Newspaper Guild Satisfied With Discipline of Four
The Detroit Free Press investigation of sports columnist Mitch Albom‘s body of work has not ended despite the weekend announcement that he and four other staff members have been disciplined, Free Press public editor John X. Miller told Journal-isms today.
Meanwhile, the Newspaper Guild of Detroit is satisfied with the unspecified discipline meted out to Albom, who is a Guild member, and to three Guild-covered copy editors, Lou Mleczko, president of the local, told Journal-isms. A member of management was also disciplined. Sports editor Gene Myers was out of the office today and not available for comment.
As reported Friday night, Free Press editor and publisher Carole Leigh Hutton wrote for Saturday’s editions that, “Detroit Free Press management has completed its internal review of an April 3 Mitch Albom column that contained inaccurate information by describing an event that had not yet occurred.
“Disciplinary action has been taken against five employees, Albom and four others, each of whom had some role in putting the April 3 column into the paper and each of whom had the responsibility to fix errors before publication,” she said. In an ambiguous sentence, Hutton added that, “reporting is continuing on a story that will be published as soon as it is ready.”
She said Albom, whose column was suspended when the investigation began, could now resume writing it. No new columns have yet appeared.
Miller said today that the action announced Saturday applied only to an investigation of the April 3 column, and that the investigative reporting team continues to look into Albom’s past columns. Miller said previously that the Free Press would appoint an outside panel to review its investigation before the paper’s report was made public.
The star columnist and author had described events taking place among fans at a game that had not yet taken place.
Mleczko said the union “provided representation and were parties to the discussion” about discipline over the April 3 column. “All the parties are satisfied” with the outcome, he said, adding that as far as he was concerned, the matter was closed.
The now-infamous column was syndicated through Tribune Media Services and distributed to Knight Ridder/Tribune clients. Both outlets issued apologies. “A Knight Ridder/Tribune editor who sent the story out to clients also was disciplined in the matter,” according to a Friday night story by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Don McKee that was distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune.
At Tribune Media Services, “we’ve taken what I view as appropriate action, but this is a personnel issue and we do not discuss the specifics of such matters in public,” John Twohey, vice president for editorial and operations, told Journal-isms.
Free Press newsroom sources who declined to be identified said many in the newsroom remain angry over the handling of the Albom affair. A note to the Free Press staff about Saturday’s announcement was e-mailed about 7 p.m. Friday, after most had left for the day, and the note was perceived as leaving too many unanswered questions. Moreover, some wondered why Albom was allowed back at work if his columns were still under investigation.
Miller said that many readers missed the Saturday announcement and that he had received hundreds of communications by e-mail and telephone. “The response to his being reinstated is more polarized than it was when we announced the investigation,” Miller said.
Our changing newspaper world (Jack Lessenberry, Detroit Metro Times)
Hutton Defends Not Firing Albom, Calls That Not ‘Appropriate’ (Joe Strupp, Editor & Publisher)
How one careless act became a really big deal (David Shaw, Los Angeles Times)
More about this later, but . . . (Matt May blog)
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Threat to Journalists Hasn’t Changed in Baghdad
“With fewer American soldiers dying in Iraq, one might suppose that the danger to American journalists has also declined in recent weeks. This seems to be hardly so, judging by a current report from Knight Ridder?s Baghdad bureau chief, Hannah Allam, during a visit to this country,” Greg Mitchell reported Tuesday in Editor & Publisher.
?I can’t really see any difference for foreign journalists working in Baghdad,? she told Brooke Gladstone of National Public Radio?s ‘On the Media’ program, adding ‘the threat is still there. It hasn’t changed.’ “
Allam, who was the National Association of Black Journalists’ 2004 Journalist of the Year, said, “What’s really struck me since I’ve been back in the States—everywhere I go, when people hear that I live in Baghdad, they say. ?Oh, well, you’re in Baghdad, but at least it’s so much better there now.? And that’s not the case. I mean Iraqis are still dying every day by the dozens, in some cases. You know, things are still very, very dangerous on the ground. So I think it’s important that we don’t confuse a decrease in the attack on American soldiers and American interests with some sort of significant shift in the war.?
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Restraints on Court-Martial Coverage Protested
“Restrictions placed on reporters covering the court-martial of U.S. Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar at Fort Bragg, N.C., which reportedly forbid interviews of local soldiers and provide heavy monitoring of reporters’ activities, has prompted a letter from a coalition of journalism groups to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld demanding that the rules be lifted,” Joe Strupp reported Wednesday in Editor & Publisher.
“Military Reporters & Editors is leading the protest with a letter that is also supported by the Society of Professional Journalists, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Coalition of Journalists for Open Government, Associated Press Managing Editors, and American Society of Newspaper Editors.”
Prosecutors have said Akbar, who is African American, launched the attack on members of the 101st Airborne Division in March 2003 at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait because he was concerned about U.S. troops killing fellow Muslims in the Iraq war, as the Associated Press reported today. “The court-martial is the first time since the Vietnam era that an American has been prosecuted on charges of murdering a fellow soldier during wartime,” the story said.
Death For Akbar Won’t Solve Army’s Racial Woes (Earl Ofari Hutchinson, syndicated columnist)
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Freedom Forum’s Diversity Institute Graduates 16
“The seventh class of 16 journalism fellows—the program?s largest class to date—has graduated from the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute, a training program at Vanderbilt University for people of color who want to become journalists but have not had formal journalism training,” the Freedom Forum announced this week.
“After graduating from the 12-week program April 15, fellows joined the staffs of their sponsoring newspapers as full-time journalists.
“New graduates of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute and their sponsoring newspapers:
“Bobbie Burks ? Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer; Terri Carter ? Advocate Messenger, Danville, Ky.; Terrance Dean ? New York Sun; Corey Johnson ? Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Lakendra Lewis ? Corpus Christi Caller-Times; Laura Luxor ? Scripps Howard; Wayne Ma ? Quad-City Times, Davenport, Iowa; Linda McKnight ? The Gaston (N.C.) Gazette; Leopoldo Miramon ? Imperial Valley Press, El Centro, Calif.; Ahmar Musti Khan ? The Times, Shreveport, La.; Sharon Narcisse ? Daily American, Somerset, Pa.; Elizabeth Roman ? Telegram & Gazette, Worcester, Mass.; Jacqueline Sanchez ? Star-Herald, Scottsbluff, Neb.; Christopher Sanders ? Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser; Janar Stewart ? South Bend (Ind.) Tribune; Hanna Tamrat ? Oakland Tribune.
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Record Turnout for Potential Native Journalists
Some 156 college and high school students attended the Native American Newspaper Career Conference at the Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota’s Black Hills, in the largest gathering of Native journalism students ever held in the United States, according to Jack Marsh, executive director of the Al Neuharth Media Center at the University of South Dakota.
Dan Lewerenz, president of the Native American Journalists Association, told Journal-isms that four students drove 16 hours from New Mexico to attend, and Marsh added that two others drove almost that distance from Wisconsin.
Marsh said the students came from 35 schools and that he and Ron Walters, who was executive director of the Native American Journalists Association, recruited at Indian reservations and at schools with significant Native populations. The idea was to expose students to journalism for two and a half days, he said.
Joining them were to be more than 25 mentors ? professional journalists, many of whom are Native American, said a news release from the Neuharth center, which sponsored the event.
The latest census of U.S. newspapers by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, which does not include tribal papers, showed 295 Native Americans on their staffs. Lewerenz said then, “ASNE points out that [the current number is] 46 more Native journalists than were identified in the 2001 survey. However, what they don’t say is that this is a decrease from last year’s 313 Native journalists, the highest number yet recorded in the survey.
“. . .These figures can only be discouraging to the growing number of Indian youth who see viable careers in the news.”
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“It’s in the Culture”? Let’s TiVo That Again
For Steve Malavé, news director at WUSF public radio in Florida’s Tampa Bay market, the TiVo television recording device came in handy yesterday. He was watching the local Fox station, WTVT-TV, report on Margarita Aguilar-Lopez, a missing 12-year-old who, today’s papers report, has been found safe in South Carolina.
At 10:04 last night, reporter Mark Wilson went live after a story on the case and said, “As we’ve reported throughout the day (this afternoon) on Fox 13, it’s in the culture — it’s not that uncommon for a 12- or 13-year-old girl from a migrant family to leave that family and start a new life with someone else.”
“I’m glad I happened to TIVO the show, because I wanted to make sure I heard exactly what he said,” Malavé wrote the WTVT-TV news director, Phil Metlin. “Wilson said Bradenton police were investigating why the girl’s brothers weren’t concerned for her safety. Those are the facts and that’s fine.
“However, the comment of ‘it’s in the culture,’ and ‘it’s not uncommon for a 12 or 13 year old girl from a migrant family to leave that family and try to start a new life with someone else’ is not only racist, it’s just plain stupid.”
Metlin told Journal-isms that “it was an unfortunate use of the word ‘culture.’ It was a poor choice of words.” The term “culture” came from a 20-year resident of the migrant camps, he said, and Wilson repeated it. But nonetheless, said the news director, “You have to be wise about the words that one chooses.” Metlin talked with the reporter, called Malavé and said he planned to add a few words of explanation to tonight’s news reports.
“Channel 13 did the right thing,” Malavé said, adding that Metlin told him he planned to apologize on the air. “These guys have a good news operation. They do good journalism. I don’t think it was malicious. I do applaud Phil for doing this. He handled it properly.”
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Robin Roberts to Take Larger Role on “GMA”
“While NBC was making big changes behind the scenes last week in an attempt to shore ‘Today,’ its once-sacred cash cow, fast-gaining morning news competitor ‘Good Morning America’ was wrapping up a new deal to give popular newsreader Robin Roberts a bigger role in its talent lineup,” Michele Greppi writes in TV Week.
“The move to promote Ms. Roberts is one that many industry observers said could soon help power the ABC morning show into first place for the first time in more than nine years.
“Ms. Roberts is expected to spend more time side by side with Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer, who were named temporary ‘GMA’ anchors in 1999. ABC News declined to comment on the move.”
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Columnist Mora-Mass Leaves El Diario in Protest
Elizabeth Mora-Mass has resigned from El Diario/La Prensa after five years as a columnist there because she was dismayed by the hiring of a new managing editor, editor in chief Pedro Rojas confirmed today.
Rojas said she left about three weeks ago and would not be replaced because “we have enough columnists.”
“In a letter sent to PMM, Mora-Mass said she is dismayed that Javier Castaño, former news director of New York?s Hoy, was hired as a managing editor of the newspaper,” Pareja Media Match reported. “According to her, one of many reasons she is protesting the hiring is that while at Hoy, Castaño allegedly covered up the newspaper?s inflated circulation figures in the year ending September 2003, in a scandal that shook publisher-owners Tribune Co.”
Rojas told Journal-isms that readers had not commented on the Colombian columnist’s absence. Maybe they think she’s on vacation, he said.
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Chuck D: “Stop the Blogs Now Saying I Got Canned”
Chuck D. of the pioneering rap group Public Enemy is replying to reports by bloggers and others that Air America has dumped him in favor of Jerry Springer.
“No, I didnt leave Air America nor did I get fired. I’ll be doing a weekly show starting in May—sometimes recorded, at other times rolling live,” he wrote on his Web site. “Stop the blogs now saying I got canned in favor of Jerry Springer, his show is on the former Unfiltered time slot 9-12 noon daily. Rachel Maddow has her own show under her name at 5-6am opening the day up with the news and almost setting it off BBC-ish. Lizz Winstead will be doing other things in TV and comedy, and I really enjoyed my experience with them, learning so much. There was noone who worked harder than those two women to balance out the one sided news propaganda in America.
“As mentioned before, On The Real is a weekly two hour show I’ll be looking to do Sunday nights 10 – midnight with my CO-host, Gia Garel. But a daily presence of a person of color besides Mark Riley in the morning could be needed to balance some of the things that appear to be redundant after about 5pm. Air America is still a necessary signal.”
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Norman Lockman, Ann Coulter Called Poles Apart
“For half a century [Norman] Lockman, who died Monday, was a hard-nosed journalist more interested in revealing truths than uncovering scandals. He was a throwback to a time when journalism was a working-class profession largely devoid of celebrity journalists who compete for attention with the people they cover,” DeWayne Wickham wrote last week for the Gannett News Service, discussing the columnist for the News Journal in Wilmington, Del.
“Lockman died in the same week that Ann Coulter appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Lockman was—as Sen. Joe Biden, D- Del., described him—a skeptic, not a cynic. He usually questioned the actions of people in power without demonizing them.
“Coulter, whose journalism resume pales in comparison to that of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lockman, is an attack dog of the political right. She’s a lawyer-turned-celebrity journalist whose highest honor thus far appears to be the Ann Coulter action doll that is being hawked on the Internet. Lockman had little tolerance for ideologues like Coulter who cross-dress as journalists. He was an equal-opportunity critic of those he believed violated the public trust.”
Funeral services are scheduled for Saturday 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.
Lockman’s legacy (Editorial, Greenville News, S.C.)
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Nominate Educator Who Has Helped J-Diversity
The National Conference of Editorial Writers annually grants a Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship—actually an award—”in recognition of an educator’s outstanding efforts to encourage minority students in the field of journalism.” The educator should be at the college or university level.
Since 2000, an honorarium of $1,000 has been awarded the recipient, to be used to “further work in progress or begin a new project.”
Past winners include James Hawkins of Florida A&M University (1990); Larry Kaggwa of Howard U. (1992); Ben Holman of the U. of Md. (1996); Linda Jones, Roosevelt U., Chicago (1998); Ramon Chavez, U. of Colorado, Boulder (1999); Erna Smith of San Francisco State (2000); Joseph Selden of Penn State (2001); Cheryl Smith; Paul Quinn College (2002); Rose Richard, Marquette University (2003) and Leara D. Rhodes of the University of Georgia (2004).
Nominations are open for the 2005 honor.
The nomination consists of a statement about why you believe your nominee is deserving. Deadline: June 15.
The final selection will be made by the NCEW Foundation board and will be announced in time for this year’s NCEW convention in Portland, Ore., Sept. 14-17, when the presentation will be made.
Nominations may be e-mailed to Vanessa Gallman, editorial page editor, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, vgallman@herald-leader.com, or they can be faxed to her at (859) 231-3332.
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