Originally published July 15, 2005
Explosive Racial Story From ’64 Considered a Hoax
“The existence of a Harlem gang indoctrinated in hatred of all white persons is chilling news,” began an editorial in the New York Times of May 8, 1964, two months before riots would break out in Harlem after a police shooting. “It is as indefensible as the Ku Klux Klan. It must be firmly repressed by the police. It should be extirpated, once and for all, by the aroused sentiment of the better elements of the Harlem community.”
The editorial referred to a group called the Harlem “Blood Brothers,” whose existence was described on the front page of the Times by Junius Griffin, a 35-year-old black reporter who had joined the paper that year.
“The police said that the gang members became eligible to use the letter ‘X’ [instead of their surnames] when they killed or maimed a white person,” read a follow-up story by Griffin published May 10.
The NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality, leading civil rights groups, denounced the stories as without foundation and spreading “hysteria,” and the story “is now generally acknowledged to be wildly exaggerated, if not completely made up,” Seth Mnookin wrote last year in “Hard Times: The Scandals at the New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media.” Mnookin added, “The Times never published a retraction or correction of any kind relating to the Blood Brothers.”
Griffin died June 1 in St. Helena Island, S.C., at age 76 of heart problems, the family said. Apart from an obituary in the Beaufort (S.C.) Gazette, his passing has attracted almost no media attention, although Griffin had gone on to have a full career as public relations director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, working with the Revs. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy; as public relations man and vice president of Motown Records; as head of the Hollywood branch of the NAACP and as a faculty member at East Tennessee State University and Emory & Henry College in southwestern Virginia.
He coined the term “blaxploitation” when in 1972 he “complained in Variety about negative images in the just-released hit ‘Superfly’ with Ron O’Neal,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Dirk Moore, public relations director at Emory & Henry, a school of 1,000 students where Griffin taught history and journalism from 1996 to 2000, recalled today how Griffin was able to use his contacts in the civil rights movement to bring Martin Luther King III to the campus and, for two years, take students to Atlanta to the King Center and to meet Coretta Scott King.
“He was a terrific human being,” said Paul Delaney, later a reporter and senior editor at the Times, “kind, gentle, extremely smart and always into doing the greater good. The New York Times incident that effectively destroyed his journalism career never left his mind. He insisted that he was right, but was done in. After I joined the New York Times, several years later, I found there was more to it than met the public’s eye, including the culture of the newsroom. Simply put, aggressive editors pushing hard-charging reporters to get the story fast. Junius and others did that, sometimes to their peril.”
“Junius Griffin started at The Times in 1964,” Earl Caldwell, who also worked at the paper, wrote in his “Caldwell Journals” on the Maynard Institute Web site. “‘I was in the Marines. I wanted to be another Ernie Pyle,’ he said. He had some experience in public relations. ‘I struck a bargain: I agreed to reenlist; after a year, I’d get a transfer to Tokyo and be assigned to Stars and Stripes.’ That got him into journalism. He wrote for the military paper and he also filed to the AP and ABC News. ‘A lot of people didn’t know I was black,’ he said. In 1962, he got discharged. “I came straight to New York.'” He hooked on with the AP. Two years later he was at The Times. ‘Abe Rosenthal called and offered me the job. He wanted me in Harlem; Abe thought I could bring more depth to the (black) coverage.'”
Griffin’s May 6, 1964, story began: “About 400 youths are now members of a Harlem gang whose indoctrination and training come from dissident members of the Black Muslim sect.
“This was disclosed yesterday by a researcher for Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU), an organization financed partly by the Federal Government to diagnose the social, economic and educational ills of Harlem.
“The police already suspect that members of the gang are responsible for four Harlem murders, all of white persons. The gang members range in age from 12 to the 20’s.” It went on to say that “numbers rackets flourish in the area and there is heavy traffic in narcotics. Some members of the gang are used as drug pushers and numbers runners. Others are taught to steal. All are trained in Karate.”
John H. Britton, then an editor at Jet magazine, told Journal-isms “The hoax worked so well precisely because his editors, like those supervising Janet Cooke [who in 1980 perpetrated a hoax at the Washington Post], were strongly inclined to believe in the stereotypes the series projected.
“I went behind him and found nothing but a couple of black activists trying desperately to circle the wagons ’cause they feared he might be the last black reporter The Times would ever trust enough to hire.” The late Lawrence A. Still “was the reporter on the ground in Harlem who turned up no support for Griffin’s account. I was working the phones and found no support either.”
In his 2003 memoir, “City Room,” longtime Times editor Arthur Gelb described Griffin coming to him and Rosenthal with his “startling discovery.”
“When I happened to talk to him some twenty years later,” long after he had quit the paper, Gelb wrote, “he insisted that every fact in his stories had been the truth. Even though at times I had harbored some doubts, overall I found Griffin’s sincerity convincing.”
Griffin’s obituary does not mention that he had ever been at the Times.
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Texas Reporter Accused of Sexually Assaulting Boy
“A San Antonio newspaper reporter was in custody Thursday, accused of sexually assaulting a boy the reporter met while working on a story about the boy’s family, police said,” Vianna Davila reported today in the San Antonio Express-News.
“Police were called to the boy’s home around 2:30 p.m. after he told his mother he had been assaulted, San Antonio Police Department spokesman Joe Rios said.
“Richard Martinez, who has worked for La Prensa and is a former boxing reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, was picked up later that afternoon near Acme Road and Old Highway 90 while he was driving a cab, Rios said.
“Rios said Martinez, who had been reporting on the family for some time, lured the boy by saying he needed to do more work on the story.”
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Haitian Journalist Found Shot to Death
“A well-known Haitian journalist was found shot to death Thursday, five days after he was seized while driving in the capital, according to colleagues,” the Associated Press reported today.
“The body of Jacques Roche, which had signs of torture, was left in the central Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Delmas, said Gerin Alexandre, head of information at Radio Caraibes,” the story continued.
“Roche was in charge of the cultural section of Le Matin newspaper and moderated a talk show on a local TV station. He was seized Sunday morning while in his car in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Nazon.
“Interim Culture Minister Magalie Comeau-Denis accused supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of being behind Roche’s killing, though she did not offer proof.”
In the troubled Caribbean nation, Garry Pierre-Pierre, publisher of the Haitian Times newspaper in Brooklyn, N.Y., said, “People are being killed like animals. But government does not have resources to deal with it,” according to Hardbeatnews.com, a Web site on Caribbean diaspora news. It also quoted the Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers as expressing “outrage and horror.”
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Newsday Continues Changes on L.I. News Desk
Cape Cod Times editor Cliff Schechtman will step down Aug. 9 to take an editing position at Newsday, the Massachusetts paper reported today. The appointment further changes the makeup of the Long Island news desk that had been the focus of frustration when African American staffers met with the paper’s editor in December.
Since then, two people who were running that desk — Alex Martin and Ben Weller — have moved to other assignments and Sandy Keenan was named assistant managing editor for Long Island. Schechtman is to report to Keenan. In February, Walter Middlebrook, who was associate editor for recruitment (and a 1983 graduate of the Maynard Institute’s Editing Program), was named deputy Long Island editor, overseeing towns coverage.
Monte R. Young, who covers Nassau County politics, had said of the Long Island desk in December, “Newsday is known for having a very diverse staff, but if you look around the newsroom, at the editors’ ranks, there are 14 editors on that desk, and only one is black.”
Lonnie Isabel, a deputy managing editor (and 1977 graduate of the Maynard Institute’s Summer Program for Minority Journalists) told Journal-isms today, “People still have complaints, but what management is trying to do with the Long Island desk is try to organize it better in general, and have it focus more on local news. It’s a work in progress.”
Young said the paper’s black caucus would have no comment on the newest changes, but did say that the recent promotion of editorial writer Joye Brown to columnist for the paper’s main news section “is huge. It’s not only great for Long Island, as far as the caucus is concerned, that is something we have been pushing for. It’s huge. It’s big.”
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2 Suspended in Flap Over Use of Racial IDs
“An e-mail exchange about the use of racial descriptions in newspaper crime stories led to the suspension of two Eagle-Tribune staffers and a mini-brouhaha about political correctness run amok at the Lawrence newspaper,” Jay Fitzgerald wrote today in the Boston Herald, referring to the Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle-Tribune.
“The incident began late last month when an Eagle-Tribune production editor sent a company-wide e-mail to reporters and editors announcing a new edict.
“’Refrain from using race to describe or identify people in crime stories, for example, “a black man in a green jacket and baseball cap.”‘ ”
“The message said that `unless the rest of the description is detailed enough to be meaningful and distinguishes that person from other members of his or her race, such sketchy descriptions are meaningless, may apply to large numbers of innocent people and tend to stereotype ethnic groups.’
“Ken Johnson, the newspaper’s editorial page editor, fired back in his own e-mail.
“’This strikes me as just so much wrongheaded PC nonsense,’ wrote Johnson, in a copy of the exchange obtained by the Herald.
“’Are we to write that “Three men from east Texas were convicted of dragging James Byrd behind a pickup truck until he was decapitated” without mentioning that the thugs were white and the victim black?’ asked Johnson, referring to the infamous 1998 racial killing in Jasper, Texas.
“A staffer, Bryan McGonigle, then chipped in with his own anti-edict sarcasm.
“`Actually, the victim would technically be black and blue and maybe red all over,’ he wrote. `And he’d be called a `cerebrally-challenged American with dramatic skull deficiency.’ ”
“In a message to staffers after the e-mail exchange, editor-in-chief Bill Ketter defended the caution on identifying people by race in crime stories. `’PC has nothing to do with it,’ he wrote. “Being responsible and fair has everything to do with it.'”
Johnson and McGonigle were later suspended for three days each, the story said.
One can wonder what the suspended journalists would say if they worked at the Syracuse (N.Y.) Post-Standard and Herald-Journal. Recognizing that even such phrases as “black” aren’t very specific as racial identifiers, it issued guidelines in 1995 saying that “in the case of police identifications of criminal suspects, missing persons or unidentified bodies, race or ethnicity should be used only in those cases where the story is about race or ethnicity.
“In all other cases, a full, detailed description should contain the color of the person’s skin, not race or ethnicity.” As examples of skin tones, it listed “pale, light tan, dark tan, olive, light brown, dark brown, reddish brown, ruddy, fair-skinned and freckled.”
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NABJ Gets Daily Mention on NPR Program
Listeners of “News and Notes” With Ed Gordon on National Public Radio this week heard a mention at the end of each show of the 30th anniversary of the National Association of Black Journalists, to be celebrated at NABJ’s conference in Atlanta next month.
It was a promotional swap between NPR and NABJ, according to NPR spokeswoman Jenny Lawhorn.
“NPR News is the exclusive sponsor of the press room at the conference. NPR is a big news organization and News & Notes with Ed Gordon is a daily program relevant to the conference attendees, so we think this is a sponsorship opportunity that makes perfect sense,” Lawhorn told Journal-isms.
“NABJ is receiving on-air acknowledgments in recognition on NPR. So NABJ gets visibility on the air, and NPR gets visibility at the conference.” The on-air acknowledgments were to take place only this week, she said.
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Short Takes
- St. Louis radio DJs Kaos and Syllli Asz of KATZ-FM have been suspended after discussing with callers how to injure officers and how to take away their radios so they couldn’t call for help, according to some who heard their radio show, Greg Jonsson reported Thursday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The comments came just over a week after the fatal shooting of an officer.
- The Los Angeles Times issued a set of ethical guidelines designed to encourage the newspaper’s journalists to limit the unnecessary use of anonymous sources, avoid conflicts of interest and write in precise language, James Rainey reported in the newspaper today.
- “Thirty-one newspaper workers in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca prepared Thursday to enter their fifth week barricaded inside their own building in a bitter labor dispute that has drawn condemnation from human rights and media advocacy groups,” Reed Johnson reported today in the Los Angeles Times. “Employees of the newspaper Noticias, Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca say they have been forced to remain inside their workplace since June 17.”
- “Fox News anchor Nancy Loo didn’t think she was going to be the source of news Thursday while she was out reporting the news. Loo and another television reporter were slightly injured outside of Chicago Police Headquarters Thursday morning when a pickup struck a squad car and a Fox News truck, which then hit another media truck,” City News Service reported Thursday. “Fire officials believe the driver of the pickup truck suffered a diabetic episode.”
- Katharine Fong has been promoted from assistant managing editor in Features to deputy managing editor at California’s San Jose Mercury News, the Asian American Journalists Association reports.
- A back-and-forth over Knight Ridder’s Iraq coverage between Hannah Allam, Knight Ridder’s Baghdad bureau chief and the National Association of Black Journalists’ Journalist of the Year for 2004, and Mark Yost, an associate editor of Minnesota’s St. Paul Pioneer Press editorial page, is prompting debate in the Editor & Publisher letters column.
- Ketan N. Gandhi, an Indian immigrant who has become president and publisher of the Gannett Co.’s Home News Tribune in East Brunswick, N.J., told Journal-isms today it was important for his paper to have South Asian journalists not only to cover South Asian communities, but to be part of the daily coverage. Middlesex County and Edison Township include a substantial population of Indians, including an all-Indian retail center. Gandhi said that in India, newspaper circulations are increasing, as are English-language newspapers targeting Indian Americans in his circulation area. “If I need to create some non-daily newspapers, I will,” he said.
- “The state can’t keep secret the names of prison medical workers who have botched the treatment of inmates or hide the identity of people who witnessed the misconduct, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday,” Tracy Johnson reported today in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. ” The decision was a long-awaited win for activist and former prisoner Paul Wright, editor of Seattle-based Prison Legal News. He has tried for more than five years to get the state Department of Corrections to give him the information.”
- Chrysler Group announced a partnership with the National Association of Minority Media Executives as part of its Leadership in Diversity and Communications fellowship program. The announcement was made during NAMME’s annual conference this week in Chicago, according to a news release. Under Chrysler Group’s newly created LIDAC fellowship program, communications professionals receive diversity and communications training in order to increase the number of communications executives and owners of color.
- “Clear Channel Radio and Black Enterprise magazine have announced a partnership to produce financial and lifestyle content serving the African American business and lifestyle audience,” RadioInk.com reported Thursday. “On August 15, Keys To A Better Life will launch on 29 Clear Channel stations nationwide. The twice-daily report will be introduced by celebrities including Alicia Keys, Cedric the Entertainer and Keith Sweat, and will provide news and information on finance, health, and home buying.”
- The third annual Access to Capital Conference (PDF), sponsored by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, gets under way Monday and Tuesday in Washington with a host of experts on media ownership, including current and former members of the Federal Communications Commission.
- In Cameroon, “Government officials unsealed the studios of Freedom FM on Tuesday, more than two years after the Communications Ministry shuttered the private radio station just as it was about to broadcast for the first time,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported Thursday. “Based in the southwestern port city of Douala, the station was founded by Pius Njawï¿œ, a veteran independent journalist and 1991 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award.” Njawï¿œ also won the Percy Qoboza award in 2004 from the National Association of Black Journalists.
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