Some Tie “Ghoulish” Photo Choices to Race
Depending on the source, the news media are showing admirable restraint in their images of tsunami victims or are being far too graphic, influenced by the races of the victims.
“People have certainly commented to me that they wonder if the media would show these images if the victims were white,” S. Mitra Kalita, president of the South Asian Journalists Association, told Journal-isms.
In an Associated Press story appearing in newspapers today, David Bauer saw a difference between print and broadcast:
“Editors at The New York Times and Los Angeles Times showed similar judgment one day this week in running large, front-page pictures of tsunami victims. Faces of dead babies in makeshift morgues were clearly visible. They were the type of images you were hard-pressed to see during hours of television coverage,” he wrote.
“In a cataclysm notable for its staggering loss of life, US television news was reluctant to convey that fact graphically.”
That wasn’t the way Ashok Malik, writing from New Delhi in the Bombay-based Indian Express, saw it. He contrasted what he called the restrained approach to showing images of victims after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with that given the tsunami victims.
“Why has southeast Asia?s biggest tragedy become every American network?s ghoulish Disneyland party? Has disaster finally found its paparazzi?” Malik asked.
He went on to seek responses from the BBC and CNN. Chris Cramer, managing director, CNN International, said, “We?re not perfect, but we always seek to be respectful of privacy and of the dignity of death — it?s a tightrope walk between gratuitous pictures and, if you may, obscuring pictures.??
Paul Danahar, BBC?s south Asia bureau head, was quoted as saying, ??We don?t show bodies to sensationalise stories. In this case, some bodies have to be shown to convey the scale of disaster.??
Another cynical view ran in The Wall Street Journal, in an op-ed piece Tuesday by Suketu Mehta, identified as the author of the just-published “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found.”
“There is a pornography of images of disaster in the Third World: famine, floods, war, earthquakes,” Mehta wrote.
“Quick television interviews with the victims reinforce those images. And, as with all pornography, the net effect is this: The victims lose their individuality, their humanity, and it becomes easier to distance ourselves from people whose lives we have no idea about. As it is, they all look so foreign — all these brown or black people, poor things. So it becomes easier to forget them, as our attention moves to a fresh disaster somewhere else, or to a celebrity trial right at home. Such disasters often serve to reinforce our sense of living in a blessed land. ‘We may have our marriage troubles, honey, but at least we’re not those people.’
“In a perverse way, it might be a blessing that some of the casualties of the tidal wave were tourists from rich countries.”
Meanwhile, the list of U.S. journalists of color covering the tragedy is expanding.
NBC announced that Ann Curry will report live from Sri Lanka for NBC News and “Today” this coming Monday and Tuesday. Hoda Kotb is reporting from Phuket, Thailand, for NBC News and MSNBC, and San Francisco correspondent James Hattori is doing the same from Sri Lanka.
Ken Moritsugu of the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau has been filing from India.
Mallika Kapur, normally based in London for CNN, is in the Andaman Islands, an archipelago in the Bay of Bengal.
CNN coverage is paying off in ratings, the Los Angeles Times reported: “In addition to its day-to-day increases, ratings among adults ages 25 to 54 topped Fox on Tuesday night, the first time CNN had done so in prime time since July 8, the third night of the Democratic National Convention.”
Reporting tips, resources on tsunami disaster (South Asian Journalists Association)
Dozens die in East Africa (U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks)
Entire Indonesian Newspaper Staff Feared Dead
“All 80 journalists from Serambi, the only daily newspaper based in hard-hit Banda Aceh, Indonesia, are missing and feared dead, according to the Jakarta Post,” Editor & Publisher reports.
“The Serambi office and printing press were among the buildings in downtown Banda Aceh that were totally destroyed by the massive 9.0-earthquake and the tsunami that followed in its wake on Sunday.
“‘Since Sunday,’ the Post reported, ‘media companies outside Aceh are also frantically trying to locate their reporters and staff based in the province. Yesterday, some were found to be safe, including The Jakarta Post?s Nani Afrida and Nur Raihan of detik.com. Nani sounded traumatised, while Raihan . . . said it was a miracle that she and her family had escaped ‘a four-metre wave just behind our car.?'”
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists reported that, “Serambi journalists routinely faced violent attacks, threats, and intimidation from both sides of the conflict between Indonesian military forces and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM),” and that “the Indonesian press organization Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) reported that 16 of 25 members in Banda Aceh have not been found.”
The alliance is seeking donations for its members in affected areas, CPJ said.
Africana.com Says It Is Shutting Jan. 31
The Africana.com Web site, founded in January 1999 by Harvard professors Henry Louis Gates and Kwame Anthony Appiah, is shutting its doors on Jan. 31 and merging with AOL BlackVoices, according to an announcement on the Africana Web site.
“While Africana.com will be no more, many of the features that comprised Africana.com will be given a new home at AOL BlackVoices. We hope that you, our members and readers, will also make the move to AOL BlackVoices with us and enrich its community with your voices,” the notice says.
The shutdown of Africana completes a process begun when Gates, who launched the Web site to promote his Encarta Africana, sold it to what was then Time Warner in 2000. Terms were not revealed, but the Wall Street Journal put the sale price at more than $10 million, with Gates receiving up to $1 million. Time Warner later became AOL Time Warner.
A year ago, Africana’s CEO moved from Cambridge, Mass., to AOL’s headquarters outside Washington, D.C., in Dulles, Va., and editor-in-chief Gary Dauphin followed.
In February, AOL acquired Black Voices from the Tribune Co.
In July, Africana.com left Cambridge, Mass., for Dulles, and Dauphin, now director of AOL African American programming, said that Africana, BlackVoices.com and AOL Black Focus would be combining into one site.
AOL spokesman John Angelo said that today was a holiday at AOL and that no one could answer questions. Africana.com once boasted more than 500,000 monthly visits.
Stricken With Cancer, Ex-Anchor Now Half His Size
“His humor and good nature remain intact after a four-year struggle with cancer that has reduced former NBC-15 anchorman Mike McKinney to less than half his former size,” Samara Kalk Derby reported in the Capital Times of Madison, Wis.
“In pain, McKinney went off the air last August, after he began taking some drugs that made him extremely tired,” she wrote in the Dec. 22 paper.
The once-husky, 250-pound McKinney, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, now weighs only 115, she said. McKinney, 39, was originally diagnosed with colon cancer in 2000.
“. . . McKinney is a familiar face in the community, not only from his years as news anchor at 5, 6, and 10 p.m., but also because he has volunteered widely,” Derby wrote.
“He has hosted and joined public forums. He is on the United Way Key Club board and mentors black youths as a member of 100 Black Men.
“He has also ridden and raised money for three 500-mile AIDS rides, besides joining the crew on last summer’s fund-raising ride.”
In a letter to the editor Wednesday, Pam Tauscher Coshun, resource development and communications director of the Dane County Humane Society, said:
“This incredibly talented, compassionate and dedicated man has been a miracle in Madison since he moved here, and now, in his time of need, this community should take time to remember and honor a body of work and volunteer spirit that is virtually unmatched.
“He single-handedly cultivated the seed of a community food drive from a half-baked TV promotion to what has become the largest food drive in the Midwest. His compassion for all creatures prompted him to help raise funds and put a face on causes that many refused to believe existed right in our own back yard, like hunger and homelessness. He adopted a dog from the Dane County Humane Society and managed to find time to nurture him into a part of his family.
“He has ridden a bicycle 500 miles, twice, to raise awareness and money for the fight against AIDS. He has worked tirelessly to give a voice to the voiceless. As long as his body was able, he continued to attend meetings as a community leader with United Way.
“Last fall he decided to put aside his own humility and privacy to reveal his personal struggle with cancer. In his darkest hours since, he has remained steadfast in his religious beliefs, he has accepted with grace the help of friends, and he has maintained his dignity amid public speculation and tabloid reporting about his personal life.”
Black Film Critics Name Top 10 of 2004
The African American Film Critics Association, a group formed last year without critics from daily newspapers, Tuesday announced its top 10 list for 2004.
The films are:
- 1. ?Ray? (Universal)
- 2. ?Hotel Rwanda? (United Artists)
- 3. ?Finding Neverland? (Miramax)
- 4. ?Aviator? (Miramax)
- 5. ?Sideways? (Fox Searchlight)
- 6. ?Baadasssss!? (Sony Picture Classics)
- 7. ?Brother to Brother? (Wolfe Video)
- 8. ?Woman Thou Art Loosed? (Magnolia Films)
- 9. ?Million Dollar Baby? (Warner Bros.)
- 10. ?Collateral? (Dreamworks)
?The films selected this year boldly reflect a cross-section of perspectives that captures the essence of humanity,? said association president Gil Robertson IV in a news release. ?2004 was another ground-breaking year for African American talent as seen by the impressive performances given by Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle and Jamie Foxx in the films that are included on our list.”
The association awarded its “Achievement Honor” to Foxx as “the filmmaker who made the biggest impact in 2004.”
Anzio Williams to News Director in New Orleans
Anzio Williams, assistant news director at WESH-TV in Orlando, Fla., and a former vice president of the Central Florida Association of Black Journalists, starts Monday as news director of WDSU-TV, the NBC affiliate in New Orleans.
WDSU and WESH are both owned by the Hearst-Argyle station group.
Williams, 32, was the first news director of the National Association of Black Journalists’ short course held in 1993 at his alma mater, North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, turning it into “a working newsroom for a week,” he told Journal-isms.
He previously worked at WCNC-TV in Charlotte, N.C.; WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, Ohio; WSUN-TV in Miami; WFMY-TV in Greensboro and Host Communications in Lexington, Ky.
CBS, Fox in “Unabashed” Praise of Reggie White
“Reggie White‘s death on Sunday prompted a case of one-sided history on the CBS and Fox pregame shows, which remembered him as a great football player but an even greater man, and a man loved by everyone,” wrote Richard Sandomir in the New York Times.
The retired Green Bay Packer, 43, died Dec. 16 from an upper-respiratory ailment.
“White might have deserved much of the praise, but it was the type of unabashed admiration that prompts concern that the stars and producers of the programs forgot or, worse, ignored how White denounced homosexuality and traded in ethnic stereotypes in a speech to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1998,” Sandomir wrote.
Reggie White coverage (Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers)
Young Offenders Discuss Cosby’s Message
As stated in our year-end review, for columnists, Bill Cosby‘s May remarks about poor parenting in some black families were the gift that kept on giving.
Now, in the current issue of Newsweek, contributing editor Ellis Cose returns to the subject in a 2,000-word piece with a different twist.
“Kenny was one of several young offenders called together, at NEWSWEEK’s request, by the Fortune Society, a nonprofit that works with at-risk youths and ex-cons. None saw salvation at the end of Cosby’s crusade,” Cose wrote.
“April, a 16-year-old Latina from the Bronx, scoffed at the notion that poor mothers were buying $500 shoes. The only people she knew with such pricey sneakers were those ‘on the block pitching [dealing drugs].’ ‘Times are different’ than in Cosby’s heyday, said Sonia, 20. ‘Back then even if [men] worked at a factory they’d get up every day and go to a job in a suit. Nowadays . . . most black males don’t have good enough jobs.’
“But even the most hardened delinquents don’t dispute that there is some truth in Cosby’s message.”
Cosby’s “Fat Albert” film, set in Cosby’s home town of Philadelphia, also has given writers license to revisit Cosby’s remarks.
“With not so much as one ‘ain?t’ in the dialogue or anything resembling a sexual overture, the cute, but flawed, film allows Cosby to wag his finger far more subtly than he did when reprimanding younger generations in his now infamous speech,” wrote Eddie B. Allen Jr. in Detroit’s Metro Times.
“Bill Cosby drew fire for attacking the rampant blatancy of black rap and gang ‘blood’ lingo and sexual attitudes, but his antidote is vaporously lame (if not a vanity package like his ‘Leonard Part 6’),” wrote reviewer David Elliott in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
And Cosby critic Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote in his column that:
“If a few members of Cosby’s on screen Fat Albert gang can display some of the behavior that drives him up the wall, why can’t Cosby see that while some young blacks do display that same behavior off the big screen that doesn’t mean that they’re all prime candidates for the cemetery or a prison cell? The kids in Fat Albert’s on-screen world aren’t the universal every young black. In Cosby’s skewed vision of the real world, they are. Despite his kind of, sort of, disclaimer, Cosby still refuses to credit the majority of black youth and their parents for doing the right thing in school and on the streets. And they do.”
Cosby legacy enjoins black values and American ideals (BlackAmericaWeb.com)
“Wacky Question”: Latino? Chicano? Hispanic?
The “Wacky question” for Mike Rudeen‘s Christmas column in Denver’s Rocky Mountain News was:
“A recent story on the immigrant debate used the words Hispanic, Chicano and Latino. Who do those words refer to? Are they different? — John Denver.”
His answer:
“These words — and, in some cases, their feminine forms — sometimes are used interchangeably, but they differ in meaning, said Kevin Olivas of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and Miguel Barragan of LARASA, the Latin American Research and Service Agency.
“Before the ’60s, the preferred term was Spanish-American, but during that turbulent decade, Chicano appeared, primarily for Mexican-Americans. A source of cultural pride to many, it’s disliked by others for its political overtones.
“Hispanic was popularized by the federal government for the 1980 census as a catchall for Americans who themselves or their ancestors are from a Spanish-speaking country. It excludes countries such as Brazil, where Portuguese is dominant, and includes Spain.”
“Latino, used for all Americans with Spanish-speaking roots, technically refers only to Latin America. The Associated Press Stylebook, which the News generally follows, lists Hispanic as the preferred term.”
Garcia, Lawrence, Paul Win Gannett Honors
Teclo Garcia, Extra! editor of the Arizona Republic in Phoenix; James F. Lawrence, editorial page editor at the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y., and Pankaj Paul, director of design and presentation at The News Journal in Wilmington, Del., are among 15 editors chosen by the Gannett Co. for 2004 newsroom supervisor recognition awards.
“Teclo worked with marketing, circulation, production and advertising staffs to create a collective vision that led to EXTRA!, a weekly publication that reaches readers in Central Phoenix, which is 40 percent English-speaking Hispanic,” the company said.
“Jim led his department in the ‘Challenging Albany’ print and Web campaign that included a yearlong series of editorials, essays and interactive features informing readers about the dysfunction of New York state government and encouraging readers to speak up to help effect change. Jim led a decision by the newspaper’s editorial board to withhold endorsements in state legislative races. In response, 17 legislators proposed rules changes.”
“Pankaj played a key role in helping to improve the daily newspaper, develop and launch new sections and create prototypes for new non-daily products.”
