Detroit Public Station Fires Host Darrell Dawsey
Detroit’s public television station WTVS-TV has fired longtime journalist Darrell Dawsey as host of “America’s Black Journal” after Dawsey conducted a sharp and heated interview with a black conservative preacher who Dawsey characterizes as working against the interests of African Americans.
Dawsey’s firing comes as public television is making moves to accommodate right-wing critics nationally, and in Detroit, as the station is planning to move its offices from the 81.6 percent-black city to the 88.9 percent-white suburb of Wixom, 31 miles away.
“This is what racism looks like,” Dawsey, 37, told Journal-isms. “It’s a situation of white folks trying to suppress a progressive point of view. Here you have a successful black show that spoke to the black progressive and progressive white folks. It made the [other] white people uncomfortable.”
Dawsey interviewed Keith Butler, former Detroit city councilman and leader of the Word of Faith megachurch in Southfield, Mich., who on April 12 announced his candidacy for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.
Butler was one of more than 20 African Americans who met in Washington with President Bush Jan. 25 in a Republican effort to solidify support among African American clergy who support his faith-based initiatives. Butler’s philosophy is reminiscent of that preached by the Rev. Frederick “Ike” Eikerenkoetter, who advocated the pursuit of money, Dawsey said. “God wants us healthy and wealthy. If Christians are not healthy and wealthy it is because of our lack of faith and/or knowledge,” Butler says on his Web site.
The show’s producer, Tony Mottley, confirmed that the station?s management insisted that Dawsey interview Butler, even after the pastor repeatedly refused an invitation from Mottley, as Bankole Thompson reported in the weekly Michigan Citizen.
At the April 7 taping, Dawsey said he grilled Butler on why he was taking up such causes as gay marriage and other items in the “Black Contract with America on Moral Values” instead of challenging Bush administration cuts in programs important to working-class black people.
“Butler got upset and said he would not answer any more questions,” Thompson reported in the Michigan Citizen.
“Dawsey ended the show by saying that maybe there is no difference between Butler and the Rev. Frederick Ike, a renowned television minister who anchors his preaching on money.
?’He bristled, looked like he wanted to come after me ? hurled a very un-Christian insult at me. Threw off his mike,’ Dawsey said. ‘In an effort to avoid telling him what I really think of him and his politics and his cult ministry, I walked off the set and went to my other job.’
“The tape was never aired and was then erased at Butler?s request,” the story said.
?We disagreed on how we should do the program, and so we?ll be going with other hosts in the future,? said Jeff Forster, the station?s vice president for production, in the story. ?There will probably be a guest host until we have a permanent host in the future. I don?t care to go any deeper.?
[Added April 21: Forster told Journal-isms Thursday morning that Dawsey’s firing “had nothing to do with Keith Butler,” but rather differences between “the way he views how we should do the program” and the way management does. Forster said that even though the station is moving out of the city, it has a 10-year agreement to work with the new Detroit School of the Fine and Performing Arts and might produce the program there; and that though some non-journalists such as talk-show host Mildred Gaddis and Detroit Pistons public-address announcer John Mason would be filling in as hosts, “the intent is not to get rid of journalism on the program — there may be others who could be journalists.” Forster would not elaborate on why Dawsey was fired, saying, “he knows what he did.”]
Mottley, who has produced the show for 13 years, told Journal-isms that, “to me, it seems to be a question of who’s controlling the show.” Since Dawsey’s departure, the station has discussed hiring “popular people” to host the 35-year-old program, which began with Tony Brown and continued with such journalists as Ed Gordon. Dawsey came about a year ago, and ratings increased.
Among the names floated for the host’s job, Mottley said, is John Mason, public-address announcer for the Detroit Pistons and a local morning disc jockey. “There are other people who feel the show should not be used as a popularity contest,” Mottley said, “and a serious journalist has always hosted the show.
“Darrell is a strong, opinionated person. His approach to it is almost like that of a columnist. He brings well-researched opinions and they’re strong. It’s 2005, but I don’t believe people are ready for black people to express themselves. He hasn’t done anything that contemporary talk radio doesn’t do on a daily basis,” Mottley said.
The producer said the station would be justified in intervening if obscenities or other issues of standards were involved, but aggressively challenging black conservatives on the show “is a family argument, and other people need to stay out of it.”
Dawsey has worked at the Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer and Detroit News in sometimes abbreviated stints in which his temper was sometimes at issue. He co-wrote a 2001 book with comedian Bernie Mac and wrote 1997’s “Living to Tell About It: Young Black Men in America Speak.” He said he had been a working journalist since age 18 and would like to try talk radio. “I’m not going to let that stop me from continuing to excel in the media,” Dawsey said of his “America’s Black Journal” blowup.
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Lockman “Told Me Not to Get Distracted with Anger”
“Despite his experiences, this newspaper refused to hire him when he finished his military service,” Delaware’s Wilmington News Journal recalled in an editorial today about columnist Norman Lockman. Lockman died Monday at age 66 after battling Lou Gehrig‘s disease.
“So he became a social worker for a time,” continued the editorial.
“His career climb was anything but easy. He encountered racial prejudice at nearly every turn,” it said.
“While he worked with mentally ill people in Wilmington, he also wrote a column for the Kennett News & Advertiser,” in Pennsylvania. “He had a voice that demanded an outlet.
“When riots erupted in Wilmington in 1967 and 1968, The News Journal Co. had only white reporters on the streets. Finally, the need to provide complete and accurate coverage of race relations in Delaware forced the paper to hire its first black reporter. Norman Lockman was again a pioneer.”
The editorial today came as funeral services were set for April 30 at 2:30 p.m. in the Episcopal parish of Sts. Matthew and Andrew, at the St. Andrew church at 8th and Shipley streets in Wilmington, according to editorial page editor John Taylor.
It also followed an 1,800-word obituary Tuesday that quoted Delaware journalists and public officials. Lockman began writing a column at the paper in 1991, and had been the News Journal’s managing editor for seven years.
Derrick Z. Jackson, columnist for the Boston Globe, where Lockman was part of a Pulitzer prize-winning team, was a co-convener with Lockman of the Trotter Group of African American columnists. He recalled for Journal-isms:
“Norman will always be my guru of the Globe. During some rough times at the Globe a decade ago, we stayed up late after a Trotter session where he shared an amazing storehouse of knowledge from his own days there. With a mix of funny inside stories and serious, humanizing insights into key players, he told me how to best handle myself in my delicate internal dealings.
“He told me not to get distracted with anger. He said stay the course. Write the column with the same voice and force. Listen to what the editors desire in their columnists. But talk truth to power until they also valued your perspective and your humanity. He reminded me that I had a value beyond the Globe and thus I had nothing to lose by speaking my mind.
“He said if I remembered those things, I would have a good outcome. I wondered about this because one of the hardest things to do is to foresee a silver lining through the height of professional pain.
“But Norm was right. He saw my future. Not only do I still have the column, but I was promoted to management. Norm was the man who reminded me that you can earn more respect than you had before, if you have the stomach for a rough voyage.”
Norman Lockman, 66; part of Pulitzer-winning effort (Tom Long, Boston Globe)
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Short on Journalism, Diversity at NAB-RTNDA
With 104,427 attendees and 1,400 exhibiting companies from 130 countries gathered in Las Vegas for the joint convention of the National Association of Broadcasters and the Radio-Television News Directors Association, you might expect a diverse crowd.
Not according to Tom Jacobs, a veteran broadcast producer who is a Kiplinger fellow in public affairs journalism. He wrote Journal-isms Tuesday from Las Vegas:
“If you’re looking for people of color, there ain’t that many of us in attendance. While there’s a sprinkling of folks, by and large white men and women dominate.
“RTNDA sessions in particular seem to be particularly ‘white.’ In addition, for the first time in recent memory, there are no sessions scheduled on the issue of diversity. But then for that matter, I think sessions on ‘journalism’ are in limited supply. It seems to me that there is much more emphasis on ‘branding,’ ‘audience retention,’ ‘leadership and management practice’ and of course research. One of the highly promoted sessions involves a ‘news-set makeover.’ I think both diversity and journalism have been run over by the ‘profit/ratings steamroller.’
“By and large it is rather discouraging to someone like me who while understanding the need to promote and enliven your product, still believes the foundation of a good television news operation must be solid journalism.”
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Mexican Radio Reporter Dies of Her Injuries
“The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the loss of Mexican crime reporter Dolores Guadalupe García Escamilla, who died Saturday from injuries she suffered in an April 5 shooting in front of her radio station in the border city of Nuevo Laredo,” the committee wrote Tuesday.
“García Escamilla had been hospitalized in critical condition since she was struck by nine shots to the abdomen, pelvis, arms, and legs as she arrived at work, Stereo 91 News Director Roberto Gálvez Martínez told CPJ. She hosted the program “Punto Rojo” for Stereo 91 XHNOE in Nuevo Laredo, a violence-plagued city of 500,000 in the state of Tamaulipas.
“Federal authorities announced last week that they had taken over the investigation.”
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Ed Gordon: BET News Never Given Resources
?I wasn?t surprised? about Black Entertainment Television’s decision to cancel “BET Nightly News,” Ed Gordon, former host of BET?s ?Lead Story? and now of ?News and Notes with Ed Gordon? on National Public Radio, told Hazel Trice Edney of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service.
?The news show had been diluted over the years and the show that they produce now, while all of the people were very hard-working and well-intentioned at putting out a good show, I don?t think that they were given the wherewithal to do the kind of news show that really was servicing Black America as it should have, but they did the best that they could do. It was never given the resources to be able to garner stories from across the country. Our fight was always to try to get more money and the news was a very costly venture.”
?It was an important vehicle, much like Jet Magazine,” he continued in the story. “There are stories that if you don?t pick up Jet or if you don?t tune into BET Nightly News that you just wouldn?t see anywhere else. And I?m not sure you?re going to see that vehicle again for a while.” The answer is to push for more Black-owned and controlled media, Gordon said.
?Black America has to be realistic about where we are and stop being satisfied with one,? the host continued. ?We were satisfied that BET Nightly News was there, yet we weren?t demanding more of a Black perspective from anywhere else. So, what happens is when that one goes away, then you?re left with nothing.?
Examining the Future of Black News Media (News and Notes with Ed Gordon, NPR)
How Will African Americans Get the News? (News and Notes with Ed Gordon, NPR)
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Ratings Down Since Emery King’s Detroit Ouster
In Detroit, ratings for the 5:30-6 p.m. weeknight newscast Emery King co-anchored on WDIV-TV are down about 1.8 rating points since he was ousted from the station, the Detroit Free Press reported Tuesday.
King was to be honored today by the Detroit City Council and the NAACP. “No new info on how contract talks with Channel 4 are going,” the “Names and faces notebook” column reported.
Emery King may be off TV, but he’s not forgotten by his loyal fans (Betty DeRamus, Detroit News)
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Whitaker, Edmond, Chan on Magazine Editors Board
Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek, has been re-elected president of the American Society of Magazine Editors. Whitaker has served on the board since 1999.
Alfred A. Edmond, Jr., editor-in-chief of Black Enterprise, was appointed to serve out the term, ending in 2005, of a board member who resigned and was elected to serve a full two-year term, the organization announced.
The other members of the board, who continue to serve their terms, are: Keith Bellows, editor-in-chief of National Geographic Traveler, Peter Brown, editor of Natural History, Janet Chan, editorial director of the Parenting Group, and Nancy Soriano, editor-in-chief of Country Living. Susan Ungaro, editor-in-chief of Family Circle, remains on the board ex-officio.
Asked to name the biggest challenges facing magazines, Whitaker told the I Want Media Web site:
“If you’re talking about print magazines, I guess the major questions we face are:
“How much will people still be reading in 20 years? Will they prefer to get information on paper or on a screen? And will consumers still pay for content if there’s so much out there for free, and if not how will that affect our appeal to advertisers? But while it’s fashionable in some circles to think the answers to these questions are negative for magazines, I’m still very bullish on our future.
“As the world gets more hectic, I think readers will still enjoy getting away from it all with magazines that they can hold in their hands and savor at their leisure. And I think there will always be something uniquely personal about people’s connection to their favorite magazines that will make them willing to pay for the experience, and will make it worthwhile for advertisers to reach them when they’re in that uniquely receptive frame of mind.”
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Press Freedom Group Threatened in Congo
“The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned for the safety of members of Journaliste en Danger (JED), a press freedom organization based in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). On April 4, JED Secretary-General Tshivis Tshivuadi received an email containing death threats against him and Donat M’baya Tshimanga, JED’s president, and their families,” the organization said.
“According to local sources, the threat came one day after Tshivuadi gave an interview to Radio France Internationale (RFI) in which he alleged that politicians in the DRC were seeking to control local broadcasters during the preparations for general elections, currently scheduled for June.
“The first sentence of the email received by Tshivuadi reads ‘Since you and your friend M’baya continue to betray the nation by your false campaigns against the DRC . . . we would like to inform you that the hour of repentance is near.’ It also threatened to hold the journalists’ families responsible for ‘all the evil that you have caused the nation.’
“‘We will see how RFI, the Americans, or your friend Menard [Reporters without Borders secretary-general Robert Menard] will save you,’ the email continued and was signed ‘commander Mbonge Munene’ which, translated, means ‘violent wind.'”
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
