Chris Carlson won "Best of Show" and first prize in the "professional campaign/election" category http://www.fotoweekdc.org/

"Fotobama" Exhibit Displays Obama Photo Winners

"A new exhibit at the Newseum features the top 100 professional and amateur photographs selected from a field of more than 1,500 related to the historic presidency of Barack Obama," the Freedom Forum’s Washington museum about news announced¬†on Monday. "Campaign, election and inauguration photographs were entered into the 2009 FOTOBAMA international competition, sponsored by the Newseum and FOTOWEEK DC.

"Obama can be seen body-surfing during a campaign break in Hawaii, shedding a tear for his late grandmother at a campaign rally and embracing his wife, Michelle, after the election night victory. Images from inauguration week depict not only official events, but also the outpouring of emotion from the millions who came to the nation’s capital to witness the beginning of a historic presidency.

"Photographs have been divided into two categories: Presidential Campaign and Election (covering photographs from Jan. 1, 2007, through Jan. 14, 2009) and Inauguration Week (Jan. 15-21, 2009). For each category, first and second place professional and first and second place amateur winners have been selected, for a total of eight awards. In addition, a ‘Best in Show’ prize has been awarded to a single image."

The FOTOBAMA opened on Thursday.

• Stanley Crouch, New York Daily News:¬†On President Obama’s watch, patience is the ultimate virtue
• Eric Easter, ebonyjet.com:¬†Why All the Formality?: Another view on what to call the Commander-in-Chief
• Holly Edgell, the Quill:¬†
• Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe: African-Americans optimistic on Obama¬†
• Errol Louis, New York Daily News:¬†Beyond black and white: Obama-Bloomberg alliance signals a less tribal
• Ruben Navarrette Jr., San Diego (Calif.) Union-Tribune:¬†A Latino on the high court
• Ruben Navarrette Jr., San Diego (Calif.) Union-Tribune:¬†The Democrats’ dilemma over immigration
• Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:¬†Joe the Democrat: a political fantasia
• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune:¬†To win votes, why not listen to voters?
• PoliticsDaily.com: Steele on Obama: ‘Good Love Between Two Brothers!’
• Eugene Robinson, Washington Post;¬†MIA On Gay Marriage
• Rose Russell, Toledo (Ohio) Blade:¬†Obama was cruising – until he ‘contracted’ the flu
• David Squires, Daily Press, Newport News, Va.:¬†Obama can correct gender equity on the Supreme Court

Black Papers Want Some of Stimulus Money

"Black publishers of the National Newspaper Publishing Association (NNPA) are concerned that there is nothing ‘designed’ in President Barack Obama‚Äôs $787 billion stimulus package to do business with struggling black newspapers in this flailing economy," Cash Michaels wrote¬†for the Wilmington (N.C.) Journal.

‚Äú’While we publishers wholeheartedly applaud the president‚Äôs efforts of making certain economically devastated communities of color are able to benefit from the billions of dollars within the stimulus package, it is unclear whether any of the money has been earmarked to otherwise help educate the very communities serviced by the Black media, as well as how they are to access the myriad of opportunities,‚Äù NNPA Board Chairman John B. Smith, Sr. wrote in an April 23 letter to White House Chief of Staff Rahm [Emanuel]; President Obama‚Äôs Special Advisor Valerie Jarrett, and U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

"With opportunities to use the proven outreach mechanism of NNPA‚Äôs more than 200 Black-owned newspapers to educate those in need on how to take advantage of the money flowing into their communities, Chairman Smith, publisher of the Atlanta Inquirer, added that the omission of the Black Press from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was ‘most disheartening and perplexing.’"

Last week, Lee sided with the publishers in a letter to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who chaired a hearing on the future of journalism.

"Too often African American newspapers and radio stations are underrepresented when it comes to receiving federal government advertising dollars," she wrote. "I am also concerned that black-owned media outlets are (not) being utilized by federal agencies tasked with distributing the $787 billion recovery package or by corporations, banks, and auto companies receiving bailout money."

Short Takes

• National Public Radio is airing four stories about Native Americans in conjunction with the PBS series "We Shall Remain"¬†Among them have been two by Brian Bull of Wisconsin Public Radio, "For Native Americans, Old Stereotypes Die Hard"¬†and "As Requirements Change, Just Who Is An Indian?"¬†
• "The Michael Eric Dyson Show," hosted by Baltimore’s WEAA-FM, the Morgan State University station and sponsored by the African American Public Radio Consortium, is ironing out some technical problems that plagued it shortly after its debut last month. The station’s server, which enabled listeners to hear the programs live on the WEAA Web site, was fixed on Monday. Podcasts¬†of recent shows were added on May 4. The podcasts are posted two to three after the airing at 1 p.m. EST, said station manager Lafontaine oliver through a spokeswoman. The show from Dyson, The prolific Dyson, author, college professor, minister and talk-show pundit, airs in 18 markets.
• Hunter College’s Department of Film and Media Studies has awarded¬†a James Aronson Lifetime Achievement Award to Les Payne, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist at Newsday for career achievement. Media critic Danny Schechter of NewsDissector.org is the winner of the Aronson Blog Award for his muckraking reports on economic, political and social issues, the school said.
• ‚Äú’To report or to sing?’ that is the question, but for Evrod Cassimy there is only one answer ‚Äî do both," according to Cassimy’s bio¬†on the Web site of his 24-hour local news staion. "In July 2008, Evrod joined the Central Florida News 13 team using his microphone to cover the Orlando newsroom as a general assignment reporter .When he‚Äôs not covering the big story, Evrod is entertaining on another mic. A singer since he was three years old, Evrod has released his own CD single." His person Web site¬†features Cassimy singing an R&B number for anyone who clicks on the site. It calls him ""TV News’ FIRST R&B recording artist."
• "At a time when music magazines are struggling to stay in business, the Vibe Media Group, publisher of Vibe, is looking to defy the odds by launching The Most!, a biannual print magazine and Web site," Jason Fell reported¬†Monday for Folio. "With an initial print run of 300,000, The Most! is set to hit national newsstands June 16. TheMostmag.com is expected go live about two weeks earlier. The magazine will feature ‘tabloid-themed’ content focusing on urban style, celebrity, beauty and culture." A spokeswoman added, ""Rumors¬†about VIBE Media Group filing for bankruptcy are completely false and have absolutely no merit. The source of this false rumor is a disgruntled blogger who didn’t make VIBE’s 50 Top Rap Blogs list posted last week."
• Despite the popularity of the Twitter microblogging network, "more than 60 percent of U.S. Twitter users fail to return the following month, or in other words, Twitter‚Äôs audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month‚Äôs users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent. For most of the past 12 months, pre-Oprah, Twitter has languished below 30 percent retention," David Martin, Vice President, Primary Research, Nielsen Online, wrote¬†on April 28.
• "Where is the recession hitting hardest? Which places have been spared from the worst economic pain? Which places are recovering? To answer those questions on an ongoing basis, The Associated Press is launching an index that will provide monthly, multi-format updates on the economic stress of the United States down to the county level," the news cooperative announced¬†on Monday. "The Associated Press Economic Stress Index weighs three economic variables ‚Äî unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcy ‚Äî to produce a score on a scale of 0-100 that measures how the recession is affecting a county compared to all others."
• Overlooked in this column were that AARP The Magazine captured its first-ever National Magazine Award last month, taking the industry‚Äôs top prize in the interactive feature category for a story on a seminal year for boomers, ‚Äú1968: The Year That Rocked Our World,‚Äù as AARP noted¬†on May 1. "So very few of us are hanging in magazines now, much less getting positive notice," Marilyn Milloy of AARP told Journal-isms. "I was really proud of the folk of color I was able to prominently feature in that package, Kathleen Cleaver, ‘Bootsy’ Collins, Tommie Smith, Benny Stewart, etc. It was a remarkable year ‚Äî even moreso for us 50+ plus folk who remember it."
• "I’m told that HBO has just ordered 9 episodes of the pilot Treme from The Wire writers David Simon and Eric Overmyer which has been in development for the pay channel. It’s a post-Katrina hourlong set in the New Orleans music scene and will be filmed there," Nikki Finke wrote¬† on her Deadline Hollywood Daily site. Among Simon’s collaborators are former journalist David Mills, who worked on "The Corner" and "The Wire," and Lolis Eric Elie, a writer for the Times-Picayune.
• Speaking at the commencement at Claflin College in his hometown of Orangeburg, S.C., the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, winner of this year’s Pulitzer prize for commentary, said that growing up near the end of the Jim Crow era had some influence on his future career as a journalist. Dionne Gleaton reported¬†Sunday in the Orangeburg Times & Democrat. "I‚Äôd hear all kinds of ethos of excellence, of not accepting the notion that you had any limitations or that your ambition was in any way circumscribed. That gave me a certain … confidence and a certain motivation to provide that to anyone who thought otherwise,‚Äù he said.
• "Global TV networks in China are bracing themselves for difficulty covering the first anniversary of a deadly earthquake after reports of attacks on journalists trying to interview families grieving lost children and griping about government inaction," Jonathan Landreth reported Monday in the Hollywood Reporter.
• "Zimbabwean police on Monday arrested and charged Vincent Kahiya, editor of the Zimbabwe Independent, and Constantine Chimakure, its news editor, over an article that named police and security agents allegedly involved in the abduction of rights activists from the opposition MDC party, according to their lawyer Innocent Chagonda, Reuters reported.