Originally published Feb. 25, 2005
Setback for Historic Newspaper’s Rebirth
Veteran journalist Pearl Stewart, managing editor of the Chicago Defender, has resigned after just two months, Roland S. Martin, executive editor of the historic newspaper he was hired to rejuvenate, announced today.
“I was ready for challenges, but not that many,” Stewart told Journal-isms. She said she planned to stay on until March 15, while the paper searches for a successor, and would say only that the challenges involved “management style and newsroom staffing.”
Martin replied, “This is a difficult job we have. This is not a culture and an institution that you can completely turn around in a few months. There are issues of staff and resources, particularly with a daily. It’s a difficult prospect that can be extremely overwhelming.”
To cover the city of Chicago, the paper has one full-time staff writer and uses a cadre of freelancers. Martin said it has two full-time graphics people, an entertainment writer/editor, a society writer and a sportswriter.
But he told Journal-isms that he planned to begin a partnership with television and radio stations, and has partnered with the Medill News Service, which he said can provide 30 to 60 stories a week.
The 99-year-old paper is credited with triggering the Great Migration of blacks from the rural South to the industrial North after World War II. The 1997 death of longtime Publisher John H. Sengstacke “ushered in a period of family squabbling, estate-tax indebtedness, and caretaker ownership that repeatedly frustrated would-be buyers,” as Mark Fitzgerald wrote two years ago in Editor & Publisher. It was then selling an average of 14,629 copies weekdays in a city with an estimated 1,105,069 African Americans.
The Defender and its sibling weeklies in Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Memphis, Tenn., were finally bought by a consortium of African American businessmen in Chicago and Detroit who formed a company called Real Times, and the enterprise enjoyed a favorable press.
“The Defender, which was sold to Real Times LLC by the estate of founder Robert Sengstacke Abbott’s nephew in January 2003 after a prolonged period of drift, has been in a sometimes turbulent turnaround since the arrival [of] Martin as editor last year,” Fitzgerald wrote today. “Working with a skeleton crew, he introduced eye-catching graphics to the tabloid, [and] brought focus to a newshole that had been virtually unedited for years.” Real Times had “recruited Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Angelo Henderson as an editorial consultant for the daily and its sibling weeklies.
“Stewart, who started work Jan. 3, was another high-profile hire. In 1992, at The Oakland (Calif.) Tribune, she became the first black woman to be the top editor of a metro newspaper. Immediately prior to becoming managing editor, she was director of career development and an instructor at Florida A&M University’s School of Journalism and Graphic Communication.”
Martin advertised today for a successor, saying he was “seeking an editor who can work with a team that is committed to covering Black Chicago.”
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“Work-Life Issues” Hit Media People of Color
An unscientific study of 750 journalists and media leaders shows that young people and people of color are those most likely to think about leaving their jobs because of “work-life issues,” according to Jill Geisler, Leadership & Management Group leader at the Poynter Institute.
“While overall, 47.2 percent of the respondents said they have seriously considered leaving, the response of young journalists (ages 20-34) was 58.3 percent. For women it was 50.5 percent and for people of color, the response was 54.5 percent,” Geisler wrote yesterday.
“Some of this might be explained by responses to another question. We asked if respondents had ever asked their supervisors for short-term accommodations for work-life balance issues, and if so, whether or not the request was granted.
“Among all respondents, 47 percent asked, and of them, 72.2 received it. At the same time, more women and minorities had made such requests — 52.2 and 58 percent, respectively. But they report they were slightly less likely to get it — 68.8 and 70.1 percent, respectively,” Geisler continued.
“Which group was the most likely to get the short-term accommodation they requested? Men: 43.4 said they had asked (slightly less than the average), but when they did, 75.5 got what they requested.
“People of color and women, we should note, were among the most likely individuals to be responsible for significant care of extended family (parents, siblings, etc.). While for all respondents, 18.1 percent were responsible for care, for people of color it was 28.8, and for women, 20.8.”
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New Post Ombudsman Is Diversity Advocate
Deborah Howell, the Washington bureau chief and editor of Newhouse News Service who Thursday was named ombudsman of the Washington Post, describes herself as a longstanding advocate for diversity and says it will be part of what she looks at when she begins the job later this year.
“Diversity has always been important to me and I’ve practiced it since early in my career,” Howell, 64, told Journal-isms.
At the old Minneapolis Star, Howell rose to assistant managing editor-news; at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, she was senior vice president and editor.
“There are many people I helped give a start in Minnesota — Milton Coleman, David Early and Walter T. Middlebrook for three,” she said.
“This bureau was almost all white males when I got here. Including Religion News Service, it’s half women now, with two black editors, a black graphic artist, a black reporter, two Hispanic reporters, one Asian reporter.” There are 31 professionals on staff between Newhouse and RNS, she said.
“I did some groundbreaking journalism in St. Paul. We re-reported the great Indian uprising of the 1860s, but this time told it from the Indians’ point of view in several special sections that re-recreated the important events and how it affected Minnesota history. We did two special sections on the Hmong people, in English and in Hmong and tried to explain their way of life to their new hometown. At the bureau, one of my favorite projects was Along Martin Luther King: Black America’s Main Street, by reporter Jonathan Tilove and photographer Mike Falco. It was a wonderful exploration of MLK streets coast to coast and was adapted into a book by Random House.”
Howell succeeds longtime editor Michael Getler, 69, as D’Vera Cohn reported in the Post today. Getler headed a Post committee that in 1993 issued a critical 90-page report recommending improved diversity efforts, then was named deputy managing editor with diversity in his portfolio.
“Howell, who lives in Montgomery County [Md.], has worked in Washington since 1990, when she joined Newhouse. She supervises a staff of 32 that has had one Pulitzer Prize winner and three finalists during her tenure,” Cohn wrote.
“She also oversees Religion News Service and the Newhouse Minority Scholarship Program. She serves on the boards of the American Society of Newspaper Editors Foundation, the National Press Foundation and the International Women’s Media Foundation.”
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Davidson to Edit Washington Post’s D.C. “Extra”
Joe Davidson, veteran journalist and editor of Focus, the magazine of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, joins the Washington Post in April as editor of the District Extra, the zoned weekly for the District of Columbia.
“I’m a newspaperman at heart and I’m ready to return to my professional home,” newspapering, Davidson told Journal-isms. “The Washington Post provides that opportunity. Also, as editor of a small newspaper within a larger paper, I’ll be able to put my stamp, my mark, on a publication. I find that kind of creativity very attractive.”
About 130,000 of the Post’s 707,690 daily circulation is in the District of Columbia, and those papers include the District Extra.
For 13 years, Davidson, 55, was a Washington and foreign correspondent with the Wall Street Journal. He has worked at the Detroit News, the old Philadelphia Bulletin, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the short-lived black weekly the National Leader. He also is a political columnist with BET.com and has been a commentator on National Public Radio?s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”
A Detroit native, Davidson was a founding board member of the National Association of Black Journalists and is past president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, a member of the Trotter Group of black columnists and a two-time Pulitzer juror.
Workers Ask Washington Post to Diversify Newsroom (David Swanson, International Labor Communications Association)
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(White) Americans Call Reagan Greatest President
Pegged to Washington’s Birthday, the Gallup organization last week released the results of a poll that showed Ronald Reagan to be Americans’ choice as the nation’s greatest president.
But stories that didn’t look more deeply produced another instance where “Americans” really means “white Americans.”
The poll was conducted Feb. 7-10 among a national sample of 1,008 adults age 18 and older.
Among whites, the results were Reagan, 22 percent; Abraham Lincoln, 16 percent; Franklin D. Roosevelt, 13 percent, and John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton each with 10 percent, according to data Gallup provided to Journal-isms.
Among nonwhites, the order was: Clinton, 24 percent; Kennedy, 19 percent; FDR and Reagan each with 9 percent and Lincoln with 8 percent.
Clinton was also the choice of Democrats and those ages 18 to 29, “while Reagan scores highest for those aged 30 to 49, Kennedy for those aged 50 to 64, and Franklin D. Roosevelt for those aged 65 and older,” a Gallup news release said.
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South Asians Work to Sustain Tsunami Coverage
The South Asian Journalists Association is creating a fellowships program “aimed at promoting a rare element in 24/7-news-cycle journalism, namely, in-depth and follow-up reporting on major events relating to South Asia or South Asians, long after the breaking-news crews have moved on. The program will be kicked off this year with one or more fellowships to help cover the aftermath of the tsunami SIX TO NINE MONTHS after the disaster, when the world’s media might have turned away,” according to a SAJA announcement.
“We want to develop this program beyond the tsunami story as well, so that the project can serve as a model to encourage North American journalists to learn more about South Asia and South Asians.”
The organization hopes to initially raise at least $100,000.
One of the first events is an authors’ night on Saturday, March 12, at the City University of New York.
Also on the Dec. 26 tsunami, the Kenyan newspaper The East African reported Monday that U.N, emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland discussed “the disparity between the rich nations’ prompt and generous response to the tsunami catastrophe and their lagging contributions to UN programmes addressing the less dramatic but even more deadly natural and man-made disasters afflicting Africa.”
Egeland “recently remarked in the UN Security Council’s chambers in New York, ‘I remember sitting in this very room last summer asking for five helicopters to help save thousands of lives in Darfur. In the end, we had to hire helicopters commercially as no member states were willing to provide them. After the tsunami, I also appealed for helicopters and, within days, saw the deployment of several helicopter carriers,'” read the story by Kevin J. Kelley.
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Bob Johnson Accused of Pushing GOP Agenda
“In a transparent bid to boost Republican fortunes among Blacks, billionaire Bob Johnson attempted earlier this year to convene a secret meeting of prominent African Americans at BET headquarters in Washington, DC,” the editors of BlackCommentator.com wrote Thursday.
“Black Commentator obtained a copy of the invitation to the ‘retreat,’ scheduled for January 13 and 14 and ostensibly designed ‘for the purpose of brainstorming ideas as to how we as African Americans can best confront the political and demographic realities of the 21st century.’ None of the invitees were told the identity of the others and the press was scrupulously kept in the dark, but we have learned enough to report that the mix was high-powered and politically diverse.”
“The stealth gathering was postponed for lack of a quorum, but Johnson?s intentions were made clear in his eight suggested talking-points, not one of which dealt with issues such as jobs, health care, housing, social security, civil rights or war and peace. Instead, the BET founder, who was an early backer of Social Security privatization and organized fellow wealthy Blacks in support of George Bush?s bid to repeal the Estate Tax, crafted an agenda designed to peel African Americans away from the Democratic Party -? his clear assignment in Bush?s second term. ‘It seems to me he was suggesting more cooperation with Republicans, or at least, less friendship toward Democrats,’ said one invitee, who asked for anonymity.”
The piece goes on to say that the Web site “obtained, from a third party, a copy of NAACP Chairman Julian Bond?s response to Johnson?s invitation. Bond declined to attend ‘for scheduling reasons,’ congratulated Johnson for his efforts, then offered a valuable, point-by-point critique.”
The co-publishers of the Black Commentator are Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, who created television’s “America’s Black Forum” in 1977 and describe themselves as “friends and collaborators on various media projects for nearly 30 years since working together as network broadcast journalists in Washington, D.C.”
Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, did not respond to a request for comment. A member of President Bush’s Social Security commission, Johnson was quoted on National Public Radio yesterday supporting Bush’s proposal to shift Social Security into personal investment accounts, arguing that “an inherited retirement account that’s grown with the stock market would better serve African-Americans than a disability check,” in the words of NPR reporter Ari Shapiro.
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Tavis Smiley Symposium Sniped at From the Left
Activist and radio and television host Tavis Smiley is hosting another all-star “State of the Black Union” symposium Saturday in Atlanta, to be televised on C-Span.
The Web site The Black World Today is running an essay by Minister Paul Scott of Messianic Afrikan Nation in Durham N.C., challenging the idea.
“The question becomes, do the middle class Black folks that are given all the air time truly represent the feelings of the masses of Black folks or are their ideologies more closely aligned with the white middle class. Are the values espoused by the 2005 Civil Rights All-Stars the blueprint for the future of Black America or just a Eurocentric, capitalist ideology in black face? All though many at the forum will no doubt speak on the need for unity, the class division in the Black Power/Empowerment Movement must be addressed,” Scott writes.
“. . . Just as white owned mega companies have hand picked the commercial artists to head the Hip Hop Movement by promoting them heavily in magazines and making sure that they are the only voices that are heard on urban radio, could these same corporations have also picked Black leadership?”
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Slate Says No Offense Intended by “Dumpy Asians”
Slate magazine says “there was no offense intended toward the Asian community” when a writer used the phrase “dumpy Asians” in a review of “Tilt,” a series about poker on ESPN.
“Granted, I’ve only seen the first episode?perhaps in time these boring central-casting toughs will show some hidden depth,” Seth Stevenson wrote in his Jan. 12 piece.
“But they still won’t look the part. Poker players come in every age, shape, and nationality. That’s part of why I love televised poker: It’s the one place on the dial to see dumpy Asians. Yet Tilt centers on a trio of stylish, slim, attractive young Americans. Haven’t these writers watched World Poker Tour? Don’t they know that real poker players have awkward facial hair? That they wear satin jackets with casino logos and chew on unlit cigarettes for hours at a time? That they are frequently Vietnamese?”
In a letter posted on the Asian American Journalists Association Web site, Esther Wu, association president, and Abe Kwak, its media watch co-chair, wrote that, “While the writer’s intended criticism of the ESPN show may be that the characters don’t reflect the quirkiness of real gamblers or their ethnic diversity, we object to an image that serves only to mock or ridicule — an image that Slate chose to repeat, both in the kicker of the article and the headline.”
Asked by Journal-isms to reply, Eric Easter, senior manager, communication for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, the new publisher of Slate, said:
“The writer was making the general point that dramatic television tends to traffic in an inflexible and predictable standard of beauty for all ethnicities, and that if the show in question (‘Tilt’) were more authentic to the poker world in particular (and to the real world in general) it would veer from that ‘Hollywood’ standard.
“Clearly the story must be read in context.
“It was a metaphor for any image of real people with real bodies as opposed to Hollywood images. You could have replaced it with any ethnic group or frankly, any person in general not slender or ‘beautiful’ in the popular cultural thinking. The writer used Asians simply because they make up a large component of the real poker world, as he referenced in the story. There was no offense intended toward the Asian community.”
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On Your Computer: Terry Neal, Armstrong Williams
Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive is producing interviews by its political correspondent, Terry M. Neal, that are accessible on the Yahoo News Web site.
The latest in the “Political Players with Terry Neal” series is with commentator Armstrong Williams, who repeats his claims that as a black conservative he is held to a “different standard.” Neal challenges the claim.
Warning: Viewers might have to sit through a commercial before realizing how to click it off, and the portrait of Williams isn’t very good.
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Black History Pieces Target Africa, Commercialism
Despite some naysayers who have argued that Black History Month has lost its usefulness, newspapers continued to produce some provocative work, some of it focusing on Africa’s relationship to African Americans.
Among the front-page stories were “More Africans Enter U.S. Than in Days of Slavery” by Sam Roberts Monday in the New York Times, and one by Avis Thomas-Lester in the Washington Post Tuesday in which educators and activists said they were bothered by what they considered exploitation of the month by commercial interests.
There were other pieces:
- Commenting on the New York Times story, Wayne Dawkins wrote a column on BlackAmericaWeb, “More Africans in America Means More Opportunities for Real Black Unity.”
- In Omaha, Neb., The Reader recalled the intellectual publication co-founded by the chair of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Department of Black Studies, in an article headlined, “How The Black Scholar and its editor Robert Chrisman influenced generations.”
- The Town Talk in Alexandria, La., ran an article by Eugene Sutherland, “Africa has influence on Cenla [Central Louisiana] religion.”
- In Alberta, Canada, Vernon Clement Jones wrote about those who believe that “African-Canadians” should be celebrated during February as well. “With whole communities of black homesteaders established in northern and central Alberta by 1908, Edmonton –more than many Canadian cities — has a lot to celebrate, the president of the Black Pioneer Descendants’ Society said in the story.
10 Good Reasons to Celebrate Black History Month (Mark Reynolds, Popmatters.com)
With Black History Month, we take what we can get (Sylvester Brown Jr., St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
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Tamala Edwards Can Sleep, Rise in Same Day
Tamala Edwards, former anchor of ABC’s overnight “World News Now” who joined WPVI-TV in Philadelphia as co-anchor of the 5-to-7 a.m. show, says her move from network to local is not a career-ending demotion.
“After working the overnight shift, any other hours are better. At least I’m going to bed and getting up the same day,” the former Time magazine correspondent told Philadelphia Inquirer television columnist Gail Shister.
“During her 14-month endurance test at World News Now, Edwards worked the 10 p.m.-to-8 a.m. shift. She slept twice a day, never grabbing eight consecutive hours. At ‘PVI, she rises at 2 a.m. and hits the sack by 7 p.m., Shister wrote Wednesday.
“During the 2000 campaign, her coverage of Vice President Al Gore brought her to the attention of ABC News executive Paul Friedman, who invited her to New York,” Shister continued.
“Having always thought of herself as a writer, Edwards wasn’t jonesing for face time.
“‘Paul said, “Young lady, what do you think of TV?” ‘ she recalls. ‘I said, “Well, I have one.” ‘ It was a life-changing experience. I knew it was a huge opportunity, and I should seize the moment.”
“She joined ABC in August ’01 as weekend White House correspondent. After covering the war in Iraq and doing a short stint in the Chicago bureau, she went to News Now in December ’03.”
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Short Takes
- Charges against St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer Gabriel B. Tait stemming from a Jan. 1 incident with Berkeley, Ill., police were dropped Thursday, the Post-Dispatch reported.
- Native columnist George Benge reminds readers of his Gannett News Service column that Native leaders have repudiated University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, under fire for comments about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, as a fraud.
- “Three reporters for major international news organizations have fled Zimbabwe and a fourth is apparently in hiding after police and intelligence agents searched their offices and threatened to arrest them for espionage and slandering the state,” Michael Wines wrote Tuesday in the New York Times.
- The Feb. 5 memorial service for James Forman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee generated a piece from Robert E. Pierre in the Washington Post about SNCC veterans who are reconnecting with current Howard University students; and a column by former SNCC worker Betty Bayé, now a columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal, about the sacrifices made by Forman’s sons.
- Gambian authorities arrested a Lebanese businessman in connection with the Dec. 16 killing of veteran journalist Deyda Hydara, according to local press reports, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported Wednesday.
- Chicago’s Bert Medina, vice president and general manager of Univision WGBO-Channel 66 and TeleFutura WXFT-Channel 60 since 1998, was named senior vice president and operating manager of the TeleFutura Network, Robert Feder reported in the Chicago Sun-Times.
- Telemundo, NBC Universal’s Spanish-language TV network, announced an agreement to purchase KBLR, the Telemundo affiliate in Las Vegas. The deal will give NBC its 15th owned-and-operated Telemundo station, Kathy Bachman reported Wednesday in Media Week.
- Sade Baderinwa, anchor at New York’s WABC-TV, discussed the hit-and- run accident that nearly killed her in a two-part interview with Mindy Basara on WBAL-TV in Baltimore, her former station.
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