Newsday Black Journalists Recount Frustration
About 20 black journalists at Newsday met with the new editor of the Long Island newspaper Thursday night and told him of their frustrations about mobility and shabby treatment by editors. “One sister was about to cry,” said reporter Katti Gray. “This is hard for her. He said at one point he had no idea of the severity of the issue. It was clear that he was stunned by what we said.”
The Newsday diversity situation has become more complex because the paper is under orders from the parent Tribune Co. to cut costs, and has offered buyouts. Of the 50 in the newsroom who have signaled their willingness to take them, 10 are black journalists, some of them leaving because they are frustrated, the new editor, John Mancini, formerly assistant managing editor for New York, was told.
Mancini, who was named to the job three weeks ago, confirmed to Journal-isms today that he was surprised by what he heard. He said he had already been working to keep some of the black journalists from leaving. “To lose 50 people . . . if then we lose a disproportionate share of people of color, it’s doubly tragic,” he said. The final buyout decisions are to be made Dec. 8.
Mancini also said that what he heard reflected poor management. “Issues like race get magnified in a place where it has not been managed in the best way possible,” he said. “This is America. Race is going to be an issue. At Newsday, which is a model of diversity, we’ve got to get our hands around being better managers, people who work with people. Then the issue of race can take its proper place in terms of the size of the problem — it’ll be an issue, not a problem.”
He added that, “not treating people fairly, playing favorites and not favorites, has no place in any newsroom, in creating an environment where people can do their best work.”
In the latest census of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Newsday reported that 24.9 of its newsroom professionals were black, Hispanic, Asian American or Native American.
But as Lonnie Isabel, an assistant managing editor who is African American, said had been reiterated, “numbers mean something, but don’t mean as much as listening to them [the black staff members] or figuring that they want to develop their careers as well.”
“The thing about managers is that they’re always surprised by race,” Isabel told Journal-isms. “They really don’t know the level of frustration that people have. It takes something” like this to bring it out. “We need to do a better job of expressing it in a way that people will listen to it. Maybe we need training in how to get people to get their point across.” Isabel is a 1977 graduate of the Maynard Institute’s Summer Program for Minority Journalists.
The journalists’ focus was primarily the Long Island desk, the heart of the newspaper. The reporters related “some comments made by senior editors [that] really kind of rocked” Mancini, said Monte R. Young, who covers Nassau County politics. “Newsday is known for having a very diverse staff, but if you look around the newsroom, at the editors’ ranks, there are 14 editors on that desk, and only one is black.”
Like his counterparts at the Washington Post, who also met with management over diversity issues, Young said, “our whole purpose is to say we want to work with you to improve the content and quality. To put more black men and women in management roles, to fast-track if need be. It’s not like we were singing ‘We Shall Overcome.'”
Among the 10 who confirmed to Journal-isms they were taking the buyout are Gray, who said her Part II features section, where she has a column, was being revamped; Dele Olojede, the former foreign editor who is now an Africa correspondent, and staff writer Erin Texeira. They include six black women, according to those at the meeting, but the names could not be immediately confirmed.
Mancini said he told the group to judge him by his actions, turning aside a request from Herbert Lowe, courts reporter for the New York edition who is president of the National Association of Black Journalists, that he issue a statement.
And, he told Journal-isms, “I’m going to be reorganizing the newsroom leadership,” just as any new editor would do.
Two black journalists were promoted from the main newsroom in recent weeks, before Mancini assumed the post. Errol Cockfield, a former president of the New York Association of Black Journalists, became Albany bureau chief, and J. Jioni Palmer was named congressional correspondent in the Washington bureau.
The group agreed to meet again in three months.
Staffers Say All Talk, No Action on Diversity at Post (Harry Jaffe, Washingtonian)
New Journalist Protection Adopted in Durham
“Journalists working in Durham gained a measure of protection from citizens looking to file frivolous criminal charges against them,” Benjamin Niolet reports in North Carolina’s Raleigh News & Observer.
“The new judicial policy requires the District Attorney’s Office to review any warrants sworn out by a citizen against a working journalist. The policy, as yet unwritten, places journalists in the same category as police officers, emergency workers and public school teachers, whose jobs make them vulnerable to angry people who could use the judicial system to harass them or seek retribution.
“The change is in response to a harassing-phone-call charge filed by a woman who was unhappy with calls to her home from a News & Observer reporter.
“Durham District Attorney Jim Hardin dropped that charge last week after deciding that N&O reporter Demorris Lee was trying to land a fair and balanced story when he called Ruth Brown, a Durham police employee whose testimony helped convict a robbery suspect.”
Anchor Who Went Nude Does Letterman Show
“‘She’s got a smokin’ bod.’ That’s how Paul Shaffer describes Sharon Reed, the Cleveland TV newswoman who did a story in the nude,” the Associated Press reported for its broadcast members.
“Reed covered a story about an artist photographing a mass of naked people. She says it was a story best done in the first person, so she did it in the nude for C-B-S affiliate W-O-I-O. The ‘Late Show’ showed a clip of Reed taking off her bra.
“A tongue-tied [David] Letterman stammered a bit and asked if she’ll be doing any more naked stories. Reed says, ‘been there, done that.’
“‘He was warm, he was kind, he was funny,’ Reed said,” reported Michael Klein in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“‘He was doing relevant questions — between the humor — unlike some of these journalists who haven’t seen the piece who have railed against it.’
“Letterman, abetted by bandleader Paul Shaffer, had criticized Reed’s stunt. He dared her to appear on his show — even with clothes on.”
Ellen Gray of the Philadelphia Daily News reported that “You could argue that Cleveland anchor Sharon Reed’s naked backside helped propel KYW (Channel 3) to a solid second-place finish at 11 p.m. in the November sweeps.”
Reed had been interviewed by KYU anchor Larry Mendte.
Programs on Race Among DuPont Award Winners
Programs about school integration, the kidnapping of a presidential candidate in Colombia, Nelson Mandela, the wars in Rwanda and Liberia, and racial profiling were among the winners in the 2005 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for broadcast journalism.
A one-hour documentary about the winners, “Without Fear or Favor: The Best in Broadcast Journalism,” hosted by George Stephanopoulos, will be broadcast nationwide on PBS stations beginning Jan. 24, Columbia announced.
List of winners
Polls Said to Overestimate Bush’s Latino Support
“Initial network exit polls on Election Day overestimated President Bush’s support among Hispanic voters, an NBC official said Thursday,” reports James W. Brosnan of Scripps-Howard News Service.
“Revised figures show Bush received 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, not 44 percent, said Ana Maria Arumi, elections manager for NBC News. That would still be a 5-percentage point gain for Bush over Democrat John Kerry compared to the 2000 race against Al Gore.
“‘The Republicans have made significant increases in the Latino vote,’ Arumi said at a panel discussion sponsored by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.”
Chinese-American Radio Habits to Be Surveyed
Arbitron Inc. plans to survey the radio listening of Chinese-American consumers, using bilingual Chinese-English diaries in the Los Angeles and New York metropolitan radio markets, the company announces.
“This is the first time the company will use the Chinese-language version of its standard radio diary to track the listening habits of Chinese-Americans. The study will be done on behalf of Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, Inc.,” a news release said.
“The Chinese-American community represents a significant up-and-coming niche market for advertisers,” said Arthur Liu, CEO, Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, in the release. “Similar to the Hispanic market 20 years ago, the Asian population in this country is growing at an extraordinary rate with unparalleled education and income levels. For the first time, broadcasters and advertisers will be able to quantify the size, composition and listening habits of the Chinese-language audience through this study.”
PBS Adding Tavis Smiley to Friday Lineup
“Tavis Smiley, PBS national late night talk show produced by KCET/Hollywood, will launch a second season on public television beginning on January 7, 2005 when, in addition to its weeknight airings, PBS will also add the show to its Friday night block of public affairs programs, as announced today by Mare Mazur, KCET executive vice president of programming and production,” KCET said Tuesday.
“Tavis’ show has far exceeded our expectations,” said Mazur in the release. “We are thrilled about the show’s guests and quality, as well as the new, young audience that is finding PBS to be a terrific alternative to other late night fare.”
Angela Tuck Takes Over as AJC’s Public Editor
“The new public editor is Angela Tuck,” reader advocate Mike King informed readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Nov. 12.
“She comes to the job with years of experience as both a reporter and editor. Most recently she has been the director of newsroom personnel — so she knows virtually every journalist at the paper. She’ll be telling you more about herself when she resumes this column in a few weeks. Suffice it to say that she is a kinder, more organized person than yours truly. She’ll probably be better at returning the dozens of phone calls and e-mails that you send to this office every day.”
The following Friday, Tuck made her debut. “While covering stories for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Detroit Free Press, the St. Petersburg Times and my hometown paper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, I’ve shed light on everything from alligator attacks to critical staffing shortages in child care centers. When I see something going on at my 14-year-old’s school or in my west Cobb neighborhood, my instinct is to learn more about it. It’s in the blood, I guess.
“You didn’t always agree with my predecessor, Mike King (as evidenced by the letters on this page), and you won’t always agree with me. But you will find me to be a responsive, reasonable person who is willing to listen,” she continued.
Today, she wrote about the paper’s charitable Empty Stocking Fund. “Readers often tell us they’d like to see more positive news as well as solutions to the problems we raise,” she said. “I agree.”
Brokaw: Networks “Stuck” on White Males
“Tonight on NBC, one tall and handsome white male anchor with bespoke clothes will replace another tall and handsome white male anchor with bespoke clothes,” op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd wrote Thursday in the New York Times.
“Even Tom Brokaw is a little surprised that he has been succeeded by someone who looks like the love child he and Peter Jennings never had.
“‘I honestly thought, eight or nine years ago, that when we left,’ Mr. Brokaw said, referring to himself, Peter and Dan Rather, ‘that it would be the end of white male anchor time.’
“. . . The networks don’t even give lip service to looking for women and blacks for anchor jobs — they just put pretty-boy clones in the pipeline.
“‘I think we’re still stuck in a society that looks at white males as authority figures,’ Mr. Brokaw conceded.”
Tom Friedman, Greg Moore Join Pulitzer Board
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist, and Gregory L. Moore, editor of the Denver Post, have been elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board, Columbia University announced Thursday.
Moore is a former board member of both the National Association of Black Journalists and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Photographer Gunned Down in Mexico
“A newspaper photographer was gunned down Sunday in front of his family in a cafeteria in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, home to some of Mexico’s top drug traffickers. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating the slaying to determine whether it was connected to his journalistic work,” the Committee reports.
“Gregorio Rodriguez Hernandez, 35, worked for the Mazatlan edition of the newspaper El Debate. Armed men approached a table in the cafeteria in the town of Escuinapa where he was eating with his wife and sons, 3 and 6, and opened fire, according to The Associated Press and local news reports. He was shot at least five times, news reports said. No arrests have been made.”
Jacobs, Willingham Among Kiplinger Fellows
Tom Jacobs, a veteran journalist with nearly three decades in television, and Breea C. Willingham, a reporter for the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, are among six journalists chosen for the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism.
The six begin the program in early January at Ohio State University’s Columbus campus.
Jacobs said he wants to study the reasons why television isn’t more diverse. About Willingham, the release said, “Her story on single black women who can’t find compatible black men was recently nominated for best feature story in the Hearst quarterly contest.”
Others selected are J. Patrick Coolican, reporter for the Seattle Times; Elizabeth A. Jensen, reporter for the Los Angeles Times; Dr. Paul E. Kostyu, Statehouse bureau chief for Copley Ohio Newspapers; and Joel Moroney, special projects reporter for Ohio’s Mansfield News Journal.
