Free Press Review to Look at Past Columns
A Detroit Free Press committee examining how sports columnist Mitch Albom was able to get into the paper a column about an event that had not yet taken place will also examine Albom’s past work for fabrications, reader representative John X. Miller told Journal-isms today.
Albom has been suspended from appearing in the paper during the investigation. The committee includes four reporters and Jeff Taylor, assistant managing editor for investigative reporting, Miller said. Miller said he did not know who the reporters were; Taylor referred inquiries to Miller.
The best-selling author’s predicament continued to be a national topic, with some sports editors saying they expected Albom to be fired, and some readers and fellow sports columnists defending him. The subject took up 50 pages of messages on the Web site sportsjournalists.com Comments went beyond last week’s column to his writing style and recollections that Albom crossed picket lines during the bitter Detroit newspaper strike of the 1990s.
In his column for Sunday, April 3, Albom described two former Michigan State University players attending the MSU-North Carolina game on Saturday night, April 2. But while the players, Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson, had told Albom that they had planned to go to the game, they changed their minds and did not. Albom wrote the column Friday for a section that is printed on Saturday morning.
Instead of describing their participation at the game, “He could have easily written, ‘this is how these two basketball players feel about Michigan State. Michigan State is where they went to school,'” said Washington Post columnist George Solomon, the paper’s former assistant managing editor for sports.
Solomon appeared today on a radio show hosted by Post columnist Tony Kornheiser that originates from WTEM in Washington and is broadcast on XM Satellite Radio. Kornheiser, a good friend of Albom, said on the show that he would “be with Mitch until the end,” according to one listener.
In a roundup of reaction Sunday by Michael Hirsley of the Chicago Tribune, Randy Harvey, the Baltimore Sun’s assistant managing editor for sports, said he admired Albom’s talent but expected him to lose his job.
“I don’t see how they will have any choice at the end of their investigation but to fire Mitch and the editor or editors who read the column before it was published,” Harvey said.
At Minnesota’s Duluth News Tribune, Sports Editor Craig Gustafson agreed that firing Albom “might have to be a consequence for something like this, in the age we live in” of media scandals and increased scrutiny.
Gustafson’s paper might have been the only one to have realized that something was amiss with Albom’s column, which was syndicated via both Tribune Media Services and the Knight Ridder Tribune News Service.
Nikki Overfelt, 23, who graduated last year from the University of Kansas and works in Duluth as copy editor and reporter, was putting together an NBA page Friday night. She wondered why the news service would transmit a column about Saturday night’s game without instructions to hold it for Sunday release. “Changing the tenses and running it a day early seemed to be” the solution, she told Journal-isms. “The more I thought about it, it didn’t change the meaning,” she said.
- Nat Ives, New York Times: Meeting a Deadline, Repenting at Leisure
- Robert Leger Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader: Among ethics lapses, remember the heroes
- Letters, Detroit Free Press: ALBOM AND ETHICS: What this mistake means
- Ed Odeven, Arizona Daily Sun (Flagstaff): Columnists cannot abuse trust
- Joe Strupp, Editor & Publisher: No More Tuesdays with Mitch?
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NABJ Candidate Not for More Unity Conventions
Mike Woolfolk, candidate for president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said at an NABJ candidates forum Saturday that he did not favor future Unity conventions, but did want NABJ to remain a partner in the Unity: Journalists of Color alliance.
?I think Unity works better as an organization,? Woolfolk said at the meeting, held at a conference center in suburban Baltimore. While acknowledging that NABJ made $500,000 from last summer?s Unity gathering in Washington, Woolfolk, anchor/managing editor at WACH-TV in Columbia, S.C., noted how large Unity had become and said, ?Do we need to be doing the mega-convention? I don?t think so.?
The other candidates—Cheryl Smith and Bryan Monroe—differed.
Smith, a former board member for the region covering Texas and surrounding states, said she had initially felt that NABJ had conceded too much to the other Unity partners, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Asian American Journalists Association and Native American Journalists Association.
But the former Unity program committee member concluded that ?I believe in coalition building,? and said later that she supported participating in the Unity convention as long as it was ?mutually beneficial,? which she said it was.
Monroe, who is Unity vice president as well as NABJ?s vice president-print, said he strongly disagreed with pulling out of the conventions, adding that they had put ?a large spotlight? on issues important to NABJ, that half those present last summer were NABJ members and that the event confirmed NABJ?s position as the dominant journalism organization of color.
Asked later whether NABJ could actually pull out of the 2008 convention, Unity President Mae Cheng said: ?We are going ahead with the planning of Unity with the agreement and participation of the current NABJ president, Herb Lowe, as well as the three NABJ representatives who he has appointed. There is no signed contract, per se, from any of the groups. I don’t believe there has ever been.?
On the last day of Unity 2004, then-alliance President Ernest Sotomayor said registration had reached 8,158, exceeding projections, and that it was not unrealistic to expect 10,000 in 2008. Boston, Chicago, Washington and Houston are potential sites for Unity 2008, Anna Lopez, Unity?s executive director, said in February.
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Source Co-Owner Quits, Then Changes Mind
Ray Benzino, chief brand executive and co-owner of The Source magazine, resigned Friday and said he would start his own publication, only to announce today that he is remaining at The Source.
“Many community leaders called an emergency meeting and told him he must not leave The Source. They demanded that he stay and fight for what he believes in,” a statement from Source spokeswoman Lulu Cohen said.
“Reverend Al Sharpton, Black Enterprises, David Mays, and others insisted he retain his position for the good of the cause,” referring to Black Enterprise magazine, which bought an interest in the hip-hop publication, and to co-owner Mays.
“The ongoing Eminem lawsuit played a big role in Benzino?s initial decision to leave The Source. Early Friday morning (April 8), David Mays received a phone call” from someone at Interscope Records who told Mays “that Jimmy Iovine wanted to fire one of his top African American executives and that Iovine wanted to pull all Universal Records advertisements from The Source,” the news release said.
Iovine is a legendary record producer who became chairman of Interscope Records. Interscope is Eminem’s parent label. A feud between Eminem and Benzino, who is also a rapper, has escalated to the courts.
Today’s news release continued: “Benzino says, ‘I was stepping down for the betterment of the artists and for the people that I believe in. I didn?t want anyone to get fired because of my actions.’? Cohen was not available to elaborate.
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81 Apply to Boston Spanish-Language News Show
Eighty-one people arrived at the Brookline Arts Institute on a rainy Saturday afternoon to compete in an open casting call from WUNI-TV, Univision’s local affiliate, hoping to join the staff of the only Spanish-language newscast in New England, Wilson Lievano reported in the Boston Globe on Sunday.
“The producers estimate that nearly half of the applicants had no formal education in journalism,” Lievano wrote, but according to Sara Suarez, news director and co-anchor of Noticias Nueva Inglaterra, “they have a chance, too.
”The fact that they don’t have an education on broadcast journalism doesn’t mean that the doors are closed to them. They may have natural talent, and the camera may love them,” Suarez said in the story. ”Many of those with education have worked in the media of their respective countries, but because of the lack of enough Spanish media, they have not been able to work in their field.”
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Writers Defend Red Lake’s Restrictions on Media
Two writers with Native American ties argued in opinion pieces over the weekend that residents of the Red Lake reservation, site of the tragic shooting deaths of 10 people on March 21, do not need U.S. notions of a free press. They have the right, as one said, “to grieve in private, free from intrusion” by the news media.
“The media feel violated. They feel denied. It is, they feel, their right to get a story,” wrote Kent Nerburn, author of “Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder,” Sunday in the Houston Chronicle.
“Well, here’s a story. . . . They do not need to be observed. They have been observed before ? by anthropologists, sociologists, missionaries and, yes, by news reporters, looking for the quaint, the tragic, the impoverished, and the noble. It felt demeaning then. It feels dangerous now.
“This is the moment for which their land was saved.”
A-dae Romero, a law student at Arizona State University, wrote in North Dakota’s Grand Forks Herald: “Red Lake deserves a time of peace rather than a time of persistent prying and criticism. Only people in Red Lake can reflect, recognize, and hopefully, restore the balance of that community.”
“Simply because a government doesn’t have a free press does not mean the government does not get constructive feed back. . . . And, simply because a government does have a free press does not mean that government gets the constructive feedback.”
Meanwhile, George Benge of Gannett News Service, who visited Red Lake, wrote in his column that,”I quickly found myself welcomed into the lives of many Red Lake people, along with my Gannett News Service photo colleague, Jeff Franko. This happened because, as an American Indian journalist, I understood and accepted the cultural necessity of starting every conversation by showing respect and asking for permission to conduct an interview.”
And Charles Homans of Minnesota’s St. Paul Pioneer Press used the example of the Red Lake tragedy to report that “because of limited money and the logistical realities of rural health care, tribal health officials . . . often find that even tending to the more everyday mental-health needs of the tribes is as difficult as it is necessary.”
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Independent Spanish Stations Collaborate on Pope
“In an unprecedented collaboration in the Spanish television industry, three independent broadcasters, Bela Broadcasting, LLC., Caballero Television, Inc. and WDLP, LLC., announced today that they have joined forces to form the Independent Spanish Network (ISN), referred to as “La Cadena de la Hermandad” (“The Brotherhood Network”), and will broadcast the Papal burial ceremonies across all their independent U.S. Spanish-language stations, this Friday, live from the Vatican,” according to an announcement from the group before Friday’s ceremonies.
The alliance planned to broadcast to 55 percent of U.S. Latino households, covering 21 major Hispanic markets, via the combined stations. Friday’s hosts were to be Maria Elvira Salazar and Ricardo Brown, broadcasting live from WDLP-TV in Miami.
?Trapped? Pope John Paul II Blew the Opportunity to Contain AIDS in Africa (Wayne Dawkins, BlackAmericaWeb.com)
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Chicago Defender Announces New Initiatives
NBC-owned WMAQ-TV and the Chicago Defender announced a partnership today that includes an on-air, print and online presence for both media outlets.
Defender Executive Editor Roland Martin plans to highlight the paper’s top stories of the week on WMAQ’s 11 a.m. newscast. WMAQ is to provide daily weather information for the Defender. On-air personalities Art Norman and Ryan Baker are to have weekly features in the paper.
WMAQ is also to produce a half-hour special on the Defender’s upcoming centennial.
In a separate statement, the Defender announced the April 15 launch of two monthly magazines, The Temple, “a health-oriented publication focusing on the health needs of African Americans,” and “All That – the voice of Chicago’s urban culture,” targeting 18- to 34-year olds.
When veteran journalist Pearl Stewart announced Feb. 25 that she was resigning as Defender managing editor after just two months, Martin told Journal-isms that, “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.
Of the new magazines, Martin told Journal-isms today that, “we have about 12 freelance contributors between both publications,” and that he was looking for “a freelance editor who can handle the line editing on the publications. That person doesn’t have to be in Chicago.”
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British Black Journalist Group Inspired by NABJ
“Why are there so few ethnic minority journalists in newsrooms across Britain? Editors often say they would like to hire more black people but cannot seem to find them. For their part, would-be black journalists say they are just unable to open the doors to a journalistic career,” Roy Greenslade wrote today in Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “This is just one of the conundrums that a support network of ethnic minority journalists, called Aspire, is trying to solve.
“It was founded two years ago by Mutale Nkonde, a researcher at the BBC’s news and current affairs division, and Corinne Amoo, a researcher with an independent production company, who were inspired by the success of an American organisation, the National Association of Black Journalists. Now Aspire is attracting widespread support by acting as a contact point for some 250 people. Sponsorship from national newspaper groups, including Trinity-Mirror, the Financial Times and the Guardian, has also helped.”
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Paper to Hear 911 Tapes in Attempted-Lynching Case
“Concern that pretrial publicity could trigger the need for a change of venue in a trial is not sufficient reason for the city of North Charleston to withhold 911 tapes describing an alleged attempted lynching that ended when responding police officers mistakenly shot and killed the victim, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled,” the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported last week.
“A video store owner called 911 in October 2000 to report that four white men were attacking a black man outside the store. When police arrived, the victim, Edward Snowden, was brandishing a gun inside the store, where police shot and killed him, according to court records.
“The (Charleston) Post and Courier asked the city for the 911 tapes giving the store owner’s description of events and police conversations to the dispatcher. Because the four white men were going to be tried for the attempted lynching, prosecutor Ralph Hoisington objected to the release, saying it would generate pretrial publicity harming the city’s case and likely requiring a change of venue. Officials agreed and refused to release the tapes.”
Court’s 911 ruling key FOI win (Editorial, Post and Courier)
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Short takes
- The annual American Society of Newspaper Editors conference starts Tuesday in Washington. Among the key speakers are President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; and Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., Joe Strupp reported in Editor & Publisher.
- The Firm, a Hollywood talent agency, “has been negotiating to purchase the troubled Paxson Communications, home of the family-friendly PAX television network,” Tim Arango wrote in the New York Post. As reported last week, TV comedian Byron Allen said he was pursuing a $2.2 billion acquisition of Paxson and planned to target the network to African Americans. But the Post story reported that “numerous sources said Allen’s bid ? which does not have financial backing ? is a long shot.”
- Bryant Gumbel, 55, quit CBS-TV’s “The Early Show” in April 2002 and is now semi-retired. But he has no plans to quit as the host of HBO’s “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel,” which celebrated its 10th anniversary Sunday with a special edition, Larry Stewart wrote Friday in the Los Angeles Times.
- Ken Chavez, deputy city editor of the Sacramento Bee, has been named assistant chief of bureau for the Associated Press in Northern California and Nevada, the AP announced.
- Michelle Morgante, supervisory correspondent in the San Diego bureau of the Associated Press, has been named assistant chief of bureau for the AP in Florida, the wire service said.
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