Metrix.”

Anchor Who Went Nude: “I’m in It to Win”

Sharon Reed, the Cleveland anchor shown nude on the air during sweeps week, acknowledges that the timing was solely for ratings — which went through the roof.

“I’m in it to win,” Reed said, according to Julie Washington in the Plain Dealer. “When did that become a crime?”

“Channel 19’s late-night Monday newscast had a piece about Reed’s participation in artist Spencer Tunick’s nude photography installation here in the summer,” when the piece was taped. “The Channel 19 piece showed Reed in her bra and then naked, but from the rear and at a distance,” Washington wrote.

“The idea for her piece came when she interviewed Tunick on ‘Action 19 News First at Four’ before the photo shoot. Reed co-anchors ‘First at Four.’

“Later, news director Steve Doerr asked her privately if she would participate in the nude installation for a first-person story. She said yes because she felt strongly about Tunick’s right to express his art, and she trusts Doerr.

“‘I would not have done it for anybody else,’ she said.

Meanwhile, Michael Klein reported Sunday in the Philadelphia Inquirer that two Philly television stations, one of which is her former employer, both asked Reed to ask whether she would go on the air to talk about her experience and the fallout. Reed turned down her former employer, WCAU-TV, but both stations did stories anyway.

And Dan Gross reported in the Philadelphia Daily News that “CBS 3, on its 11 p.m. Monday newscast, is expected to air the piece in which the former NBC-10 anchor posed nude for a group photo by Spencer Tunick.

“. . . Reed has defended her decision to pose nude, telling us, ‘I wanted to know what is this about. This is real, not about sex. It’s about art,'” Gross wrote.

There’s also a Chicago angle. “It was front-page news back in 1991 when this column disclosed that anchorwomen at WBBM-Channel 2 had been ordered to wear silk blouses on the air in order to appear ‘more feminine,’ recalled broadcasting columnist Robert Feder in the Chicago Sun-Times.

“. . . So what do Channel 2’s silk blouses have in common with Cleveland’s naked anchorwoman? Bill Applegate.

“That’s right — the same Bill Applegate who rewrote the local news rule book in the early ’90s when he was vice president and general manager of Channel 2 here is the boss of WOIO today. By all accounts, Reed’s nude maneuver was Applegate’s idea from start to finish.”

A ploy for ratings stripped of pretense (Connie Schultz, Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Black Sportswriters on NBA Brawl, Suspensions

The mayhem at the Indiana Pacers-Detroit Pistons game, one of the worst brawls in U.S. sports history, was a natural topic for sports columnists, and they didn’t miss the opportunity to comment on the future of the NBA and what some called the current crop of thuggish players.

Blindsided by the Washington Times

Those of us who work in the news media have all heard the line, “never let the facts get in the way of a good story,” but that doesn’t make it any easier to read one’s words taken out of context, or worse, being quoted uttering something actually said by someone else.

Yes, it happened to Journal-isms on Saturday, after fielding a telephone call from editorial writer Joel Himelfarb of the Washington Times. He called to get comment from the National Association of Black Journalists in connection with the crusade by the Times and other members of the right wing to get “liberals” to denounce cartoons and other commentary that racially stereotyped Condoleezza Rice to make a point.

Himelfarb called in our capacity as chair of NABJ’s Media Monitoring Committee. We asked Himelfarb to point us to the Web addresses where these cartoons existed. He was unable to get specific. Thus, we didn’t have much to base a reaction on.

We knew of one cartoon, however, by Jeff Danziger, showing Rice as the Prissy character in “Gone With the Wind.” But we pointed out that both the syndicate and Danziger said that no one had actually run the cartoon and that it had been withdrawn. We advised the editorial writer to look at the column we wrote about that.

The fruits of the conversation ran the next day under the headline, “Bigotry and its defenders.”

“What is particularly disturbing is the length to which some liberals are willing to go in order to defend the use of such crude, condescending racial stereotypes when the target is a political conservative,” it read.

Using as an example the Journal-isms column in question, the editorial continued that, “the overall thrust of his column was that conservatives are making a mountain out of a molehill because: 1) the cartoon appears in less than 50 newspapers; and 2) the Iraq war is becoming another Vietnam, anyway, so administration spokesmen presumably have rude treatment coming.”

Actually, it was Danziger who made the Iraq war reference, the “thrust” of the column item was that no one was known to have run the cartoon; and instead of being a polemic, it simply reported the developments, as with most items here.

The Washington Times is a paper taken as objective only by those who agree with its conservative views. It is the same paper that carried water on its front page for a right-wing black minister who complained that he felt dissed by the 2002 NABJ convention.

In the new discussion about “moral values,” can we add fairness and accuracy to the list?

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