Questions on Reporting Assumptions, Photo Choice
The suicide of Miami politician Arthur Teele Jr. Wednesday night in the lobby of the Miami Herald building — and the resulting firing of a Herald columnist — has spawned a spate of stories and protests over the media’s role, but John Head, author of a book on depression among black men, raises a basic question central to the coverage.
“The greatest danger in reporting on a high-profile suicide such as Arthur Teele’s comes when the story says or implies that the most evident facts explain the act of suicide,” Head, author of “Standing in the Shadows” (2004), told Journal-isms today.
“In Teele’s case, the facts that he had been publicly humiliated, faced legal charges and was having his political career crumble around him have to be reported. But they shouldn’t be reported in a way that says suicide was a rational reaction to those circumstances.
“How do you avoid that? By reporting information that helps readers understand suicide,” said Head, former editorial columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who has also worked at the Detroit Free Press and USA Today.
“Experts on suicide and suicide prevention can be interviewed about how reaching the point of suicide happens over time and that there are points along the way where intervention could have saved a life. Mental health experts can talk about the connection between emotional trauma or emotional disorders and suicide, and how getting help for those problems can prevent suicide. And coverage should include resources such as suicide hotlines where readers can go for help.
“Whether this kind of information is included in the main story or sidebars, it should be there if newspapers or other media want to meet their responsibility to their audiences.”
As the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Thursday, “Hours after an alternative newspaper hit the street Wednesday bearing lurid tales of sex and corruption about him, former Miami City Commissioner Arthur Teele Jr. walked into the lobby of The Miami Herald, put a semi-automatic pistol to the right side of his head and pulled the trigger.”
Many Herald readers were incensed by the Herald’s graphic front-page photo of Teele’s body lying in a pool of blood on the lobby floor, the Herald reported today. It cited the photo as one reason the Herald “was swamped with e-mails and phone calls.” Executive Editor Tom Fiedler said the photo was an ”essential element” to the reporting of the incident.
Today, Miami’s NBC affiliate WTVJ-TV reported, protesters gathered outside Miami City Hall “blaming governments, the courts and the media for causing former commissioner Art Teele to commit suicide.
“The protesters stacked up copies of this week’s Miami New Times and poured paint on the papers.
“The cover story titled ‘Tales of Teele: Sleaze Stories’ was printed Wednesday, just hours before Teele shot himself. Some are blaming the article for his death.”
Journalists discussed whether they shared responsibility for Teele’s death.
Nick Madigan wrote in the Baltimore Sun that “Although it is fair to say that such probes by reporters, acting in their capacity as public watchdogs, are normally coupled with investigations by detectives and district attorneys’ offices, the very nature of journalism requires that the worst of the offenses be splashed across front pages and beamed by TV and radio into thousands of homes. Such exposure can be overwhelming.
“Still, there is usually no way of knowing how the subject of such scrutiny will react. In Teele’s case, it appears that he simply could not handle the pressure of both the indictments and the relentless focus of the press.”
The Herald noted a few other suicide cases linked to negative news coverage but quoted Kelly McBride, leader of the Poynter Institute’s ethics group, saying such cases were extremely rare.
“Gregory Lewis, a black South Florida Sun-Sentinel reporter who has written about black suicide in recent years, told me . . . . ‘I’m usually a fan and supporter of alternative media, but in this case, I do not support the Miami New Times; this is the kind of story that makes me feel badly about this profession,'” media columnist Amy Alexander, co-author of the 2000 book “Lay My Burden Down,” another work on black suicides, told Journal-isms.
- Grim photograph didn’t belong on front page (Letters, Miami Herald)
- Suicide Remains Taboo Topic Among Blacks (Joi Gilliam, Black College Wire)
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200 Say Miami Columnist Deserves Job Back
More that 200 journalists, many of them past or present staff members of the Miami Herald or its sister paper El Nuevo Herald, have signed an open letter asking the Herald to reinstate columnist Jim DeFede, who was fired Wednesday after secretly taping a phone conversation with former county commissioner Arthur Teele Jr. before Teele committed suicide.
Recalling the taping in a story by Abby Goodnough in the New York Times, DeFede said, “I realized Art was headed in a direction that scared me,” and so in the heat of the moment turned on his tape recorder. “Mr. Teele seemed more stable when they hung up after 25 minutes, Mr. DeFede said, and even calmer when he called a second time from The Herald’s lobby. Mr. DeFede was working at home, and Mr. Teele said he was leaving a packet for him at the security desk.
“The Herald called minutes later to inform him of the shooting,” Goodnough wrote.
“DeFede told editors he had taped the conversation, at least part of which was reportedly off the record.”
“Florida is one of only about a dozen states that require both parties to consent to the taping of a phone conversation, legal experts said,” explained Joe Strupp Thursday in Editor & Publisher. “The state’s statute says that ‘all parties must consent to the recording or the disclosure of the contents of any wire, oral or electronic communication in Florida. Recording or disclosing without the consent of all parties is a felony’ (unless it is a first offense, then it is a misdemeanor),” he wrote.
Strupp also reported that law enforcement officials in Florida said they were reviewing whether to prosecute DeFede.
The “open letter to Miami Herald Publisher Jesus Diaz and Executive Editor Tom Fiedler,” whose signators included Johnny Diaz of the Boston Globe, Herald columnist Dave Barry, who is on leave; Oscar Díaz López, news editor of Rumbo; Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. and Globe columnist Adrian Walker, said, “We believe firing him was an overreaction to an offense that should be viewed in the context of an intense, immediate episode during which he had little time to consider his actions.
“Further, we are concerned that Jim’s willingness in the past to offend powerful figures in Miami and, at times, his own employers, may have contributed to the hasty decision to fire him. We believe that Jim’s determination to be a voice for the poor and powerless in Miami makes him an asset to the community and to The Herald, even if his words may at times make some people uncomfortable.”
In the Times story, Orville Schell, the dean of the University of California Graduate School of Journalism, said of the Herald, “in the present climate, where no media outlet feels it can sustain another hit, they’re reacting with incredible rigidity and very punctiliously.”
- Herald bosses: Columnist violated ethical standards (Christina Hoag, Miami Herald)
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Blogger Sparks Coverage of Missing Black Latina
“Eleven days after a young, pregnant woman who is black and Hispanic disappeared in Philadelphia, the national media are giving her the type of attention they previously devoted to white women,” Mark Memmott reported today in USA Today.
“LaToyia Figueroa, 24, who is five months pregnant and the mother of a 7-year-old daughter, was last seen July 18 near her boyfriend’s home. Thursday, police searched a park near there for clues.
“Her story was updated throughout Thursday on all three cable news networks: CNN, Fox and MSNBC. Today, all four major broadcast networks plan to run the story on their morning shows.”
But the story of the sudden news media coverage is also about a blogger named Richard Blair. “Thanks largely to the efforts of a local Internet blogger, the Figueroa case is receiving plenty of national coverage, particularly from cable news,” Larry Eichel and Thomas J. Gibbons Jr. wrote today in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“‘These missing-persons stories happen every day,’ said the blogger, Richard Blair, who operates a progressive political Web site at www.allspinzone.com. ‘But which become newsworthy? A lot of it has to do with skin color and economics, but more important, I think, is what catches somebody’s eye. If you get the word out, news organizations will respond. That’s what we did.’
Referring to the woman who disappeared in Aruba, Dori J. Maynard, president of Maynard Institute, said in the Inquirer story, “Natalee Holloway is not the first time we’ve seen heavy media coverage of a missing white woman, or criticism of that coverage. This is the first time we’ve seen any results of that criticism. It’s a start.”
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Armstrong Williams Renounces GOP Cheerleading
“Armstrong Williams says he has changed,” Bob Cusack reported Thursday in The Hill newspaper, which covers Capitol Hill.
“Nearly seven months after his controversial contracts with the federal government came close to destroying his career, the conservative pundit says the experience has prompted him to make adjustments in his life.
“‘I used to hold fundraisers for [Republican candidates]. That?ll never happen again,’ he said.
“In an interview at his Capitol Hill office last week, Williams said he will no longer play the role of cheerleader for GOP politicians. He is also committed to ‘a balance’ in his interviews with lawmakers and regularly invites Democrats onto his radio show.”
Williams said the New York Times provided the fairest coverage of the scandal, that his advertising and public relations business “lost hundreds of thousands of dollars,? and that after interviewing Democrats on his show, “I realized they love America as much as I do.?
Williams is to be awarded this year’s “Thumbs Down” award by the National Association of Black Journalists.
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Milwaukee TV Reporter Lynise Weeks Dies at 41
“As a young girl in New York, Lynise Weeks dreamed of becoming a television news reporter,” Amy Rabideau Silvers wrote Thursday in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“Her passion and determination made that happen, then served Milwaukee viewers as Weeks became consumer reporter at WTMJ-TV (Channel 4).
“‘People saw she was a regular person,’ said anchorman and friend Mike Jacobs. ‘She loved Milwaukee. And Milwaukee loved her.’
“Lynise Jean Weeks died Thursday of kidney problems, nearly a week after discontinuing dialysis. She was 41.
“Since 1999, she experienced one health problem after another, including diabetes, lupus and kidney disease. A double kidney transplant in 2003 brought new hope but ultimately failed, as WTMJ viewers learned in special reports. The transplanted kidneys had to be removed.”
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Boston Black Journalists Hit “Most Powerful” List
“Thank you for publishing your revealing list of Boston’s most powerful people,” begins a letter signed by the Boston Association of Black Journalists in Boston magazine. “It’s inconceivable that such a list would not include the Reverend Dr. Ray Hammond, chair of the Boston Foundation, or his wife, Dr. Gloria White Hammond, an internationally recognized humanitarian; or Mel Miller, publisher of the Bay State Banner, New England’s oldest minority-owned newspaper; or Kevin Cohee, chairman and CEO of Unity One Bank, the second-largest minority-owned bank in the country, to name only a few omissions.
” . . . Our belief is that these kinds of omissions would not occur if Boston magazine had a more diverse staff and a corporate culture that values different experiences, different ways of thinking, different Rolodexes, and, most important, different methods of assessing influence based not on wealth but on contributions to the greater good of the city and all its neighborhoods. That would not only be good business but even better journalism.
“It really isn’t all that interesting that a few rich white guys ? and a few rich white women ? have most of the so-called power in this city. Of more interest to us and probably to your readers is what these ‘power’ people do with their so-called influence.”
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Sun’s Gregory Kane Caught in Crossfire With Station
“WBAL radio commentator Ron Smith wrote a scathing web site attack against The Sun on July 20,” columnist Russ Smith wrote Wednesday in the Baltimore City Paper. “What led to the broadcaster’s snit was that The Sun decided that its best columnist, Gregory Kane -? the token conservative ?- could no longer chat with Smith on his talk show.”
The same Wednesday, the station posted a response to WBAL from Steve Sullivan, the Sun’s executive news editor/multimedia, who said that, “while some parts of the relationship” with the station “are working well, the name-calling in the talk shows is a problem. And until we can work through this problem, we are asking our reporters not to appear on the talk shows.
“Greg Kane, as you point out, does Ron’s show every other Wednesday and he was the first person to be affected by this decision.”
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Short Takes
- Keith Harriston, deputy metropolitan editor at the Washington Post, Thursday was named the paper’s next metropolitan editor, the No. 2 position in the Metro section. Harriston has been reporter, assistant city editor and out-of-town editor for the national news desk. His promotion is the latest at the Post for African Americans since some staff members expressed their unhappiness last fall with the paper’s progress on diversity.
- In Michigan, the Dearborn Press & Guide has been accused of publishing a racist cartoon, WDIV-TV reported Thursday. “The cartoon depicted what appeared to be a Mexican man wearing a sombrero who had just crawled through a hole in the border. The man in the sombrero was holding his hand out to what appeared to be a white man who was labeled as a ‘taxpayer.’ The dialogue for the man with the sombrero read as follows: ‘No amigo, I’m not interested in the immigration office. Just the welfare office!'”
- Court TV is marking the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with events that include screenings of a documentary about slain civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo premiering Aug. 8, and a gathering of people who marched from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. A screening and panel discussion of “Home of the Brave” takes place Aug. 1 at the Time Warner Center in New York; a town hall meeting on the act is scheduled for Aug. 3 at the state Capitol in Montgomery, Ala.; and a panel discussion takes place Aug. 4 at the Time Warner Center’s Park Café in New York. Liuzzo’s daughter, Mary Liuzzo Lilleboe, is to be at the Aug. 1 discussion.
- An op-ed piece by Clint C. Wilson, Howard University journalism professor, has been running in the black press on the New York Times Co.’s proposed “black” newspaper in Gainesville, Fla. “Their intent is not likely to serve but to exploit,” he said of such products. “We do not expect to see the day when employees of the Gainesville Guardian will be called part of the Black Press by anyone other than themselves.”
- “Hispanic media giant Univision has struck a multi-year deal with Google to incorporate its various search products into the Univision Online network of Web sites,” Mike Shields reported Thursday in Mediaweek. “According to a study conducted by Nielsen Media Research, Univision.com is the most visited Spanish-language Web site among Spanish-dominant and bilingual Hispanic Internet users 16 years of age or older.”
- Add James Hill of BET.com to Monday’s list of African American film critics who have reviewed the movie “Hustle and Flow.” “It is not a wake-up call or an attempt to exploit an already over-exposed facet of Black life. It is a human story of will and the desire to live a life you never thought you could,” Hill wrote.
- “Radio talk-show host Michael Graham was suspended by station WMAL-AM yesterday for repeatedly describing Islam as a ‘terrorist organization’ on his program,” Paul Farhi reported today in the Washington Post.
- “There was a lot of audience anger when liberal talker Air America took over parts of local station WHAT-AM’s airtime,” Kristin Holmes of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote Thursday on the paper’s blog. “The move forced the station (1340) billed as ‘The Voice of the African-American community,’ to shuffle its talk lineup. . . . Now, ratings have tumbled so badly, you can’t even find WHAT on the charts. ‘Too few listeners to measure.'”
- “The Black Family Channel has signed a programming-distribution with Verizon. Under the agreement, Verizon will carry the channel on Verizon Fios TV when it launches later this year,” Black Talent News reported on Monday.
- “A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists met with jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller in the Alexandria Detention Center tonight to deliver a message of support and call for an immediate end to her imprisonment,” the group reported Thursday. “Paul Steiger, CPJ chairman and Wall Street Journal managing editor, headed the delegation, which included Tom Brokaw of NBC News and CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper. The group talked with Miller for a half hour though a clear plastic partition.”
- “It?s nice that Marin Alsop, a woman, got to be conductor in Baltimore. But for John Britton it raises a different set of questions,” reads the headline on the Nieman Watchdog site. They start with “Why aren?t there more blacks performing or leading in classical music?” Britton,a former reporter and managing editor of Jet, is assistant to the president for special projects at Meharry Medical College in Nashville.
- A three-part series on the history of the National Association of Black Journalists, by NABJ’s unofficial historian Wayne Dawkins, began in the July 21-27 edition of the weekly Atlanta Voice. The organization holds its convention in the city Aug. 3-7.
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