“I’ve Got So Much to Say”

Freed Inmate Wants to Continue in Journalism

“I’ll be 63 in about three more weeks,” newly freed prison journalist Wilbert Rideau told Adam Liptak in the New York Times.

“I’m walking around in sweatpants. Most people my age are retired, and I have no health insurance, no pension, no Social Security. I’ve got to start producing. I’ve got to get a job. I’d like to write. I’ve got so much to say. I’m going to continue, to the extent that I can, to be a journalist,” Liptak reported in today’s paper.

Rideau “walked out of the Calcasieu Parish Courthouse in Lake Charles, La., a free man on Saturday night after serving 44 years for stabbing a bank teller through the heart in 1961.”

He was not the same person he was when he went in.

As Wil Haygood wrote in a 2,800-word piece on the front page of the Washington Post this morning:

“Sentenced to death — a sentence commuted to life in the early ’70s after the U.S. Supreme Court found the death penalty to be unconstitutional — Rideau set out on a personal odyssey of redemption, rehabilitating himself as a prison journalist, becoming co-editor of the Angolite, a magazine produced by the prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola that has frequently been a finalist for a National Magazine Award.

“A model prisoner, he gave speeches, drew praise from prison reformers, and as the decades rolled by — the ’70s, the ’80s, the ’90s — he achieved a bewildering kind of fame behind bars. In 1993, Life magazine referred to him as ‘the most rehabilitated prisoner in America.’ In 1998 he garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary for ‘The Farm: Angola, USA,’ a film about prison life.”

Saturday night, a jury in Lake Charles, La., “decided Rideau had served enough time in a robbery-killing that has bitterly divided his hometown along racial lines for decades. The jury, picked 150 miles away, agreed with defense lawyers that the teenage Rideau had acted in confusion, and without premeditation, in the killing of bank teller Julia Ferguson in February 1961,” as Adam Nossiter of the Associated Press reported.

TV Critics Can’t Get Past Race of New “Kojak”

The overwhelmingly white corps of television critics “drove Ving Rhames to tears this morning,” the Washington Post reported from Los Angeles Thursday, after they “seemed to have trouble getting their heads around the idea of an African American in a role that had been very Greek American in the original.”

“Rhames was here at Winter Television Press Tour 2005 to promote his remake of the cop series ‘Kojak’ on USA Network, now owned by NBC Universal,” Lisa de Moraes wrote.

“‘Kojak was a very ethnic character,’ one critic said. Another asked, ‘Does the two-hour pilot address the issue of how an African American guy ended up with the name Theo Kojak?’

“Rhames did a good job with that one: ‘My real first name, and I know I look like a nice Jewish guy, is Irving.’

“And still the critics wouldn’t let go. Another wanted to know how the new show planned to handle the original series’s famous catchphrase ‘Who loves you, baby?”

“‘Let me see — “Who loves to get medieval on your [heinie]?” Rhames answered.

Rhames’ tears came after the critics’ continued skeptical questioning.

“Rhames continued, his voice catching, tears slipping down his cheek: ‘So for me, it’s — and I mean no offense by this, but whether the name is Kojak or Lopez . . . what I’m trying to do as an artist and as a man and as part of my legacy on this planet is show how similar we are, how if I take any kid and raise him in the ghetto in Harlem and he goes out and kills someone or steals from someone . . . the system is set up so that kid is damn near born in a trap. . . . I’m trying to get the world to see that there’s really not that much difference between you and I. And my name really doesn’t matter. Hopefully my heart and my spirit matters to you,'” de Moraes wrote.

Crying game? Rhames loses it during ‘Kojak’ promotion (Ken Parish Perkins, Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

Tavis Smiley Made Unrealistic Demands, NPR Says

Tavis Smiley walked away from his National Public Radio show last month after delivering what NPR considered unreasonable demands, according to a story today by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post.

“Among what were viewed as unrealistic demands, says NPR spokesman David Umansky: Smiley wanted to tape the daily show a day early, which the network deemed impractical for a topical news show. Smiley wanted not only to own the program but to control the rebroadcast rights, which NPR says is a violation of its federal funding rules. And Smiley insisted on a $3 million promotion budget, which NPR found absurd since its entire advertising budget is $165,000 — 80 percent of which, executives say, was spent on Smiley’s program in each of the last two years. (NPR spent $138,000 last year on ads in Essence and Black Entertainment magazine.)”

Smiley denied the $3 million figure and “challenges the math. ‘I don’t believe that 80 percent figure,’ he says. ‘I have never known any Negro at any entity where he is the only Negro to be given 80 percent of the marketing budget. That’s a lie.’ Smiley dismisses Umansky’s contention that NPR was prepared to up the promotional spending to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.”

The story also disclosed that last year, “NPR officials insisted that Smiley return a free Chrysler the automaker had given him. Smiley says DaimlerChrysler surprised him with the car — and a $50,000 donation to an intern program he started at Texas Southern University — when he gave the school $1 million on his 40th birthday. Smiley says he was happy to give back the car ‘once we heard it was a violation of ethics.'”

Richard Pryor Linked Armstrong, Juan Williams

“I tell you this pains me. Armstrong is a close friend. He’s godfather of my children.” Thus began Juan Williams on “Fox News Sunday” when the journalists’ roundtable turned to the subject of Armstrong Williams and his firm’s $240,000 contract with the Department of Education to promote the No Child Left Behind Act.

Nevertheless, Juan Williams criticized his friend.

“We do a show together, a syndicated show, ‘America’s Black Forum,’ Williams said on the Fox show. “And he never told me. He never told the people who were executive producers. He never told the producers who were doing the bookings that he was involved with this. And yet in the contract, the news stories today, he mentions the fact that he has influence because he appears regularly on the show.”

Juan Williams told Journal-isms he met Armstrong Williams during the Reagan administration, when the reporter was covering the White House for the Washington Post and Armstrong Williams worked in the Agriculture Department. Comedian Richard Pryor attended a White House reception on Martin Luther King‘s birthday in 1983 and wept openly as he recalled King.

“Here’s Pryor in the Reagan White House,” Juan Williams said of a place not known then to be especially hospitable to blacks, and he wanted to know who had thought to invite Pryor. He learned that it was Armstrong Williams, and the friendship began. “He’s a very good godparent,” Juan Williams said. “I have other godparents who I don’t know if they know the kids are alive.”

His children are 24, 23 and 16.

Meanwhile, commentary continued:

• Naftali Bendavid, Chicago Tribune: Media failures fan rival bias charges

 

• Eric Deggans, St. Petersburg Times: Media losing their credibility with consumers on all sides

 

• Editorial, Los Angeles Times: Pretend Punditry

 

• Doug MacEachern, Arizona Republic: What will happen to real news now?

 

• James T. Madore, Newsday: Commentator?s case revives debate

 

• Michelle Malkin, syndicated columnist: This Column Is Not for Sale

 

• Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: Williams didn’t give U.S. what it paid for

 

• Askia Muhammad, Washington Informer: Armstrong Williams Falls from Grace

 

• Deborah Simmons, Washington Times: Walk, don’t run

Trotter Group members’ commentary

Univision Raises Hackles of Puerto Ricans

“The Spanish-language media giant Univision — loved in many places where Spanish is the predominant language — has endured a rocky relationship with this island since taking over programming of a local television station two years ago,” Ray Quintanilla wrote from Puerto Rico Sunday in the Orlando Sentinel.

Among the viewer complaints:

• “Local production of telenovelas (Spanish soap operas) and game shows has stopped, and they have been replaced with broadcasts from Mexico and Venezuela.

“Rather than show the breadth of diversity on the island, it is thought, these new programs are likely to feature only light-skinned actors and actresses.

• “Dozens of Puerto Rican actors and news reporters lost their jobs, because station officials deemed Spanish accents ‘too Puerto Rican.’ Those who stuck around reportedly were told to ‘lose the accents.’

“The station now pipes in programs aimed at Hispanics who speak ‘Chicano or Mexican Spanish.'”

• During the hurricane season, “its broadcasters continually expressed worry about storms hitting Florida, rather than discussing the arrival of Jeanne in Puerto Rico,” Quintanilla wrote.

Weatherman Loses Job After “Slip” About King

“KTNV-TV, Channel 13, fired weekend weather anchor Rob Blair on Sunday, a day after he made an on-air racial slur about Martin Luther King Jr.,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported today.

“Jim Prather, vice president and general manager of KTNV, said Blair ‘stumbled’ during a weather update at 7:55 a.m. Saturday but added that ‘this kind of incident is not acceptable under any circumstances, and I’m truly sorry that this event occurred.'”

“Blair was delivering the extended forecast when he said, ‘For tomorrow, 60 degrees, Martin Luther Coon King Jr. Day, gonna see some temperatures in the mid-60s.'”

“About 20 minutes later, Blair told viewers at the ABC affiliate, ‘Apparently I accidentally said Martin Luther Kong Jr., which I apologize about — slip of the tongue.’

“He offered a full apology during Saturday’s 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts.

Damon Hodge, a writer at the Las Vegas Weekly who was speaking for the Las Vegas chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, said in a statement:

“Unfortunately, these types of incidents dredge up all sorts of bad feelings about this town’s troubled history with racism and do nothing to mitigate the real concerns minorities have about the perception of media insensitivity toward their communities and their issues. I am heartened that KTNV officials took the matter seriously and meted out punishment they felt was appropriate.”

Blair’s station bio notes that Blair has worked “as a weather anchor/reporter in Palm Springs, California, anchor/reporter in Monterey, and as a weather forecaster in Chico.” He had been at the Las Vegas station less than a year, Jim Thomas, vice president for marketing and programming of the Journal Broadcast Group, told Journal-isms from his Milwaukee office.

NABJ Astounded by Racist On-Air Comment About Dr. King; Seeks More Media Sensitivity in Las Vegas (news release)

Reporter’s Work Led to Reopening of ’64 Mississippi Case

The reporting of Jerry Mitchell of Mississippi’s Jackson Clarion-Ledger “led investigators to reopen the case in which three civil rights workers had been killed and buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Miss., in June 1964,” Laura Parker reported today in USA Today.

“The new investigation resulted in Edgar Ray Killen, a 79-year-old preacher, being charged earlier this month with the murders of civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, 24, Andrew Goodman, 20, and James Chaney, 21.

When Mitchell, who is white, arrived in 1986 at the Clarion-Ledger, he knew “absolutely zero about the civil rights movement,” the story quotes him as saying.

“Mitchell’s reporting also helped lead to the convictions of two other Klansmen,” Parker’s story said: Sam Bowers, onetime imperial wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who was convicted in 1998 for ordering the firebombing that killed NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer in Hattiesburg, Miss., in 1966; and Bobby Frank Cherry, then 71, who was convicted in 2002 for the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church that killed four little girls.

Jerry Mitchell’s work (Jackson Clarion-Ledger)

“Hotel Rwanda” Reaffirms Criticism of News Media

It’s not often that the big screen portrays the news events that journalists cover, much less reafffirms criticism leveled at the media. But the new movie “Hotel Rwanda” manages to do both.

The powerful film about the Rwanda genocide of 1994, in which one million people died as the West looked the other way, pulled in about $1.55 million at the box office over the weekend, according to estimates Sunday. One thinks of the more recent events in central Africa, where an estimated 3.3 million people perished in a five-year war in the Congo and nearby countries to little media attention, as Howard W. French noted in this column last year.

The media’s role in the Rwanda tragedy is portrayed in the film as multidimensional. Footage of the first carnage was rushed to Western news outlets, the film shows, with urgings that it lead the newscasts. But the movie also shows a United Nations peacekeeping officer, played by Nick Nolte, explaining that the footage would not mobilize Westerners. Nolte’s character tells Don Cheadle’s character, a Rwandan hotel manager who provides shelter to Tutsis marked for extermination, that to Western whites, “You’re dirt. We think you’re dirt, less than dirt, you’re worthless. You’re not even a nigger — you’re an African.”

In one interview promoting the film, Cheadle was asked, “Why did you want to do this film in the first place? How much were you aware of this situation prior to becoming involved in the project?”

The actor replied:

“I was cursorily aware of it. I didn?t know that much about it. I had seen some stuff on the news. In America, it was way down the line. In the newspapers, it was the seventh or eighth page, a little paragraph. It wasn?t much. Then years after that, a few years after that, I saw the Frontline piece that they did on it, the documentary about it, which was hard to watch. That one was overwhelming to me and I became interested in that way. And then when I read the script, it was just satisfying on a purely artistic level.”

A Tanzanian journalist alerted producer Terry George to the story of the hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina, George said on “The Kojo Nnamdi Show” on WAMU-FM in Washington. He did not name the journalist.

Rap Magazine Says “Massacre” Is What We Need

In perfect timing for anyone who has seen “Hotel Rwanda,” or even remembers the shooting deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, XXL magazine has sent out a news release about its March issue, showing rapper 50 Cent brandishing what looks like an Uzi on its cover to promote his new album, “The Massacre.”

“The image is an ancient crossbow weapon brandished by the pin striped, power-suited, hip-hop warrior 50 Cent aka The General . . . and it speaks volumes about the artist?s return for a second round. XXL magazine?s controversial, iconographic cover shot of the street?s most famous survivor, merely sets up the battlefield for his new album, The Massacre –50?s first solo album since 2003?s colossal debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin?,” the release says.

Elliott Wilson, XXL editor-in-chief, is quoted as saying, “50 is the only MC that gets it: All publicity is good publicity.”

Meanwhile, Matthew Flamm reports in Crain’s New York Business today that XXL’s publisher, Harris Publications Inc. must be doing something right.

“The seat-of-the-pants publisher of enthusiast titles such as Quilt, Dog News and Special Weapons recognized the riches to be won following multicultural trends in 1997 when it started XXL. Today, the hip-hop magazine and King, its Maxim-like sibling, are among the fastest-growing titles on the newsstand,” Flamm wrote.

Gonzales Pledges to Work on FOI Issues

“Alberto Gonzales, the president’s choice to replace Attorney General John Ashcroft, pledged last week during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee to work with two open government advocates in the Senate,” the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported Friday.

“Gonzales told Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that he is committed to ‘strongly look at’ taking steps to create a uniform standard to ensure government documents would be kept shielded only in cases where releasing them would cause harm. Leahy has opposed the administration’s efforts to routinely shield ‘sensitive but unclassified’ information.

“. . . Gonzales has shown a penchant as White House counsel for strictly regulating access to government and executive-branch information, according to a November assessment of his record in open government issues by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.”

Hoy to Redesign in Chicago, L.A.

“Tribune Co.’s Spanish-language daily, Hoy, will have a new look when it converts to free distribution in Chicago and Los Angeles,” Mark Fitzgerald reported in Editor & Publisher.

One of the changes: “The separate pages devoted, in the Chicago edition, to news from Mexico, South America, Central America and Puerto Rico will be replaced by what the paper called ‘a big news block’ entitled simply ‘Latinoamerica.'”

Publisher Digby Solomon Diez said the paper was working on how to tailor news to the different mix of Hispanics in each market. “We really want to emphasize more Mexico in Chicago and L.A., and play up more [news from] El Salvador in L.A., whereas in New York, where there’s more varied background, we want to emphasize the Caribbean,” he was quoted as saying.

East Coast Service for Roy Aarons Saturday

The East Coast memorial service for LeRoy Aarons, the Maynard board member and founder of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, is scheduled for Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in New York.

Aarons died Nov. 28 at age 71 after battling cancer. Some 250 to 300 people attended a memorial service for him on Dec. 4 in Santa Rosa, Calif.

The East Coast service is to take place at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., with an hour-long reception afterward.

Aarons’ partner, Joshua Boneh, has said that donations may be made to the following organizations: NLGJA, the Maynard Institute, the We the People newspaper in Santa Rosa, and the Center For Spiritual Living in Santa Rosa.