Reporters Prepared for Worst in School Visits
Splashed across the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer last week was “A Day in Cleveland’s Schools,” the result of a project in which “30 Plain Dealer reporters set out Monday — a day picked at random — to see what life is like for students and teachers at 16 city high schools.”
The results?
“In general, reporters witnessed an uneventful Monday with some students cutting classes, some roughhousing or swearing.
“But most schools were orderly, and the vast majority of students were where they should have been — in the classroom.”
The expectations?
That’s another matter.
Before proceeding, the reporters were given a list of tips on what to look for. “The ideal situation is to get to stay and spend as much time as possible. Go in open-minded as if you were a reader deciding whether you would want your own child or sibling to attend this school. Take the readers on a tour.”
Among the questions:
“Any sexual activity going on in stairwells? In classes?” “Are any kids actively popping out ceiling tiles, breaking up lockers, etc.?” “Bathrooms: Graffiti? Any toilet paper, stall doors, paper towels, soap? Are they clean, littered, tampons on floors or urine on sink, floor, radiators?” “Smoking: Kids smoking cigarettes or pot outside or inside the schools?” “Fire alarms: Any pulled while you are there? Any drills? Behavior during.” “Gambling with dice, cards, money in halls, stairwells, cafeteria, back of classes.” “Fights: Do you see any?” “Guards: Are there any? Are they cops with guns or security guards? Are they tough talking or do they joke and play with kids?”
Some in the newsroom thought the list played to stereotypes of inner-city kids. Dick Peery, a 31-year veteran who is also president of the Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild, said he considered the list “just ‘Blackboard Jungle’-ish. It was a bad way to do journalism,” he said. “It wasn’t looking at the things that were being done to kids,” such as whether they lacked computers or art and music classes.
Moreover, as another reporter noted, the project was produced in a newsroom where the number of managers of color had decreased from 11 out of 69 in 1995 to four out of 78 in 2005.
The project was inspired by a series of columns by the Plain Dealer’s Regina Brett that had such headlines as, “Kids deserve better; help make it happen” (March 6), “Kids, school out of control” (April 10), and “Are our schools out of control?” (April 13).
“If you say we need to raise the bar on poor, black children, you get called a racist,” Brett wrote March 6.
“If you acknowledge the struggle of poor, black children, you get called a sob sister.
“After a two-hour visit to Collinwood High School, I got called a racist for noting the litter, lax security, dress code violations, gang graffiti and kids running around the halls.
“Then I wrote about an English class where students told me they want to be challenged, want better supplies, want better textbooks, want a better education.
“I got called a sob sister for suggesting they’re being neglected.
“They do deserve better.”
“Of course, we expected the staffers to report on whatever they found regardless of the guidance on the tip sheet,” Managing Editor Tom O’Hara told Journal-isms. “The primary reporters on the project, Ebony Reed and Janet Okoben, report that they received about 15 phone calls and that they were all complimentary. The head of the teacher’s union called and said she thought it was fair and balanced. We have not heard from the school system.”
In a blog by MaryBeth Matthews, who identifies herself as having taught in inner-city Cleveland public high schools since 1987, readers were issued a challenge after last week’s piece appeared. The paper “identified some things that were good, and some things that were troubling,” Matthews wrote. “Will anyone take this information and look at it with the intention of using it to solve the problems brought to the attention of the public? Or will this article simply serve as fodder for the whiners and complainers?”
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Cultural Landmark: 40 Years of “My Girl”
Cary Clack, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, was only 4 years old when the event occurred, but Clack struck a chord with readers in March when he remembered a cultural landmark that escaped the rest of us: “Forty years ago this month,” he wrote, ‘My Girl’ was the No. 1 song in the country on Billboard’s R&B and pop charts.
“. . . ‘My Girl’ may be the most quintessential of all Motown songs, co-written by the incomparable Smokey Robinson and recorded by the greatest vocal group ever to harmonize and dance behind microphones, The Temptations.
“Less than three minutes long, it’s as perfect a song as God ever inspired mere mortals to write and perform.
“. . . If you’re feeling low today, lift yourself by playing ‘My Girl.’ Play it a few times but even just one time will have you feeling better. You may even find yourself trying to do the Temptations Walk.”
Many readers smiled, and about two dozen were moved to write or call, Clack recalls.
“At Christmas I gave two of my grandchildren ‘dogs’ that sang that song — and I find myself humming it — really a ‘feel good’ song,” one woman told him.
“‘My Girl’ was one of the songs I used to sing my girls to sleep with. (I used a father?s license to make it plural),” a columnist from another city wrote. “I really enjoyed your riff on it.”
“I had a bad day at work and your column was a breath of fresh air,” wrote another. “‘My Girl’ is one of the all-time greatest songs ever recorded and I always love hearing it. Thank you for the words, and images they put in my mind.”
“The first few bass notes always makes me get up and start dancing with my wife,” wrote a college instructor. “Although chicano or Mexican-American (whatever the ethnic nomenclature is in vogue for Mexicans born in Texas these days), Soul music was central to our youth. It remains in our hearts. Many Tejano musicians like Little Joe Hernandez, Sunny Ozuna, the Royal Jesters, Joe Bravo, the Rondels, to name a few, always included soul songs in their otherwise Spanish language albums and repertoires because that always brought la raza to the dance floor.”
Clack wrote in a subsequent column that his favorite response was from a man who said, “My lady is on the very last stage of Alzheimer’s and does not enjoy the music anymore; however, music is therapeutic in my day as her caregiver. . . . I still feel butterflies all over my body when I kiss her cheek and she coos at me. Sooooo, you are correct when you say in your column: `All is right with the world whenever I have `My Girl’ around.’ God Bless.”
The Temptations are due in San Antonio Saturday and Clack said he couldn’t pass up a chance to interview the last original member, Otis Williams, in advance for his Saturday column. “I’m a tremendous Motown fan and Temptations fan,” he told Journal-isms.
[Added May 7: Cary Clack: What can make me feel this way? Talkin’ ’bout my Temptations]
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Journalists Who Survived Attacks to Speak at NAHJ
“Adela Navarro Bello, editor of the ZETA weekly in Tijuana, Mexico, and radio commentator Marielos Monzón of Guatemala head a panel of colleagues from Cuba and Colombia [who will] speak about how they survived assassination attempts, jail time, and about the growing number of attacks against journalists in this hemisphere,” the National Association of Hispanic Journalists said today in announcing the workshops at its June 15 ? 18 convention in Fort Worth, Texas.
In addition, “Daniel Santoro, the award-winning national political editor of El Clarín in Argentina and Jaime López, director of Journalists Against Corruption in El Salvador will join journalists from Brazil and Mexico to talk about their successes and obstacles they face when doing investigative journalism in what can often be a hostile environment for this kind of reporting.”
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BBC Reporter’s Race Card Called Out of Line
The victory of British Prime Minister Tony Blair was of course the top news in the British elections stories today, but the BBC’s coverage included an interview with one winner, George Galloway, in which reporter Jeremy Paxman began with the question, “Are you proud of having gotten rid of one of the few black women in Parliament?”
The contentious interview, which can be viewed online, continued on the racial note, and listeners quoted by the network said overwhelmingly that Paxman was out of line. The member of Parliament, Oona King, was a Blair supporter and voted for the war in Iraq.
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Latinos Offended by “Runaway Bride’s” Story
On Sunday, Dan Herrera of the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico told readers how offended he was that “runaway bride” Jennifer Wilbanks fabricated a Hispanic abductor. Today, Erin Texeira of the Associated Press reported that Herrera was not alone.
?This speaks to how Latinos are perceived in society,? said Lisa Navarette, spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza, said in her story. ?Americans only know minority communities, particularly Latino communities, through stereotypes, through images in the media. If people keep being portrayed as criminals — as undocumented immigrants or criminals or gang members — that?s what we tend to believe.?
“Such racial hoaxes are actually not rare, said Katheryn Russell-Brown, a law professor at the University of Florida, who wrote ‘The Color of Crime,’ a book documenting 67 such cases that occurred between 1987 and 1996,” the story continued.
?’The majority of perpetrators were someone white falsely accusing someone black,’ Russell-Brown said. ‘You typically don?t see the Hispanic criminal in terms of a hoax case, but she put this duo together and it?s got this resonance. . . . It?s still this idea of a criminal element that is colored.’?
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“Primetime” Show on “Idol” Judged a Low Point
“ABC’s decision to dig up dirt on a linchpin of another network’s entertainment lineup reflects the changing values of television news, several media analysts said yesterday,” Mark Jurkowitz wrote today in the Boston Globe.
“The much-hyped ‘Primetime Live’ exposé Wednesday night on Fox’s hit show ‘American Idol’ generated a big audience and has led to speculation that Paula Abdul will depart the show. . . .
“Although former NBC News president Larry Grossman found no ethical problems with ABC’s decision to investigate ‘American Idol,’ he said it spoke volumes about what now constitutes television journalism.”
Barry Garron, reviewing the show yesterday in the Hollywood Reporter, was harsher. “Through hints, well-chosen words and the repetition of largely unsubstantiated allegations, host and anchor John Quinones suggested that ‘Idol’ judge Paula Abdul coached second-season finalist Corey Clark on how to dress and what songs to sing and also initiated a sexual relationship with him. While it is possible that all of this took place, it is irresponsible to report it without independent verification,” he wrote.
“If ABC News really had the goods, Quinones would have said so. Instead, he told viewers, ‘You be the judge’ — a phrase that is perilously close to the faux fairness mantra of Fox News: “We report. You decide.’ Any investigative report worthy of airtime should connect the dots for viewers. The burden of sifting through the facts to arrive at the truth should be shouldered by the reporter, not the viewer.”
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“Precious Doe” a Symbol of Coverage Disparity
“When Alonzo Washington heard that the headless body of a little black girl was found in his Kansas City, Missouri community, he immediately became overwhelmed with outrage,” Monica Lewis wrote today on BlackAmericaWeb.com.
“That was four years ago.”
“There are so many African-American children who go missing, and I began to realize how these children really get no national press,” Washington, a community activist, said in the story. “I wanted to do something to change that.” Lewis went on to describe Washington’s efforts to publicize the case of the dead child known as “Precious Doe,” whose mother and stepfather were arrested this week in her killing.
“What really bothered Washington, he maintained Thursday, was how captivated the country can get over the equally tragic disappearances and murders of white children and adults, all the while the stories of black missing children and adults fall by the wayside. If Precious Doe?s case could have received half the media attention given to Jennifer Wilbanks, the ‘runaway bride’ from Georgia, it may not have taken so long to solve her murder, Washington said.”
Another case that has been used to illustrate the disparate media attention is that of a 7-year-old black girl, Alexis Patterson , who vanished from her Milwaukee neighborhood on May 3, 2002, and has not been seen since.
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New NABJ Ethics Code Values Transparency
The National Association of Black Journalists has approved a code of ethics to serve as guidelines for its members and the industry, the organization announced.
“It’s not so much do’s and don’ts as being transparent,” Maidstone Mulenga of New York’s Rochester Democrat and Chronicle told Journal-isms. Mulenga, president of the Rochester Association of Black Journalists, chaired the ethics committee that drafted the code.
He said it would be especially helpful to local journalism organizations in deciding whose funds to accept, and for those at news outlets that have not outlined an ethics code.
At the Rochester paper, for example, management was upset that the journalists group held a fund-raiser on the property of a company that was written about favorably in the newspaper the next day, Mulenga said. It had created the perception of an ethical conflict for the paper.
The code does not explicitly address the issue of showing support for candidates who appear at journalism conventions, a topic of debate at last year’s Unity gathering in Washington. Any restrictions on audience members “would be impinging on individual rights,” Mulenga said the committee decided. “Political choice is personal.”
An ethical journalist? Researchers say it’s not so rare (Matt Sedensky, Associated Press)
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Chicago Defender Celebrating Its Centennial
“With a folding card table, a borrowed chair and 25 cents for notebooks and pencils, Robert Abbott launched the Chicago Defender from the kitchen of his landlord’s apartment on May 5, 1905,” Johnathon E. Briggs wrote Thursday in the Chicago Tribune.
“One hundred years later, the venerable black newspaper, once heralded as ‘The World’s Greatest Weekly,’ is struggling to find new glory in the 21st Century, a process complicated by management turmoil, turnover in staff and talk of moving from its Near South Side headquarters.
“The Defender, now a daily, is working to find long-term stability in a highly competitive media industry with newly unveiled ventures, including a magazine aimed at a younger, hipper audience and another focusing on health.
“But after a tumultuous century in which the Defender became an icon of black America, fighting for historic causes such as an end to lynching, the integration of the armed forces and the civil rights movement, some say that the newspaper’s greatest achievement is simply its survival.”
At 100, besieged Defender should reflect on its mission (Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times)
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16-Year Veteran Resigns from USA Today
“Tom Squitieri, a 16-year veteran of USA Today, resigned from the newspaper yesterday after his editors said he lifted quotations from other newspapers without attribution.” Katharine Q. Seelye reported today in the New York Times.
“A statement by USA Today cited an article by Mr. Squitieri, published on March 28, that ‘included quotes taken from The Indianapolis Star that were not attributed to the newspaper.’ The Star and USA Today are both owned by Gannett. The newspaper added: ‘Squitieri’s actions violated USA Today’s standards on sources and attribution.’
“In addition, the newspaper said Mr. Squitieri, 51, a Pentagon reporter and a former foreign correspondent, lifted quotations used in other articles submitted for publication, but those quotations were trimmed before the articles appeared.
“Also yesterday, The Christian Science Monitor removed an article by one of its correspondents from its Web site, saying ‘the editors determined that the reporting did not meet Monitor standards.’ The April 18 article about hedge funds was written by Jonathan P. Decker. The Monitor’s editor told BostonHerald.com that the article bore too many similarities to an article in the online financial journal TheStreet.com.
“The two departures follow those of four reporters from four other newspapers in the last month, quickening the drumbeat of questions about media credibility as editors react swiftly to apparent problems in the face of intense scrutiny.”
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Short takes
- Glenn Burkins, business editor of North Carolina’s Charlotte Observer, has been promoted to deputy managing editor, the paper announced Thursday. Burkins is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who has covered the White House, military conflicts and genocide in Africa.
- House Republicans Wednesday soundly rejected an effort by Democrats to ban the Department of Education from spending money on “covert propaganda,” a bill prompted by the case of commentator Armstrong Williams, the Connecticut Post’s Peter Urban reported.
- “Working Mother Media CEO Carol Evans, who acquired Working Mother magazine in 2001 after helping guide it through its formative years, says the company?s growth is, in part, due to its initiatives in helping women of color achieve equality in the workplace,” Dylan Stableford reported Monday in Folio magazine.
- The general manager of radio station New Jersey 101.5 FM said the station’s drive-time talk show hosts were just “having fun” when they ridiculed a Korean-American candidate and complained about New Jersey’s burgeoning Asian American population. Andrew Santoro, group vice president and general manager of Millennium Radio, apologized to Asian Americans, Suleman Din reported in the Star-Ledger of Newark.
- Ron Mott, reporter and substitute anchor for KSHB, the NBC affiliate in Kansas City, Mo., has been named NBC News correspondent effective May 9, the network announced Wednesday.
- “Chris Crain, editorial director of the gay newspaper chain Windows Media, was beaten by seven men in Amsterdam, Holland, as he was walking hand-in-hand with his boyfriend early Saturday morning,” Mark Fitzgerald reports in Editor & Publisher. Crain described the gay-bashing in a first-person story published today in the Washington (D.C.) Blade, one of several papers owned by Windows. Crain and William Waybourn founded the chain in 1996, Fitzgerald reported.
- Former President Bill Clinton said in an interview with Jamal E. Watson of the New York Amsterdam News that he supports the efforts of African American leaders who are organizing the Millions More Movement, a national gathering to take place in October in Washington, a decade after the Million Man March.
- Philip Meyer, Knight professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote in USA Today Tuesday that “J.B. Stoner, the nastiest racist I ever met, died last week without ever learning about the joke that Miami news media and the school board played on him in 1959.” While Stoner and other protesters were focused on an effort to admit four black pupils to one elementary school, another more significant integration effort was taking place. Meyer aided in the “misdirection” by downplaying the more significant effort in a three-part series he wrote a month before schools opened.
- In the late 1960s, Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, the psychologist and educator who died Sunday at age 90, provided, at no cost, meeting space for Black Perspective, an organization of black print and broadcast journalists in New York that predated the National Association of Black Journalists. He did so in the offices of the organization he helped found, the Metropolitan Applied Research Center, reported C. Gerald Fraser to his NABJ colleagues.
- “Jayson Blair, the disgraced New York Times reporter implicated in a plagiarism scandal the paper called a ‘low point’ in its 152-year history, has turned up with a first-person column in the spring issue of bp, a magazine chronicling bipolar disorder,” Dylan Stableford wrote in Folio magazine last week. “In it, Blair gives his account of being diagnosed as bipolar?a recovery that includes medication and speaking engagements?as well as his take on the May 11, 2003 ‘7,000-word above-the-fold, front page story (accompanied by a 6,400-word litany of corrections).'”
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