Racial Angle Missing in Reports on Show’s Future
Media writers were abuzz this week speculating about the future of ABC-TV’s “Nightline,” but they overlooked qualities dear to those who care about diversity: the show’s willingness to tackle racial issues and its appeal to African Americans.
“Nightline,” whose anchor, Ted Koppel, turned 65 on Feb. 8, runs third in the overall ratings behind “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” on NBC and “Late Night with David Letterman” on CBS. But it rates first with African Americans, according to September-to- December Nielsen ratings, including in the key 25-54 demographic.
“Nightline” reached 830,000 African American viewers, compared with 740,000 for the “Tonight” show and 630,000 for Letterman, according to figures from “Nightline” spokeswoman Emily Lenzner, responding to a request from Journal-isms. Information on other viewers of color was not immediately available.
By contrast, figures from Sept. 20 to Feb. 6 showed “Nightline” third in overall viewers, with “Tonight” garnering 5.8 million, Letterman, 4,597,000, and the ABC show, 3,789,000.
Peter Jennings, anchor of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” confirmed that “ABC is experimenting with trying the venerable ‘Nightline’ in a new format,” Joanne Ostrow wrote Thursday in the Denver Post, quoting Jennings as saying that, “Ted is talking to management about working on the Sunday show (‘This Week’).”
It’s possible George Stephanopoulos could switch places with Koppel, Ostrow continued, quoting Jennings as saying, “It would be really tough if we lost either one of them.” “He vowed to fight hard against putting a comedian or chat show in the ‘Nightline’ slot, although ABC executives previously offered David Letterman the spot,” Ostrow wrote.
David Bauder of the Associated Press wrote Wednesday that, “Within the past few weeks, ABC has filmed some partial test runs in its Times Square studios of a potential new ‘Nightline,’ reportedly lighter in tone and containing multiple stories.
“The ‘Nightline’ crew, in turn, plans to make its own hour-long prototype and hopes to reach some common ground.”
In the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz wrote Wednesday, “while ABC News is fighting to keep control of the hour, Disney, the network’s corporate parent, is also entertaining suggestions for a sports or entertainment show.”
Michel Martin, an ABC correspondent who has “Nightline” as her prime assignment, told Journal-isms that the show “is not important just for the numbers. White viewers can learn something” when they feel there is “no one they can ask” about racial issues. It has become “a safe place” to discuss topics the broader society should know about, she said.
Among recent “Nightline” programs:
- On Jan. 26, Martin interviewed Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the biracial daughter of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, as part of the show’s “America in Black and White” series, exploring questions of race and identity.
- On Feb. 3, the show revisited “the Badlands” neighborhood of Philadelphia, where producer Artiss Waters, cameraman Fletcher Johnson and Koppel took viewers 10 years ago.
- On Feb. 9, actor Don Cheadle, star of the “Hotel Rwanda” movie about the 1994 genocide in that country, reported on the fact-finding mission he made with members of Congress to the Darfur region of Sudan, site of a more recent genocide.
“There’s been endless speculation and there will continue to be more speculation” about the show’s future, ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider told reporters this week. “Our job is to keep doing the best broadcast we can do.”
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Arrest in 1987 Killing of San Diego Black Publisher
“For 18 years, family and friends of William H. Thompson, publisher of the city’s only black newspaper and a prominent business leader in southeastern San Diego, waited for police to arrest the person who killed him,” Kristen Green and Joe Hughes reported today in California’s San Diego Union-Tribune.
“During that time, many of them passed on.
“. . . Yesterday, police announced they had arrested a career criminal on suspicion of stabbing to death the real estate developer who used his newspaper to crusade against drug abuse in San Diego’s inner city,” the story continued.
“. . . In 1987, the year Thompson was killed,” the suspect, Stanley Ray Clayton, 39, “was convicted of possessing cocaine for sale. He told the court he had been living with friends and did not have a permanent address.
“. . . At the time of the slaying, police said they could not discount the possibility that Thompson could have been killed in retaliation. . . . Despite threats, Thompson had printed names of convicted drug dealers in his weekly paper. He also led a group of landowners in evicting known drug dealers from apartments and gave police the names, addresses and license numbers of drug dealers working the street.”
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NAHJ Scholarship Event Grosses $200,000
Public television’s Ray Suarez told about 330 attendees at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ annual scholarship banquet last night that, “we’ve got to do everything we can to save this business . . . We’ve got to start a whole new relationship with our publics.”
The event, held at the Plaza Hotel in New York, grossed about $200,000, spokesman Joseph Torres told Journal-isms.
Suarez, who reports for “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer,” said that, “Our scholarship kids, the kids we’re raising this money for, can’t just write a good lead, though that’s important and a very good start. They also have to understand economics, political science, the Constitution, global warming, zoning laws, labor market theory, the history of Islam. The world is becoming a more complex place to understand at all, much less explain to everyone else,” continued Suarez.
In a lighter vein, Suarez observed that, “when the Bush White House assembled a fake news team to send out fake news stories on Medicare to real television stations, who was the male anchor? Alberto Garcia. Now that’s progress! We’ve gone from having to fight to be hired in real newsrooms to being automatically included in fake ones.”
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Gene Robinson Adds Spark to Post’s Op-Ed Page
Eugene Robinson, the editor of the Washington Post’s Style section who was not named managing editor last year, precipitating an ongoing discussion of race relations at the paper, is livening up the Post’s op-ed page in his new role as columnist.
That page’s inside-the-Beltway orientation prompted a 2001 piece in The Progressive magazine by the Post’s pacifist former editorial writer and columnist, Colman McCarthy, titled, “Why The Washington Post Op-ed Page Is So Dull”.
Robinson’s topics are defying the wonkish stereotype: Since he started this month, he has written about Condoleezza Rice in the context of images of black women; the political lessons to be learned by Ray Charles‘ sweep of the Grammy awards, and Prince Charles‘ decision to marry Camilla Parker Bowles.
“I’m having a great time,” Robinson told Journal-isms. “It’s harder than it looks, but I had forgotten how rewarding writing regularly can be. It feels like an adventure, and I hope everyone comes along for the ride.”
McCarthy sees still more to be done.
“The addition of Gene Robinson is welcomed, but the Post op-ed page still is well short of the kind of diversity that’s really needed,” he told Journal-isms.
“The page is all too predictable. On most days of the week, a reader can easily predict which writers will appear and the line they will be taking. If anything else, a quality op-ed page is open to all voices; instead the Post sticks to the regulars. I don’t recall ever seeing an op-ed by Howard Zinn, Dick Gregory, Noam Chomsky or other voices from the dissenting left—and put your name in there, I insist.”
Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt declined to comment.
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Jayson Blair Speaks at Black History Month Event
The notorious former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair appeared before about 20 people today at a Black History Month program at the Arizona Center for the Book, a public library in Phoenix, project director Cynthia Landrum told Journal-isms.
Blair, author of the autobiographical “Burning Down My Master’s House,” read at a brown-bag lunch at the 6th Annual Celebration of African-American Authors, she said.
“Even though his history is infamous, it was historic, with ramifications for the future,” Landrum said. “We only do African American author programs at this time of the year. . . . People haven’t grown accustomed to looking at programs about themselves at any other time.”
Blair is due for another reading there on Saturday.
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Mattiebelle Woods, Working Journalist, Dies at 102
Mattiebelle Woods, society editor of the Milwaukee Courier, an African American weekly, died Thursday at 102, family members said. She was believed to be the nation’s oldest living working journalist. Her last column of society tidbits appeared Monday.
Mrs. Woods’ grandson, Ken Bedford, a news photographer at WLS-TV in Chicago, said she died after blood clotted in a vein.
Mrs. Woods was honored at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Milwaukee in 2002, said Joanne Williams of WITI-TV, a former NABJ board member. On her 98th birthday in 2000, Mayor John O. Norquist proclaimed a “Mattiebelle Woods Day.”
A two-part article in the Courier on Mrs. Woods, originally published in 2002 and reprinted Feb. 5 and Feb. 12, noted that Mrs. Woods met W.E.B. DuBois while working for the Milwaukee edition of the Chicago Defender in Chicago, as it discussed her life in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1952, she met and interviewed first lady Eleanor Roosevelt while working for a women’s branch of the Democratic Party. She co-chaired the United Negro College Fund in 1954, and in 1955, was the Wisconsin director of the Miss Bronze America, according to the story by Anthony Tatum.
In 1956, Mrs. Woods began stringing for Johnson Publishing Co., publishers of Ebony and Jet magazines. In 1970, she founded a Miss Black Teen Beauty and Talent pageant. She began working for the Courier in 1964.
Of her early life, Tatum wrote:
“In 1902, Mattiebelle Woods was born here in Milwaukee. Mattiebelle’s mother, Anniebelle Woods, and Mattiebelle lived with their in-laws . . . for a short time before moving into their own home at Biddle and Astor, located in the area we know today as the eastside of Milwaukee. Anniebelle was able to take care of her family by working at the Astor Hotel and in the homes of wealthy Germans. Because of Anniebelle’s association with many German families, Mattiebelle grew up as a little girl among wealth. For a time while growing up she had not seen or knew too many African Americans. Mattiebelle and her family were welcomed and accepted by the German community and this was all she knew,” the story said. “. . .It was at West Division High School where she first began to come into contact with other African Americans.”
Services are scheduled for Feb. 26 at St. Mark AME Church in Milwaukee.
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Armstrong Williams Says Tom Joyner Inspired Him
“Armstrong Williams, his career as a conservative commentator tainted by the disclosure that he was paid to promote government policy, is trying to move past the controversy that has come to define him in recent weeks,” Anne E. Kornblut reported Thursday in the New York Times.
In an interview after a forum at Howard University, “Mr. Williams said he submitted proposals early in the administration to both the Education Department and the Department of Health and Human Services offering to play a role promoting programs aimed at African-Americans. ‘Can you imagine being embroiled in a controversy for a program educating children?’ he said in the interview.
“Mr. Williams said he had been inspired by Tom Joyner, the nationally syndicated radio host who volunteered his broadcast platform to help health officials promote ‘Take a Loved One to the Doctor Day’ (though Mr. Joyner worked free). He said he had viewed the advertising on his own program as both a public service and good business, never imagining it would someday erupt in an episode that has made his name a metaphor for government efforts to pay off journalists.
“‘I’m no longer Armstrong Williams,’ he said. ‘I’ve become a noun. And in some cases, I’ve become a commodity.'”
On the take, out of sight (Bruce Bartlett, Washington Times)
Sharpton, Williams debate future of political parties and black voters (Jessie Bonner, Scripps Howard Foundation)
Bush administration blurs media boundary (Gail Russell Chaddock, Christian Science Monitor)
Journalists Exposed on the U.N. Payroll (Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media)
Rep. Ric Keller riled over government-paid reporters (Jackie Kucinich, The Hill)
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An Alarmed Unity Backs Federal Shield Law
Unity: Journalists of Color joined the call for a federal shield law Thursday in light of a federal appeals court decision that upheld a ruling against two reporters who have refused to divulge their sources.
A news release said: “The Court of Appeals ruling also demonstrates the need for a federal shield law that would protect the rights of reporters to use confidential sources, according to Matt Kelley and Herbert Lowe, co-chairmen of UNITY’s policy and communication committee.
”This is an issue that impacts all journalists, regardless of race or gender,’ said Kelley, who is also UNITY’s secretary. ‘It is at the core of what journalism is all about—seeking the truth and writing that truth.'”
Jailing Journalists (Editorial, Los Angeles Times)
The need for a federal shield (Editorial, New York Times)
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L.A. Times Scored on Female Opinion Writers
“Syndicated columnist Susan Estrich says the Los Angeles Times is guilty of ‘blatant sex discrimination’ for not running more opinion pieces by women,” Editor & Publisher wrote Thursday.
“[Its] record is worse than dismal,” Estrich said in a Valentine’s Day e-mail sent to 50 prominent California women. The e-mail was condensed and published yesterday in the Washington Examiner.”
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Nashville Reporter Pays Prostitute to Get Story
Darian Trotter of Nashville’s WSMV-TV, written about in this space Monday when the Nashville Tennessean discussed his flashy clothing sense, is making news again. This time over an attempt to expose illicit sexual activity.
According to Matt Pulle in the alternative paper Nashville Scene, Trotter “recently admitted to his bosses that he paid a prostitute for an interview, a no-no in journalism, where that’s considered a sure-fire way to erode a story subject’s—and a journalist’s—credibility. Worse, the prostitute later exposed himself, after which Trotter paid him again, in effect compensating the male prostitute for the flashing episode.”
Channel 4 news director Andrew Finlayson “says that when the prostitute approached Trotter’s car, he spotted some money near the front seat and asked for it. Trotter gave him $3 at first, and then additional cash to keep talking. All in all, Trotter paid the prostitute $22 for his time,” the story continued.
“Trotter insists that he had no idea the prostitute planned to expose himself. ‘I believe the prostitute flashed himself to get more money,’ he says. (And, it worked.)”
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Montgomery Paper Files Suit for Records
“A lawsuit filed against the Montgomery County school board by the Montgomery Advertiser seeks the release of the names of public employees on administrative leave,” the Associated Press reported from Alabama.
“The newspaper has been trying to confirm the name of an employee at Robert E. Lee High School who was placed on administrative leave Jan. 21 along with head football coach and athletic director Chris Baxter. A school board spokeswoman confirmed that Baxter was under investigation allegedly for having an improper relationship with a fellow school employee.
“Executive editor Wanda Lloyd said the newspaper is focusing on the larger issue of the public’s right to see such records. ‘Parents and others have the right to know how schools are being managed,’ Lloyd said.
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Short takes
- Black Entertainment Television hired the Sci Fi Channel’s development director Robyn Lattaker-Johnson to the new position of vice president, program development. Her experience includes time at KING-TV in Seattle in 1992-93 as a writer and on the news production team, BET spokesman Michael Lewellen told Journal-isms.
- Harold S. Lewis has been named vice president and general manager of the Weather Channel radio and newspaper syndication business, where he will have responsibility for the Weather Channel Radio Network and weather products and services for newspapers, the channel announced.
- About 120 people honored photographer Ernest C. Withers, 82, Monday at the Parsons School of Design in New York, according to Kenny Irby of the Visual Task Force of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Withers captured millions of images from the civil-rights movement, the Negro baseball leagues, and the history of the blues, as Ikimulisa Livingston wrote in the New York Post. The task force and Canon, the camera maker, gave Withers a Trailblazer Award.
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