Other Outlets Express Surprise, But Keep Him
Conservative pundit Armstrong Williams lost his outlet for his syndicated columns late today as Tribune Media Services told him “it is terminating its business relationship with him effective immediately,” the syndicate announced. About three dozen papers carry his column through Tribune, John Twohey, the syndicate’s vice president/editorial and operations, told Journal-isms.
USA Today disclosed today that the Bush administration paid Williams $240,000 to promote the “No Child Left Behind” act on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge “other black journalists” to do the same.
“After several conversations with Mr. Williams today in which he acknowledged receipt of $240,000 from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), TMS exercised its option to discontinue distribution of his weekly newspaper column,” the Tribune statement said.
“The fact that Mr. Williams failed to notify TMS of his receipt (through the Ketchum public relations agency) of payments from the DOE is a violation of provisions in his syndication agreement with TMS. The agreement requires him to notify TMS when ‘a possible or potential conflict of interest arises due to the subject matter of (his columns) and the social, professional, financial, or business relations of (Mr. Williams).'”
“We accept Mr. Williams’ explanation that these payments by Ketchum on behalf of DOE were for advertising messages broadcast on his radio and TV shows. Nevertheless, accepting compensation in any form from an entity that serves as a subject of his weekly newspaper columns creates, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest. Under these circumstances, readers may well ask themselves if the views expressed in his columns are his own, or whether they have been purchased by a third party.”
However, other news outlets were not matching Tribune’s action.
The National Association of Black Journalists issued a statement before the Tribune action calling “on all media outlets ?- radio, television and print -? that feature Williams? show, use him as a TV commentator or run his syndicated column to drop him immediately.”
“Armstrong is not a member of NABJ, but clearly would have benefited from being surrounded by journalists who have appropriate values and ethics,” the statement said.
According to the front-page story by reporter Greg Toppo, “The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams ‘to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts,’ and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.”
While Williams hosts a show called “The Right Side,” sponsored by the National Rifle Association, he appears on other programs and had a syndicated column. Johnathan Rodgers, CEO of the year-old TV One cable channel, where Williams hosts the “On Point” interview show, said the channel “will continue to have Armstrong” as part of the lineup, but would “steer him away from things political.”
Rodgers said Williams had interviewed Paige and that that program had aired three or four times. “We will not air the Rod Paige interview anymore,” Rodgers told Journal-isms this afternoon. However, he defended using Williams, saying he represents “a different viewpoint” and has interviewed other, nonpolitical guests, such as writer Maya Angelou. One of the show’s great moments, Rodgers added, was when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell lectured Williams about the importance of affirmative action.
[Added Jan. 8: Rodgers since decided to pull the show while he investigates, the Washington Post reported Saturday. “As a former journalist, I’m bothered by things like this — people being in the pay of various political groups and pressing their messages without a declaration,” Rodgers was quoted as saying.]
The USA Today story noted that Williams had been an op-ed columnist there, but Steve Anderson, the newspaper’s director of communications, told Journal-isms that Williams’ column had appeared only once in the last two years. “Obviously, we’re disappointed with the revelation,” Anderson said. “We’ll have to consider that before publishing” him again.
The entrepreneur, a conservative former protege of the late Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., also appears on “America’s Black Forum,” a syndicated black talk show. Executive producer Byron Lewis Jr. said, “We’re surprised and very unhappy and disappointed. What we assume are that people are expressing their own opinions and they’re not being paid for it.” However, Lewis told Journal-isms that he would have to talk with Williams before deciding whether his actions violated his contract, and that it was Juan Williams, not Armstrong Williams, who interviewed Paige on that show.
CNN spokeswoman Edie Emery said CNN had “no formal relationship” with Williams and that the network believes Williams should have disclosed his contract with the Bush administration. “We will seriously consider this issue before booking him again,” she said.
On CNN’s “American Morning” show today, anchor Bill Hemmer was clearly annoyed that Williams had not disclosed his deal with the Bush administration, though he appears frequently on CNN.
Williams argued that the administration had contracted with his public relations firm, not with him.
“It was advertising. It’s not as if we were paid. People look at the article and say we were paid $240,000. It was in advertising. They used our media,” he told Hemmer.
“And in addition to that, which is what our contract called for — I made it clear because it’s something that really believed in as a commentator, something I wrote often about — that I would use my contacts with people that I knew in different media outlets from time to time to get them to talk about ‘No Child Left Behind,'” he said.
But under questioning from Hemmer, Williams acknowledged that he owned the public relations company. There was also this exchange:
“HEMMER: But if you do it again, would you tell folks? Would you tell your listeners and viewers?
“WILLIAMS: I definitely — I think I have an obligation to be more vociferous about the fact that they are advertising on our programming. And I definitely should acknowledge that to the public, yes.”
On the National Association of Black Journalists’ e-mail list today, black journalists wondered why the administration would believe that Williams could influence African Americans in the first place. Some said they had always viewed him as a “pimp,” a prostitute or a “propagandist.” Still others thought the media outlets that use Williams should find legitimate black journalists who are conservative.
The liberal group People for the American Way issued a statement in which president Ralph G. Neas “called on the White House to immediately ask all federal agencies to disclose any public relations contracts with news commentators, and any programs that seek to disguise the release of agency information as real news stories put out by independent news organizations.”
The latter was a reference to a report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. This week, it scolded the Bush administration for distributing phony prepackaged news reports that include a “suggested live intro” for anchors to read, interviews with Washington officials and a closing that mimics a typical broadcast news sign off, as Ceci Connolly reported today in the Washington Post.
Media Outlets Embrace Efforts to Help Victims
News media outlets both broadcast and print are embracing efforts to help victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami damage, but whether the media were quick enough on the story, and how appropriate the images have been, continue to be debated.
“By the time the last American TV crews have left Asia, the networks will have spent millions of dollars covering the tsunami tragedy,” Paul J. Gough wrote in the Hollywood Reporter.
“A quick check of both large and small newspapers found that nearly every daily is listing organizations to which readers can donate, and many are taking action themselves to raise funds,” reported Joe Strupp in Editor & Publisher.
“Seyed Rizwan Mowlana’s appearance on Fox News Channel paid off recently,” reported Brian Stelter on mediabistro.com.
“Mowlana, the director of CAIR, went on FNC to appeal for medical supplies and help in the aid effort. His segment led to a call from a businessman in Modesto, CA who heard Mowlana’s pleas. ‘The man donated two forty foot containers of the much-needed medical supplies that will help save many lives,’ a tipster says. ‘The supplies are worth around a million dollars.’
In Chicago, “the Chicago Media Tsunami Relief Drive, Wednesday’s 19-hour cooperative effort that involved nearly 50 local television and radio outlets, succeeded beyond all expectations,” reported Robert Feder today in the Chicago Sun-Times.
“By the time it was over, more than $1.7 million had been raised for the American Red Cross International Response Fund from more than 17,000 donors — virtually all of whom had been directed to call by public-service announcements and news reports that aired throughout the day. Pledges ranged from $1 to $100,000.”
But Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, ombudsman for National Public Radio, wrote that NPR took too long to gear up. “NPR regained its editorial footing, but it took far too long,” he wrote.
Still, the crisis was a ratings winner. “A hunger for news following the disastrous tsunami was evident in last week’s Nielsen ratings,” reported David Bauder of the Associated Press.
“Dateline NBC finished just short of Nielsen Media Research’s top 10 for its Sunday broadcast, which featured reports from Thailand and Sri Lanka. And an ABC Primetime Live special on the disaster was the most-watched prime-time show on Wednesday.
“The story also helped the evening news broadcasts, which normally would expect a slow week between Christmas and New Year’s. Instead, the CBS Evening News and ABC’s World News Tonight were both up 12 per cent in viewers over this season’s average, and NBC’s Nightly News was up eight per cent.”
Brian Williams, the “NBC Nightly News” anchor who caused controversy in December with his remarks about diversity, had planned to anchor Monday’s news from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. But the Birmingham News reported that coverage of the tsunami relief effort will keep Williams in Indonesia.
The images continued to be debated.
“Now that the images have shifted from corpses to cartons of food, will our attention wander?” asked Peg Finucane, a former Newsday editor, in a commentary today in that paper.
Paul Janensch, a former newspaper editor who teaches journalism, asked in the Hartford Courant, “Would a respectable U.S. publication or TV outlet show a dead American child with a grieving mother? I doubt it.”
Jon Friedman of CBS “Market Watch” began a two-part series on CNN’s coverage, focusing the first installment on surgeon-reporter Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
The South Asian Journalists Association has devoted a Web page to the South Asians who are covering the story. It also planned programs on the disaster in New York tonight and in Washington on Tuesday.
Some African American commentators, such as Earl Ofari Hutchinson, questioned why little attention was paid to the East African victims of the catastrophe. And George Gedda of the Associated Press filed a piece headlined, “World focuses on tsunami victims, paying little heed to suffering in Congo.”
Stephen Buckley First Black M.E. at St. Pete Times
“Stephen Buckley, the son of Jamaican immigrants who taught their children the value of reading newspapers, got his start at the St. Petersburg Times as a 16-year-old intern. On Thursday, he was named the newspaper’s managing editor,” Carrie Johnson reported in today’s editions.
“For the past two years, Buckley, has served as the Times’ assistant managing editor/world, overseeing national and international news. . . . Buckley, 37, is the newspaper’s first black managing editor.”
The appointment is especially significant given the Times’ racial history.
In 1965, the paper hired the late columnist Peggy Peterman to write for its “Negro news page,” which went only to black neighborhoods. It wasn’t until May 1967, after campaigning by Peterman, that the page was abolished.
Eleven years ago, as the paper recalled last year when Andrew Barnes retired as publisher, “African-Americans on the staff issued a stinging rebuke. The Times, a committee of African-American staffers said in 1994, had lost its way. It was no longer a beacon of hope for minorities trying to catch up in a society that had turned away.”
The pressure eventually led to the paper’s first board member of color in September 2002, when Karen Brown Dunlap, a veteran black journalist and educator, was named. Dunlap now heads the Poynter Institute, which owns the Times.
The paper reported 14.9 percent newsroom professionals of color in the latest census of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Don Podesta, NAHJ Member, Becomes AME in D.C.
“Don Podesta, deputy assistant managing editor for planning and administration at the Washington Post, was named yesterday to the newly created job of assistant managing editor in charge of the newsroom’s copy desks,” the Post reported Thursday.
Podesta, a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, was born in Chile and spent much of his childhood in Colombia before coming to the United States as a teenager. He has lived or worked in almost every Latin American country, and was once the paper’s correspondent in South America, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He follows sports editor Emilio Garcia-Ruiz as a Hispanic assistant managing editor at the paper.
“Podesta, 55, has worked at The Post since 1981 as a makeup editor, layout editor, copy editor, assignment editor and foreign correspondent. He has been in his current job, in which he supervises newsroom technology, research and computer-assisted reporting, since 1998,” the story continued.
“Leonard Downie Jr., The Post’s executive editor, said Podesta’s successful reorganization of the newsroom’s research and technology staffs showed he has the skills needed to create a department of about 80 full-time copy editors throughout the newsroom,” it said.
Podesta co-chaired a task force on copy editors that led to creation of the position.
Late last year, journalists of color and others in the newsroom aired a variety of grievances. Since then, Deborah Heard became the first black woman to become assistant managing editor of a news department at the Post, named to head the Style section; and Podesta became the second Latino.
Podesta is a 1998 alumnus of the Maynard Institute’s management training program and Heard is a 2000 alumna.
Essence’s Lewis Says He Didn’t Seek Black Buyers
Ed Lewis, a co-founder of Essence magazine and its parent company, acknowledges that the company did not seek to partner with other large black media firms before selling the business to Time Inc.
As reported Wednesday, Earl Graves Sr., publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, said that black entrepreneurs “could have made an offer for the company and possibly preserve Essence as a black-owned business and institution.”
In an interview with Paul D. Colford in the New York Daily News, Lewis replied, “It would be naive to assume that Essence hasn’t been approached over the years by both black and mainstream companies.”
“His statement continued: ‘We were also given a unique chance to “date” a potential suitor before hitching up for good,'” Colford reported.
“Essence became convinced ‘that no other company could match the opportunities for international expansion and access to resources that Time Warner made available to us.'”
In a radio interview with Chicago Defender Editor Roland Martin, which aired on WVON in Chicago and was published in the Defender, Lewis agreed with Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson, who told Journal-isms Wednesday that large black firms should form a conglomerate to be able to afford to purchase companies such as Essence.
“From John Johnson to Earl Graves and myself, there needs to be more of us in terms of having aggregation of wealth to be able to do something like this. That is just a long-term process. I think people should realize that Earl and I are the third generation that’s going to be able to provide opportunities for his children, but I’m going to be able to provide opportunities for many more people who are going to come along and have the possibilities of doing these kinds of things; of getting an aggregation of wealth and being able to buy companies,” Lewis said.
He also said he hopes to develop a political action committee.
Short Takes
- In Philadelphia, “WB-17 news anchor Toni Yates has left the station. Her last day on air was Friday.
“A station spokeswoman said there were ‘negotiations between Toni and the station that did not result in a contract,'” Dan Gross reported in the Philadelphia Daily News.
- Barry Cooper, a founder of the Black Voices Web site, since sold to AOL, has joined the Arizona Republic as a general manager, leading “a new team of 20-plus staffers charged with developing new products for the 25-39 demographic,” he told Journal-isms.
- Tamala Edwards, coanchor of ABC’s overnight “World News Now” and former Time magazine correspondent, will join Philadelphia’s WPVI-TV as morning coanchor, the network confirms, Gail Shister reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Both ABC and WPVI are owned by Disney, Shister wrote.
- Araceli De Leon was promoted Thursday to vice president and general manager of KWHY, NBC Universal’s independent Hispanic TV station in Los Angeles, Katy Bachman reported in Media Week.
- In New York, the WNBC-TV “Live at Five” anchor team of Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons turned 25 on Thursday, Verne Gay of Newsday reported.