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Racial Divide on Jackson Verdicts

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Split Over Outcome Not as Severe as With O.J.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup instant-reaction poll Monday night showed “a major racial divide in attitudes” about the not-guilty verdicts in the Michael Jackson child-molestation trial. Whites disagreed with the decision by about a 2-to-1 ratio (54 percent to 28 percent), and nonwhites took the opposite point of view, also by about 2 to 1 (56 percent to 26 percent), the Gallup organization reported Tuesday.

Overall, 48 percent of Americans disagreed with the outcome and 34 percent agreed, Gallup said, and 18 percent had no opinion.

The 1995 O.J. Simpson murder case “provided a somewhat more racially divided public than did the Jackson case — but in both situations, clear majorities of whites disagreed with clear majorities of nonwhites.”

The question in the instant-reaction poll was: “As you may know, the jury in the Michael Jackson trial announced their verdict today that Jackson is NOT guilty of sexually molesting a young boy. Do you agree or disagree with the verdict?”

Among whites, the figure was 28 percent agreed, 54 percent disagreed and 18 percent no opinion. Among nonwhites it was 56 percent agreed, 26 percent disagreed and 18 percent having no opinion.

In the Simpson case, a poll taken Oct. 3, 1995, the day he was found not guilty, showed 33 percent agreed overall with the verdict, 56 percent disagreed and 11 percent offered no opinion. Among whites, 27 agreed, 62 percent disagreed and 11 percent no opinion; and among nonwhites, 67 percent agreed, 24 percent disagreee and 9 percent had no opinion.

The Jackson trial poll of 635 adults age 18 and older was conducted nationwide between 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Eastern time Monday, Gallup said. The verdict had been announced shortly after 5 p.m. The sample included 498 whites and 137 nonwhites, with the nonwhites not further defined, a Gallup spokeswoman told Journal-isms.

“For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points,” a Gallup article said.

African American columnists debated the role of race in the trial. “So many black folks I know still view the pop star as black,” wrote Clarence Page in the Chicago Tribune, “compared with the many white folks I know who are quite comfortable to see him as someone who is trying very hard not to be black.”

On NBC’s “Tonight Show,” host Jay Leno joked, “Legal experts say the key was the defense team did not play the race card. Well, duhh, they didn’t know which race to play!”

Some black journalists privately complained that television commentators seemed to discard a pretense of objectivity. “Well, the bigger they are, the harder they fall,” Terry Moran said on ABC-TV’s “Nightline.” “And Michael Jackson’s acquittal today doesn’t erase the fact that he has fallen far. Financially certainly, but also as a force in popular music. Can he rise again?”

David Bauder reported for the Associated Press that Court TV personality “Nancy Grace held up a ‘crow sandwich’ to eat after Michael Jackson was declared not guilty of child molestation, then appeared near tears after talking about the case on CNN Headline News for an hour.” Grace also hosts a prime-time show on Headline News.

“Some big TV names had a lot at stake in the verdict. Grace has built a successful cable show partly on her prosecutorial attacks on Jackson, while Fox News Channel’s Geraldo Rivera declared he’d shave off his mustache if the pop star was found guilty,” Bauder continued.

Black columnists, by and large, took a hard line on Jackson:

As the Verdict Comes Down, Pundits’ Crystal Balls Go Foggy (Lisa de Moraes, Washington Post)

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Ida B. Wells-Barnett Praised on U.S. Senate Floor

Crusading anti-lynching journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett was praised on the floor of the U.S. Senate Monday as the Senate — in front of the only man known to survive a lynching, 91-year-old James Cameron— formally apologized for its failure to enact federal anti-lynching legislation during the heyday of mob law, in the words of Patrik Jonsson of the Christian Science Monitor.

“In March of 1892, three personal friends of Ida B. Wells opened the People’s Grocery Company, a store located across the street from a white-owned grocery store that had previously been the only grocer in the area,” Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said in remarks recorded by Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy, Now!”

“Angered by the loss of business, a mob gathered to run the new grocers out of town. Forewarned about the attack on their store, the three owners armed themselves for protection, and in the riot that ensued one of the businessmen injured a white man. All three were arrested and jailed. Days later, the mob kidnapped the men from jail and lynched them. This was the case that led Ida B. Wells to begin to speak out against this injustice.

“Her great-grandson is with us today. He’s told his story through the halls of Congress, to give testimony to her life and to her courage and to her historic efforts. Without the work of this extraordinarily brave journalist, this story could never really have been told in the way it’s being told now, today, and talked about here on the Senate floor. To her, we owe a great deal of gratitude. She knew these men personally. She knew that they were businessmen. They were not criminals. She knew that they were successful salespeople, not common thugs. And she wrote and she spoke and she tried to gather pictures to tell a story to a nation that simply refused to believe.”

The Pacifica program Tuesday also looked at the history of “Strange Fruit,” the song about lynching made famous by Billie Holiday.

National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” meanwhile, carried a commentary Tuesday by 90-year-old historian John Hope Franklin, who was threatened with a lynching while at Fisk University in 1934. “An apology for past crimes or the failure to deal with them means very little to me,” Franklin said.

“African-Americans and perhaps some others hovering near the lowest rung of the social and economic ladder would feel somewhat relieved if, for example, the Congress would raise the minimum wage to a point where the armed services would not appear quite so attractive to destitute young men and women. Apologies are not nearly enough for those who live in communities where every conceivable measurement of social and economic well-being continues to favor that element in society that is already the beneficiary of the largesse, the opportunities and the other benefits that our rich and bountiful nation possesses. It would be an indication not only of fairness, but of wise statesmanship if the Congress would use its vast powers to nudge everyone closer to the American Dream of equality,” he said.

That theme was echoed in Jonsson’s article today in the Christian Science Monitor, “Deep South’s response to a lynching apology.”

“Some worry that it will just divert attention from the living legacies of racism,” he wrote.

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NAHJ Registration Figures Below Expectations

The ranks of journalists attending the National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention this week in Fort Worth, Texas, “has shrunk, but the event will draw more funds than ever, the organization’s executive director said this week,” Antonio Felipe Asunción wrote today in the print edition of the Latino Reporter, the student convention newspaper.

Some 1,300 people preregistered by Monday, “a number that fell 700 short of expectations.

“‘Registration is a little lower than I would like it to be,’ said executive director Iván Román, who pointed out that several hundred more people typically register in person. ‘We need another 200 to 250 people to make it.’

“Part of the reason for the decline in attendance, Román said, is that fewer media companies are picking up the tabs for their reporters and editors. But at the same time, fundraising has been especially strong, with corporations and media companies shelling out nearly $200,000 more than last year, Román said.”

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Study Challenges Stereotypes of Migrants

“Contrary to the stereotype of undocumented migrants as single males with very little education who perform manual labor in agriculture or construction, a new Pew Hispanic Center report shows that most of the unauthorized population lives in families, a quarter has at least some college education and that illegal workers can be found in many sectors of the US economy,” according to a study released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center.

“Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics” was prepared by Jeffrey S. Passel, a veteran demographer and senior research associate at the Center. It was “developed as a briefing paper for the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future, co-chaired by former Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI) and former Congressman Lee Hamilton(D-IN). . . . The report on the unauthorized population was presented to the task force by the Pew Hispanic Center to provide a factual basis for its discussions; the Pew Hispanic Center, which does not engage in issue advocacy, is not participating in the task force’s deliberations or its policy recommendations.”

Among the findings:

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Merlene Davis Sees ‘Sippians Protesting Too Much

Kentucky columnist Merlene Davis wrote Tuesday that her controversial column about her misgivings about sending her college-age son to Mississippi had drawn more than 150 e-mails and more than 50 phone calls.

But, said the Lexington Herald-Leader writer, “It was as if the current residents of Mississippi were protesting too much. . . . the majority acted as if I had no right to connect their state to its racist past. I don’t get that.

“. . . I have not been hired on as Mississippi’s Welcome Wagon or Chamber of Commerce. I was looking at that state because my son wanted to head that way. I would have been just as concerned had he wanted to go to Alabama, Texas or Florida.”

She concluded that, “Last Wednesday, you couldn’t have paid me to go to Jackson, Miss., because of the e-mail I had received. By last Thursday, however, you-couldn’t stop me.

“So, we’re going down this summer to see whether my son and JSU are a good fit,” she wrote, referring to Jackson State University.

“But we’ll be going incognito.”

Davis’ original column drew a rebuke Sunday from Ronnie Agnew, executive editor of the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson.

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Ex-Adviser to Kansas Student Paper Loses Lawsuit

“A federal district court has dismissed a lawsuit brought against two administrators at Kansas State University by student journalists and a student newspaper adviser who said he was fired because of the newspaper’s content,” the Student Press Law Center reported last week.

“Ron Johnson, currently a journalism professor at the university, was told by KSU officials in May 2004 he would no longer be the adviser of the Kansas State Collegian.

“Todd Simon, director of the school of journalism at Kansas State University, later said Johnson had been dismissed as adviser, in part, because the ‘overall quality’ of the paper had gone down. Simon had compared the Collegian to other comparable college newspapers, he said, and found it to be lacking.

As reported last year, the Black Student Union asked for Johnson’s removal after the paper failed to cover the Big 12 Conference on Black Student Government, which brought 1,000 students to the campus in Manhattan. “He’s been the adviser for over 15 years,” Black Student Union adviser Kendra Spencer told Journal-isms, “and this problem continually happens.”

Johnson’s removal prompted a backlash from journalism groups and other free-press advocates.

“Johnson, former Collegian Editor in Chief Katie Lane and former managing editor Sarah Rice filed a lawsuit in June 2004 against Simon and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Stephen White, alleging their First Amendment rights had been violated and requesting that Johnson be reappointed adviser of the paper,” the law center report continued.

“In the court’s order, filed June 2, U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson said Johnson had no standing to bring a lawsuit because his First Amendment rights had not been violated.

“Because Johnson exercises no control over the content of the Collegian, his right to freedom of the press was not at all affected by his removal as adviser to the Collegian,” Robinson wrote.

“The court also concluded that Rice and Lane did not present a violation of their First Amendment rights because it was not specific stories that Simon had problems with, but rather the overall quality of the paper.”

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Fired Indy Editorial Writer Charges Religious Bias

James Patterson, a former Indianapolis Star editorial writer and columnist who has been president of the Indianapolis Association of Black Journalists, has filed suit against the paper charging religious discrimination, according to WISH-TV in Indianapolis.

“That’s just one of several complaints in a lawsuit two former employees filed in federal court against the Indianapolis Star this week,” according to a news report airing last night.

“The former Indianapolis Star editorial writers say the paper wants to weed out employees who express their religious beliefs. It’s a lengthy lawsuit that points out the journalists’ long history and award winning work with the paper, but then what they call an unwarranted termination and demotion.

“Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper company, bought the paper about five years ago. The lawsuit says ever since then, the editorial staff has been forced to take a dramatic turn from its conservative standpoint.

“‘The goal appears to be to remove from employment at the Star persons who have strong religious beliefs and we believe that violates the law,’ said John Price, attorney.

“The Star wouldn’t comment on camera about personnel issues, but it did issue the following statement: “Both of these former employees filed EEOC charges against us. The EEOC investigated the complaints and dismissed them. We do not discriminate.’

“‘Lisa [M. Coffey] and I aren’t the only employees that have been driven away from this company and we thought it was time for someone to say goodness gracious this isn’t right,’ James Patterson told News 8 Tuesday evening.

“They wouldn’t talk on camera but spoke with us by phone saying their 30 page lawsuit cites race discrimination, age discrimination and a lot more ever since Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper company took over.”

“. . . News 8 looked up one of Patterson’s editorials titled ‘Pray for Peace.’ He says that’s the one that got him fired.”

Patterson was fired May 5 after 16 years at the Star, according to a report in Editor & Publisher today.

At a national Student Journalism Conference in October in Nashville, according to David Roach, writing in the Baptist News Press, Patterson said that Christian journalists have a responsibility to use words in a manner that glorifies God.

The Star packaged a series of columns by Patterson on the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings, “on the theory that Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for his role . . . was assisted by Islamic terrorists from the Middle East,” in the Star’s words.

[Added June 16: Coffey, a white editorial writer, was told she would be transferred to the copy desk and then left the paper, lawyer Price told Journal-isms Thursday. He said she was pressured to leave for the same religious reasons.]

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Native Journalist David Pego, 51, Dies in S.D.

“Michigan native David Pego, a former journalism instructor at the University of Oklahoma, has died in his Brookings, S.D., home. He was 51,” the Associated Press reported from Austin, Texas, last night.

“Pego, a member of the Saginaw Chippewa Indians who was born in Mount Pleasant, won top awards for his Newspapers in Education programs as director of educational service for the Austin American-Statesman. He also served as assigning editor on the metro desk and worked at large daily newspapers in Dallas and Oklahoma City and as desk supervisor for The Associated Press in Dallas.

“Pego founded Great Promise for Young American Indians, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating educational and cultural opportunities for American Indian children.

“Pego, who was an enrolled member of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe in Michigan, was a columnist at the Lakota and Dakota Journals and the Argus Leader in South Dakota, as well as a contributing writer to several publications. He taught journalism at South Dakota State University while participating in the Knight Foundation’s Visiting Journalists Residence Program,” according to the Native American Journalists Association.

While at South Dakota State, he organized a NAJA student chapter.

No cause of death was listed, but he wrote last year:

“I am a poster boy for bad health. I’ve had three heart attacks, a stroke that took a third of my eyesight, a kidney failure that required dialysis for four months, a head-on car collision, a severe staph infection and nearly lost my legs a year ago because of an infection that stemmed from the kidney failure and my diabetes. Most of that (not the auto accident, of course) was due to inherited health problems because I’m an American Indian. . . . I feel I’m only allowed to still be alive because I keep giving of myself to others.”

Pego was a 2000 alumnus of the Maynard Institute’s Cross-Media Journalism Program.

 

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