Group Seeks Ethics Rules from Syndicates
The scandal touched off by the acceptance of government money by commentator Armstrong Williams prompted the organization representing opinion editors and writers to seek answers from syndicates this week about their ethics policies.
Kay Semion, president of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, whose members choose which columnists to run in their newspapers, said that the 582-member group had created “a task force on syndicates to seek answers to our questions of ethics and corrections.
“Heading up the panel is Jerry Ausband, retired editorial page editor of Myrtle Beach,” said Semion, who is associate editor at Florida’s Daytona Beach News-Journal.
“The task force will contact all of the syndicates to go over questions that have been raised on this groupserv and elsewhere,” she told members of the organization’s listserve. “This will allow us to compare how syndicates are set up to deal with issues like those that have come to the forefront this year and also ascertain how we can be effective in correcting factual errors.
“Among the questions:
“How do you screen columnists and editorial cartoonists?
“Do you have an ethics policy?
“What policy do you follow if contracted columnists/cartoonists violate standard journalism ethics (regardless of where you have an individual ethics policy)?
“Do you have a fact-checking process for columnists? How does it work? When editorial writers or editors find a factual error in a column or cartoon, what effective means can be used to communicate that error and have a correction made?”
Tribune Media Services dropped Williams on Jan. 7 after USA Today disclosed that the Bush administration paid Williams’ firm $240,000 to promote the “No Child Left Behind” act. Williams then returned to self-syndication.
Meanwhile, two columnists whose actions subsequently came under scrutiny reacted this week in opposite ways.
Michael McManus, in his own column, dated Feb. 5, asked “the forgiveness of newspapers publishing my column and of you, as readers” for not recognizing the conflict of interest in heading a company that accepted money for organizing Healthy Marriage Initiatives, a program of the Department of Health and Human Services, then writing columns praising the program.
Maggie Gallagher, in a letter published today in the Washington Post, challenged reporter Howard Kurtz‘s statement that the HHS paid her “to help promote the president’s proposal” on marriage.
“The Bush administration did not pay me as a journalist to promote President Bush‘s marriage proposal,” she wrote. “In 2002, I was paid for six pieces of work for the Department of Health and Human Services related to my field of expertise: four brochures on social science evidence and marriage; a draft of an essay for Wade Horn; and a presentation for regional HHS managers on the benefits of marriage.”
Ossie Davis Was “a Very Giving Soul With His Time”
To a reporter, actor Ossie Davis, who was found dead today at age 87, “was a very giving soul with his time” who “enjoyed talking about entertainment history” and had “quite a down-to-earth quality about him,” Wil Haygood of the Washington Post, one of the last to interview Davis in depth, said today.
Haygood wrote a 2,100-word piece on Davis and his wife, Ruby Dee, that appeared Dec. 5, shortly before the couple were feted at the Kennedy Center Honors for their theatrical and film achievements.
The Black Starz cable network had previously announced that its documentary, “Unstoppable: A Conversation with Gordon Parks, Melvin Van Peebles and Ossie Davis” would air at 8 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 13. “The documentary presents an intimate portrait of three highly influential men of African American cinema, Melvin Van Peebles, Gordon Parks and Ossie Davis, who come together for the first time on screen to discuss their extraordinary careers,” according to that announcement.
In conjunction with the Kennedy Center Honors, Davis and Dee also were interviewed briefly Dec. 20 on CBS-TV’s “The Early Show” by Hannah Storm and Julie Chen.
Haygood, who was writing an appreciation of Davis today, said Davis’ down-to-earth quality was “what we came to see and feel in his screen appearances.” In addition to entertainment history, he enjoyed discussing his experience at Howard University, Haygood said.
Davis returned to the Howard campus in 2003 as Annenberg professor of communications, as Charreah Jackson wrote for the student paper The Hilltop and for the Black College Wire.
“While you are molding your minds, remember those who you left behind and did not make it to Howard,” Davis said then. “Remember they are your brothers and sisters.”
On the National Association of Black Journalists listserve, Stephen Miller, a former officer of the New York Association of Black Journalists, recalled that in the mid-1970s, NYABJ produced a radio news show on public radio station WNYC, and that the first three shows were read by Davis and Dee.
Yanick Rice Lamb, a former NYABJ president who now teaches at Howard University, remembered the chapter giving Davis a community service award in 1995, and that Davis appeared in New York only last Friday at a fund-raiser for Howard University’s School of Communications.
Photo essay (CBSNews.com)
Warner Saunders Turns 70, No Plans to Retire
“Even though Warner Saunders turned 70 this week and his contract as news anchor at WMAQ-Channel 5 is up in June, I know enough not to call him and ask about his future plans,” Robert Feder wrote Thursday in the Chicago Sun-Times.
“The last time a reporter did that, Saunders exploded and accused him of ‘ageism, racism, sexism . . . and any of the other “isms” you can think of’ for simply asking the question. He later bragged about bullying the poor reporter in an appearance before journalism students at Northwestern University, adding: ‘I felt really good about myself.’
“So while Saunders keeps his own counsel (except for occasional pronouncements to Stella Foster), the word at Channel 5 is that he’ll continue phoning it in for the foreseeable future. Having lost his heir apparent when Mark Suppelsa skipped to WFLD-Channel 32, bosses of the NBC-owned station are expected to offer Saunders another lease on the 10 p.m. anchor chair he’s occupied since 1997.
“Lucky man.” Foster is Feder’s fellow columnist at the Sun-Times.
Feder ran some cards and letters today responding to the item. One, from Frank Whittaker, WMAQ’s vice president of news, said it “comes across not only as unfair, but as a personal vendetta.”
Lawsuit Puts Jennifer 8. Lee in Gossip Column
“New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee‘s party-throwing penchant and unusual byline earned her a lot of buzz when she worked in Washington. Now her former landlady, in a lawsuit filed yesterday, claims that Lee’s ‘raucous’ shindigs in 2003 and 2004—where the guests included congressional staffers, pundits and other reporters—caused nearly $148,000 in damage to her Washington condo,” Washington Post gossip columnist Richard Leiby reported Thursday.
“‘It looked like “Animal House,” ‘ said Beth Solomon, a PR rep who rented Lee the $2,900-a-month, two-bedroom apartment near the Washington Convention Center for 20 months. ‘There was urinating and defecating on the property, vomiting on the stairways. The kitchen was destroyed, the floors were destroyed, my baby grand piano was used as a wet bar and taken apart.’
“. . . Lee, 28, would not comment yesterday on the allegations but did tell us, ‘I like Beth Solomon a lot and hope we can settle in a way that makes her happy.'”
Broadcast Networks Ignore Black History Month
Cox News Service last week moved a piece by Kevin D. Thompson of Florida’s Palm Beach Post listing Black History Month television specials.
“While the broadcast networks virtually ignore Black History Month—it is February sweeps, you know—PBS and cable more than pick up the slack,” his story began.
Court TV’s Black History Month
Photographs From 1964 Freedom Summer Online
In celebration of Black History Month, the Newseum, the interactive museum of news being built in Washington, D.C., has posted an online pictorial, “Images of Hate and Hope,” showcasing photographs from the 1964 Freedom Summer in Neshoba County, Miss. It shows images of the volunteer movement and photographs from the recently publicized murder investigation of three civil rights workers, the Newseum announces.
“The site, which features 10 images, offers descriptive captions and a brief history of the events of Freedom Summer. The photographs are part of the Newseum’s collection of images from photojournalist Ted Polumbaum (1924-2001).
“Polumbaum’s images, captured while on assignment for TIME magazine, illustrate the progress and prejudice that marked the civil rights movement and fueled the events of Freedom Summer.
“The Newseum acquired the Polumbaum collection of nearly 50,000 prints, negatives and slides in March 2003. The images were donated by his widow, Nyna Polumbaum. Since that time, Newseum researchers have spent the last two years combing through and cataloguing the massive collection. It was during this process that several hundred photos were uncovered from Polumbaum’s coverage of Freedom Summer.”
First-Hand Knowledge About Disappearing Anchors
It might not be what anchor Gary Mattingly intended to happen when he wrote “The Disappearing Anchor: An African-American Perspective,” but now he knows the subject from personal experience.
Mattingly, who had been at WCJB-TV in Gainesville, Fla., since 1999, has parted ways with the station, as the NewsBlues Web site reported this week.
“Before Gainesville (Market #162), Mattingly had worked in Mobile, Portsmouth, Spartanburg, Columbia, New Orleans, Orlando and Philadelphia.
“According to station GM Carolyn Barrett, ‘We chose not to renew his contract due to a personnel matter,'” the Web site reported.
News director Adam Henning referred Journal-isms to the University of Florida, where Mattingly apparently is now a graduate student in journalism.
Efforts to contact Mattingly were unsuccessful.
Tech Guru “Sree” Embodies “Multicultural”
The career of Sreenath Sreenivasan, New York television “tech guru,” co-founder of the South Asian Journalists Association and associate professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, would seem to embody the term “multicultural.”
“Sree,” 35, was born in Tokyo, attended kindergarten in Moscow, went to New York at age 9, attended high school in Burma and then Fiji, enrolled in college in India and got his master’s degree at Columbia, where he is now “widely considered one of the university’s most popular teachers,” Alexandra Simou wrote this week in the New York Sun.
“As WABC-TV’s ‘Tech Guru,’ Mr. Sreenivasan appears on Channel 7 Eyewitness News This Morning at 6:45 a.m. on Thursdays and at 7:45 a.m. on Saturdays. His three-minute segments interpret technology to the layman, sift through Web sites for the useful and entertaining ones, and include tips ranging from how to participate in the South Asian tsunami relief effort to how best to go about online shopping,” Simou wrote.
“Mr. Sreenivasan is at home in New York—and sees the city’s rich diversity as a great asset. It happens regularly after his morning television broadcasts that the anchor ‘tosses’ from the Tech Guru to Joya Dass, a financial reporter also of South Asian origin. ‘The fact that they have two South Asians says something about the station, says something about the network, about New York—it’s a wonderful thing,’ says Mr. Sreenivasan.”
Denver Anchor Adele Arakawa in “Lucrative” Deal
“9News’ Adele Arakawa, considered by many in the industry as Denver’s most valuable news anchor, has signed what President Roger Ogden calls ‘one of the longest deals’ ever made at the station. And probably one of the most lucrative, although financial details were not announced,” columnist Dusty Saunders reported Thursday in the Rocky Mountain News. “Arakawa has been at the station 11 years.”
According to her bio, “Adele served as president of the Chicago chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association in 1992. She is a member of the Japanese American Citizens League, and the Japanese American Service Committee.
“Arakawa is Adele’s mother’s maiden name, which she took as an air name in her teens. It is Japanese in origin. Adele’s mother is from Maui in the Hawaiian islands. Her grandparents are from Okinawa, Japan.”
Entrepreneur Oliveira Leaving as Austin Anchor
“Ron Oliveira wants to make it clear he was ‘very, very happy’ at KVUE-TV and that his third stint as the ABC affiliate’s lead anchor provided ‘some of the happiest points of my career.’ And KVUE general manager Patti Smith calls him a ‘terrific guy’ and ‘a personal friend.’ But that doesn’t change the fact that Oliveira will leave the station March 7, after the straight-backed anchor and the station couldn’t agree on a new contract,” Kevin Brass reported in Feb. 4 edition of the Austin Chronicle.
“Oliveira is saying only that he and the station ‘had differences’ on certain terms, but he is unwilling to elaborate.”
But Oliveira, 49, “has consistently sandwiched other businesses between his gigs as a news reader, and is still a part owner of KNVA, Austin’s WB affiliate,” Brass continued. “A former member of the executive board of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, he also helped launch KTLM-TV, a Telemundo affiliate in the Rio Grande Valley. With free time on his hands, he says he’s contemplating possible forays into the restaurant business or buying another TV license.”
Stephen Buckley Proves Value of Early Training
Stephen Buckley‘s ascension to managing editor of the St. Petersburg Times has special resonance for the paper’s owners, the Poynter Institute, Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at the Institute, wrote this week.
“For those of us at Poynter, Stephen is the product of a idea first articulated by Nelson Poynter himself on how to attract new generations of talent to journalism: ‘Find them young. Give them what they need. And don’t let go,'” Clark said.
Clark described how, as a skinny journalism teacher in March 1981, he attended a job fair sponsored by Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority at a technical school in St. Petersburg.
An eighth-grade Buckley asked if he could join a summer high school journalism camp, though he was not yet in high school.
“I want to become the next Red Smith,” Buckley said, referring to the legendary sports writer.
An impressed Clark agreed, and, “at the ages of 14 and 15, Stephen went through five-week training programs at Poynter.
“Stephen moved with his mother to the Bronx, N.Y., where he became a columnist and editor for the newspaper at DeWitt Clinton High School. But he continued to return to St. Pete for summer newspaper work. When he was 16, Stephen got a job as a copy clerk at the Times.
“. . . Gene Patterson, editor of the Times back then, took a personal interest in Stephen. The paper offered him a generous college scholarship. Patterson called his friend Bill Green, former ombudsman for The Washington Post who was working at Duke University, and Green helped open the door to Duke with additional scholarship money.”
After working as a local reporter and foreign correspondent at the Washington Post, Buckley returned to the Times in 2001.
Last month, he was named the paper’s first African American managing editor.
Need to Awaken Readers? Attack Fox News
“A PBS Mind in a Fox News World,” began a column last month by Sylvester Brown Jr. in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
“I saw that slogan on a bumper sticker, and it resonated with me. I consider many news programs on the Fox network unabashedly partisan and ultraconservative. The idea that millions rely on it for news and information makes me wince.”
Brown’s attack on talk radio station 97.1 FM, which carries a number of Fox talk-show hosts, proved a good way to stir up letters and e-mails.
“I expected to irritate the station’s managers and fans of the conservative blowhards,” Brown wrote in a follow-up column.
“Still, I had no idea I was insulting an entire disenfranchised and disrespected group of Americans.”
It’s no spin: O’Reilly admits that I was right (Jan. 27).
Natalie Hopkinson a Visiting Professor at Maryland
Natalie Hopkinson, a doctoral fellow at the University of Maryland’s Phillip Merrill College of Journalism and a staff writer at the Washington Post, is joining the school as a visiting professor, the school has announced.
Hopkinson has been at the school since September as a doctoral fellow, and before that as an adjunct professor, teaching an occasional course. As a visiting professor, she will have a full two-course load per semester, and more permanence, Associate Dean Christopher Callahan explained.
News Media Leaders Gear Up for “Sunshine Week”
A Web site went online this week touting “Sunshine Week, during which daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, online sites, and radio and TV broadcasters will produce news stories, and feature stories, columns, cartoons and editorials, which we hope will prompt a public discussion on why open government is important to everyone—not just journalists,” in the words of Cox Newspapers’ Andy Alexander, chairman of the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Freedom of Information Committee.
Participants in the project, scheduled for March 13-19, cover a broad swath of the news industry.
The steering committee includes: Caesar Andrews, editor, Gannett News Service; Peter Bhatia, executive editor, The Oregonian, Portland; Mae Cheng, president, Unity: Journalists of Color and assistant city editor at Newsday in New York; Karla Garrett Harshaw, ASNE president and editor of Ohio’s Springfield News-Sun; Greg L. Moore, editor, Denver Post; Clarence Page, columnist and editorial writer, Chicago Tribune; Rick Rodriguez, executive editor, Sacramento Bee; and Mark Trahant, chairman, Maynard Institute and editorial page editor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
State coordinators include Paola Banchero, assistant professor of journalism, University of Alaska, Anchorage; and Stirling Morita of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
National Sunshine Week is spearheaded by ASNE with a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Radio- Television News Directors Association also has received a Knight grant to help broadcasters to participate.
On March 16, James Madison‘s birthday, the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Va., is hosting its seventh annual National Freedom of Information Day Conference, bringing together access advocates, government officials, lawyers, librarians, journalists, educators and others to discuss the latest issues and developments in freedom of information.
The next day at the National Press Club, a coalition of media organizations plans to gather to discuss access to government information on the record, with intent to craft steps toward a solution to the increasing reliance on anonymous sources and off-the-record briefings. The coalition and program were put together by Geneva Overholser, Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting at the Missouri School of Journalism’s Washington bureau
The Web site features links to background reports, resources and open-government organizations; testimonials from Florida editors about the impact of the original Sunshine Sunday; contact information on regional and state coordinators; and materials available for publication, including op-ed columns. Also included are story ideas and a listing of stories involving open records that have appeared around the country.
Jamaicans Praise One Who Made Good in Canada
“He moved to Canada about 40 years ago in much the same way thousands of other Jamaicans made the move. Mother went first then, once settled, sent for the children,” Jamaica’s newspaper The Gleaner wrote Tuesday under the headline, “Veteran Canadian Journalist: Making Power Links Across the Seas.”
“A journalist by profession, Hamlin Grange is a co-host of Power 106FM’s newest flagship evening show, ‘Good Evening Jamaica’.
“He has just been confirmed as a member of the Toronto Police Services Board (PSB), making him one of the most powerful men in public life in that city.
“. . . One of the founders and past president of the Canadian Association of Black Journalists (which includes reporters, photographers, camera operators, and other communications professionals), Mr. Grange has mentored dozens of young journalists from minority groups. He told The Gleaner that the number of black and Caribbean journalists in Canada has grown since 1980, but that number could be better.”
Grange was also the subject of a column by Nicholas Davis Monday in the Toronto Sun.
Davis added that, “Grange came to Canada at the age of 9. By the time he was in high school he was a journalist for Contrast, the city’s only black newspaper at the time. Twenty-five years later, after stints at Global, the Toronto Star and CBC, Grange quit being a journalist to open a business with his wife,” referring to Global TV and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “The company, ProMedia International, helps other businesses understand the value of diversity in the workplace.”
