Manly’s Editor: “I Can’t Put Salt on His Tail”
Boston Herald editorial columnist Howard Manly abruptly quit the paper Friday by sending a one-sentence e-mail message to his supervisor, editorial page editor Rachelle Cohen, she told Journal-isms today.
“I am resigning as of today,” it said.
“I actually couldn’t make a printout, since it was on the internal computer system, so I messaged him back, saying, ‘if you return to the building, would you be kind enough to put that in writing?'” Cohen continued.
“On Monday, I was looking at his desk — he hadn’t cleared it off — and I saw an envelope with my name on it, repeating the one-sentence message.”
Manly, who wrote three times a week, had been assigned to the editorial page since March 2004. Before that, his column appeared in the news pages. He joined the Herald in 2001 after nine years at the Boston Globe as city desk reporter and sports columnist.
He is also president of the Boston Association of Black Journalists, and a “guest host” for public station WGBH-TV’s weekly “Basic Black,” formerly “Say Brother.”
Melvin Miller, publisher of the weekly Bay State Banner, told Journal-isms on Monday night that Manly was working on an anniversary project at the paper. Miller said the 30,000-circulation Banner had “engaged his services” to work on a booklet for the Banner commemorating its 40th anniversary and that the project would be completed Oct. 29. He referred questions about Manly’s plans to Manly, who he said was working at the Banner on the anniversary project. However, Manly could not be reached for comment.
“I think it was sort of a classless way to depart,” Cohen said. “If he found something to make him happy, I’m delighted for him — but we don’t know anything about that. What saddens me most is that it is a major opportunity to have pretty much carte blanche to write about anything that inspires you, and to have in excess of 200,000 readers every day. He had the chance to set this town on its ear, and I don’t know how you walk away from that.
“As my mother would say, ‘I can’t put salt on his tail'” to prevent him from leaving, she said.
On his media blog for the Boston Phoenix today, Mark Jurkowitz wrote, “Among the other ironies here is that Manly is currently being featured in a Herald campaign to highlight its columnists and was depicted in a full page ad that ran in the paper on Monday describing the group as ‘Tough & Truthful: Not Just Pretty Faces.’
“Before his Herald departure, Manly had left previous jobs at The Boston Globe and at WGBH-TV’s (Channel 2) ‘Greater Boston’ under equally sudden and head-scratching circumstances.”
Lucy Sholley, a spokeswoman for WGBH, said Manly remains a “guest host” of “Basic Black.”
Cohen said she was seeking freelance columnists to write about local issues in Manly’s stead.
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Baquet: “No Particular Pressure” as Black Editor
Dean Baquet, named last week as the next top editor of the Los Angeles Times, was asked today on National Public Radio’s “News and Notes” with Ed Gordon, “how much pressure do you feel, if any, being the first African American to head this post?”
“You know, I feel a lot pressure from a lot of places. I don’t feel any particular pressure in that regard,” he replied. “I mean, I think the fact that I’m the first black editor of one of the three or four big great American newspapers is terrific. I think it’s part — it gives me some perspective. It lets me think about a lot of important aspects of coverage in the newspaper. I don’t feel any more pressure because of it. Maybe that’s because it’s what–it’s been part of my life since I started in newspapers when I was 19 years old.”
“So more pride than pressure?” replied Gordon.
“Yeah, that’s a good way to put it,” said Baquet. “You’re better at this than I am. That’s good.”
“Let me ask you this, though,” said Gordon. “There will be certain expectations that will be placed upon you from African Americans who will expect certain things from an African American who sits in that seat: perhaps wider and better coverage of people of color; perhaps the idea of putting certain things on the map that would not have, quite frankly, been there had a white male been running the institution. Do you look forward to being able to do that?”
Baquet: “I think that there’s going to be a lot pressure on the L.A. Times to cover a lot of different local communities differently than it has in the past. And to be perfectly honest, I think that there will be a lot of instances in which I will resist that kind of pressure; some cases in which I’ll listen to it and I think people will have a point. But I happen to be in charge of covering a community that’s the most varied community in America, not only African Americans, but Asian Americans, Latinos and every other group that you can imagine in the world is represented in huge numbers in Los Angeles. And I think that’s got to be a gigantic part of the way we cover the community. And I suspect I’m going to get phone calls from each one of those communities and I’m going to listen. But in the end, I think everybody is best served if we just cover our communities aggressively, truthfully, honestly and fairly, no matter which communities they are.”
- The Baquet Times: L.A. Editor Bucks Budget Burden (Tom Scocca, New York Observer)
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Construction Crew Sprays Memphis TV Reporter
Last week, reporter Craig Bell of WPTY-TV in Memphis was sent to investigate claims that a builder might have caused flooding in a Memphis subdivision. Bell and his photographer confronted workers at the site and, when they refused to answer his questions, he pursued them. According to Bell, the folks from C&H Construction then sent a water truck to spray him down, according to the NewsBlues Web site.
In fact, news director Jim Turpin told Journal-isms, they sprayed him not once, but three times, “and were laughing at him. They obviously didn’t want us there.”
After the story, anchor Cameron Harper ad-libbed, “We don’t shut off our cameras because some fool doesn’t like the question,” NewsBlues reported.
Turpin said he spoke with the owner of the construction company and said there was enough evidence to ask the firm to pay for any damage to the station’s equipment. He said, however, that “Craig does not want to press assault charges.”
The larger issue, Turpin said, is that “this is Memphis and this is the South. The media have been pretty complacent. We’re a bit different [from] what this community is used to. Craig is a strong, aggressive reporter. This is a great place to live, but there are things [that] go on, that the media have contributed to with their passivity.”
WPTV is an ABC affiliate that trails at third in the Nielsen ratings.
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Editors Plead Limited Resources on Darfur Coverage
“New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof’s attack on the press for underreporting the atrocities and genocide in Darfur, which ran in today’s paper, has drawn the ire of some newspaper editors who said they are doing the best they can with what they have,” Joe Strupp wrote Tuesday in Editor & Publisher.
“Limited resources, as well as a war in Iraq, terrorist coverage, and, some admit, a lack of understanding or interest by readers in the Sudanese region’s problems, are all part of the reason that the Darfur story is not top of budget.”
Among those quoted was John Yearwood, world editor of the Miami Herald and treasurer of the National Association of Black Journalists, who said, “If we don’t cover the Michael Jacksons, that will be our demise. That is what the public wants. But, we ought to make the commitment to also give Darfur or Rwanda attention if we can.”
“More than two years have passed since the beginning of what Mr. Bush acknowledges is the first genocide of the 21st century,” Kristof wrote Tuesday, “yet Mr. Bush barely manages to get the word ‘Darfur’ out of his mouth. Still, it seems hypocritical of me to rage about Mr. Bush’s negligence, when my own beloved institution – the American media – has been at least as passive as Mr. Bush.”
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Benita D. Newton, Va. Reporter, Dies at 25
“Benita D. Newton, a business reporter for The Virginian-Pilot, died Tuesday afternoon after collapsing at work. She was 25,” Kate Wiltrout reported today in the Virginia paper.
“The cause of death was undetermined. She was taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
“A double graduate of the University of Alabama who came to the newspaper from the St. Petersburg Times in June 2004, Newton covered small businesses and nonprofit organizations.
“. . . While in school, she worked for newspapers in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Ala., and served for more than two years as a volunteer instructor with West Alabama AIDS Outreach. She spent a summer in New York City, interning at Newsweek magazine.
“With her MBA in hand, she began a year long internship at the St. Petersburg Times, then moved to Portsmouth and began working at The Pilot’s main office in downtown Norfolk.”
Newton was last in this column in May as one of the professionals meeting with nine Hampton University journalism students who ultimately decided they would try to improve their paper within the existing campus climate rather than attempt to start a newspaper independent of the administration. Newton was also the newly elected Southside vice president of the Hampton Roads Black Media Professionals.
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Tony Jordan, Ala. News Director, Dead at 37
“WEUP-FM/AM radio’s Tony Jordan, whose tenacious pursuit of the news earned praise from listeners and scorn from some local politicians, died Friday morning of pneumonia,” Steve Doyle reported Saturday in Alabama’s Huntsville Times.
“He was 37.
“Jordan became the hip-hop and R&B station’s news director in 1998 and also hosted a popular afternoon talk show, ‘WEUP Talk,’ geared toward his mostly black audience. Earlier in his career, Jordan was a reporter and morning anchor for Huntsville’s WAAY-TV Channel 31 and worked for several radio and TV stations in Indiana.”
“. . . Friends and co-workers described Jordan as a quintessential journalist: bright, well read, curious, determined to find the truth.
“. . . A member of the National Association of Black Journalists, Jordan also reached out to Oakwood College and Alabama A&M University communications students.”
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AAJA Honoring Matsukawa, Rhodes, Grimm, Rivera
“At its national convention next month in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the Asian American Journalists Association will present four of its prestigious national awards to Lori Matsukawa of Seattle’s KING 5, former Chevron Corporation executive Skip Rhodes, Detroit Free Press newsroom recruiter Joe Grimm and Washington Post staff writer Ray Rivera,” AAJA announced Tuesday.
Matsukawa, a co-anchor with NBC affiliate KING 5 in Seattle and a founding member of AAJA’s Seattle chapter, is to receive the lifetime achievement award.
Rhodes’ involvement with AAJA “has meant that more than $340,000 in scholarship money was awarded by the San Francisco Bay Area chapter and the national organization.” He receives the Special Recognition Award.
Grimm, who receives the Leadership in Diversity Award, “has been not only a tireless champion of bringing into the profession journalists with talent or promise, but also of elevating their game once they’re there.”
Rivera, recipient of AAJA’s Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice for Asian Americans, which comes with a $5,000 prize, “was a military affairs reporter for the Seattle Times when he wrote ‘Suspicion in the Ranks,’ a nine-part investigative series chronicling the origins and collapse of the spy case against Chaplain James Yee.”
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Star Tribune Promotes Drew, Sanchez
“The Star Tribune has promoted Duchesne Drew to be assistant managing editor for business news and Rene Sanchez to be Sunday editor,” Neal Gendler reported in the Minneapolis paper on Tuesday.
Drew, 38, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, leads a staff of more than 30. He joined the newspaper in 1993 as an intern and later that year became a staff reporter. In 1997 he moved to the Dallas Morning News, returning in 1999. He moved to editing in 2001 and took over the St. Paul bureau in February 2003.
Sanchez, 39, joined the Star Tribune last fall after 17 years at the Washington Post. Before coming to the Star Tribune, he was the Post’s Los Angeles bureau chief. Sanchez said, “I’m hoping to help fill the Sunday paper with smart, surprising stories our readers can’t put down.”
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San Antonio Honors Spanish-Language TV Pioneer
Emilio Nicolas, who left a career in medical research to become a pioneer in Spanish-language television, was to be honored today by the San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists with its Henry Guerra Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Journalism.
“When retired Spanish-language television executive Emilio Nicolas Sr. started, however, there was no industry,” Elda Silva wrote Sunday in the San Antonio Express-News. “There was only a single station: KCOR-TV, Channel 41, in San Antonio.
“In 1961, Nicolas joined a small group of investors to purchase the station, which became the cornerstone of the Spanish International Communications Corp. station group, the forerunner of industry leader Univision.”
“If it had not been for his foresight, there would not have been Hispanic television” in the United States, Joe Sandoval, president of the association, said in the story.
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Black Radio Said to Remain in Danger of Decline
In 1995 there were 274 black-owned radio stations, Annette Walker reported today on The Black World Today Web Site, citing figures from the National Association of Black-Owned Broadcasters and a study by the DuBois-Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y.
“Today, there are 240 black-owned radio stations,” James Winston, executive director of NABOB, said in the story.
Walker concludes her 2,300-word piece with:
“The good news is that the decline in the losses of Black-owned stations seems to have reached a plateau ?- for now. However, the factors that have caused the decline in numbers ?- continued deregulation with no consideration of the general lack of financial resources in the African-American community, adverse advertising practices that have defied FCC scrutiny and the financial ease with which corporations can force out Black-owned stations?remain. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing in place to stem the potential for a future decline in Black radio.”
Asians Debate Politics of Whitening Skin
“Whitening products have been a mainstay in Asia for decades, but cosmetics industry officials said they have emerged as a hot seller in the United States only in the last four years. Whitening products now rack up $10 million in sales a year, according to the market research firm Euromonitor,” Jia-Rui Chong wrote Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times.
“But their popularity has sparked a debate in the Asian American community about the politics of whitening. Qui and others say the quest for white skin is an Asian tradition. But others ? younger, American-born Asians ? question whether the obsession with an ivory complexion has more to do with blending into white American culture, or even a subtle prejudice against those with darker skin.”
Rene Astudillo, executive director of the Asian American Journalists Association, told Journal-isms today that among Asians, “light and dark skin could both be something to rave about.” In the Philippines, where his roots are, he said, dark skin is prized.
Short Takes
- Karla Harshaw, the editor of Ohio’s Springfield News-Sun who underwent surgery July 11 for the removal of a recently diagnosed brain tumor, is back home, Sylvia Krupp, the paper’s human resources director, told Journal-isms Tuesday. Harshaw is immediate past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
- The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is calling on Mexican President Vicente Fox to intervene in the conflict between members of the Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos and journalists working at Noticias, Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca, in the state of Oaxaca, the association said today. “The conflict has led to efforts by union members to shut down the paper. In recent weeks, 31 journalists were barricaded in their office building by members of CROC in an effort to prevent the paper from publishing, according to press reports.”
- “Boston natives LeRoy Peeples and Alvin Childs, the president and marketing director, respectively, of the influential and controversial rap magazine The Source, were arraigned on three counts each of attempted murder” after a sidewalk shootout in New York, the Boston Herald reported Monday.
- The New York Sun on Monday reported on the Harlem Book Fair, at which veteran journalist Wayne Dawkins moderated a panel Saturday on “Black Political Writing in the 21st Century,” and discussed Dawkins’ books “Black Journalists: The NABJ Story” (1997) and its companion volume “Rugged Waters: Black Journalists Swim the Mainstream” (2003) in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the National Association of Black Journalists.
- Lovell Beaulieu, editor of the Gary edition of the Post-Tribune in Northwest Indiana, adds some names to the list of black journalists who attended St. Augustine High School in New Orleans, as mentioned Friday: Himself, Dwight Ott of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Stan Verrett of ESPN and Paul Beaulieu, his brother, who hosts the New Orleans cable access show “Between The Lines.”
- Media agent and former CNN reporter Marc Watts and Chicago television anchor Diann Burns are the subject of a three-page article in the August issue of Ebony magazine by Lynn Norment, “For High-Profile Chicago Media Couple, Family Life Tops the News.” Watts will be part of a panel called “How to Make Serious Money and Remain a Journalist” moderated by Journal-isms Aug. 4 at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Atlanta.
- “Former Congresswoman Cardiss Collins, who is currently chair of the Task Force on Television Measurement, took issue Tuesday with the lack of diversity represented by the six witnesses called to testify tomorrow before the Senate Commerce Committee on the FAIR Ratings Act,” Katy Bachman reported Tuesday in Mediaweek. Eight prominent black leaders came out against proposed legislation, MediaLifeMagazine added.
- “The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the detention of independent Cuban journalist Oscar Mario González, who has been held in police custody since Friday,” the organization said Monday. “González, a journalist with the independent news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro, was arrested around 9 a.m. on July 22, about a block from his house, as he was going to buy bread, according to colleague Ana Leonor Díaz.”
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