2nd Writer, Missing Since Thursday, Turns Up
A St. Petersburg Times reporter in Baton Rouge, La., as part of the paper’s hurricane coverage was shot and wounded last night, but is “fine” now and is being flown by air ambulance back to Florida, a Times editor said.
Meanwhile, missing New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter Leslie Williams, another black journalist, spoke Monday to his editor, Jim Amoss, Gabriel Sherman reported today in the New York Observer.
“‘This is best news I’ve heard in days,’ Mr. Amoss said by phone Sept. 5. ‘He was covering the story from Mississippi under hellacious conditions. He was on assignment and we’re just now hearing from him, we haven’t had a chance to debrief him yet,'” Sherman wrote.
Marcus Franklin, 34, a general assignment reporter at the St. Petersburg Times, had been in New Orleans and Baton Rouge since Sept. 1, Neville Green, the Times’ deputy managing editor/metro, told Journal-isms today, following daily hurricane developments and staying in a Baton Rouge hotel after spending nights sleeping in his car.
“Marcus was stopped at an intersection in Baton Rouge late last night when a man approached him and asked for money,” Green wrote to his staff this afternoon. “When Marcus tried to drive off, the man fired a shot, which hit Marcus in the stomach. Luckily for Marcus, the bullet went across his stomach rather than into it. He was taken to Baton Rouge General and called us at lunchtime today to report that doctors say they will leave the bullet where it is for the time being, lodged close to his navel, and allow it to work itself closer to the surface. Marcus is still in the hospital but hopes he can fly back to Tampa tonight. One of our staffers in the New Orleans area is on the way to the hospital.”
Green said Franklin was “very, very lucky,” that the bullet went sideways and that it was only a .22 caliber weapon. There is no suspect. “Marcus said he can hardly remember it,” Green said of the incident.
Photographer Mack Goethe was taking Franklin to the airport, where an air ambulance was to fly him back to Tampa. Business reporter Jack Belich was to meet Franklin on the plane.
The paper has five reporters and three photographers in New Orleans, a reporter and photographer in Houston, and a reporter and a couple of photographers in Mississippi, Green said. Franklin has been at the paper about three years, arriving from the Dayton Daily News in Ohio.
“It’s a poignant reminder that this story continues to be a significantly dangerous one for journalists to cover. We’re all thinking good thoughts for Marcus and everyone else who is in harm’s way covering this catastrophe,” said Eric Deggans, president of the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists.
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
CNN Helps Rescue Donna Brazile’s Sister
“This afternoon on The Situation Room, CNN political contributor Donna Brazile pleaded for helping [find] one of her sisters,” Brian Stelter wrote last night on his media blog.
“‘My sister Sheila is still missing,’ Brazile said. ‘. . . Sheila in an assisted living facility. I’ve talked to FEMA. I’ve talked to everybody. Wolf, you would be amazed the people I’ve talked to.’
“Brazile gave out the address of the facility. The interview aired around 4:55 pm. Someone from the Fish & Wildlife Service was listening, because they dispatched a boat to the place where her sister was last known to have been.
“‘The Fish and Wildlife workers found a house with six people still alive, but completely out of food and water. It’s not clear that they could have lasted much longer,’ a tipster says . . .”
This afternoon, Brazile, campaign manager for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, sent out an e-mail message saying, “Thanks for your prayers and expressions of hope and support. I am happy to report that all of my missing family members (My dad Lionel, sisters Sheila, Alesia, Zeola and their families) are alive and safe. My other siblings have been reunited with missing loved ones and my extended family continues to endure in cities across the country. (Note: I never thought I could fall in love with so many people in Texas and Mississippi, but we are grateful for their compassion and generosity in taking care of our citizens stranded in shelters).”
She continued,”Unfortunately, for many families, thousands of people are still missing and stranded,” and said she would “outline some ideas that I believe that will help our families adjust temporarily to this crisis,” in the coming days.
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
NABJ Urges Caution on Use of “Refugee,” “Looting”
The National Association of Black Journalists said today it applauded “those media organizations such as The Washington Post, the Miami Herald, National Public Radio, the Tulsa (Okla.) Daily World, the Boston Globe and the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger- Enquirer who have chosen to avoid” using the word “refugee” to describe those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, “and urge other outlets including the New York Times and the Associated Press to re-examine their use of the term.
“In addition,” the association said in a news release, “NABJ suggests that editors continue to exercise scrutiny when describing the behavior of people in the disaster area as ‘looting,’ relying on first-hand, direct observation and factual confidence that the actions in news reports and in photographs are indeed the criminal act before affixing the label.”
In a column today in the Washington Times, Adrienne Washington said that “Blacks were livid and worried that ‘refugee’ conjured an image that set apart the evacuees and could marginalize their circumstances and need for help.” However, on his blog today, Derek Rose of the New York Daily News said the term had been applied to American citizens before without objection.
Bush joins those opposed to word “refugees” (Associated Press)
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
NABJ, SPJ Announce Aid for Hurricane Victims
The National Association of Black Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists separately announced funds today to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina.
NABJ said it had established a relief fund to help NABJ members and their families in need in the aftermath of the hurricane, and would seed the fund with $10,000.
“NABJ will also use its job network to help place NABJ members facing unemployment because of the storm and its destruction. There are nearly 200 NABJ members ?- students and professionals alike — living, working and studying in the affected areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and coastal Alabama.” NABJ President Bryan Monroe, an assistant vice president at Knight Ridder, was in southern Mississippi to help produce the Biloxi Sun-Herald during the storm’s aftermath.
“The Society of Professional Journalists and its supporting foundation, the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, today announced that they are making up to $25,000 available to journalism students who are forced to relocate to another college or university due to Hurricane Katrina,” SPJ said.
“Students whose schools in the hurricane affected areas have shut and are admitted to other schools this semester will qualify for a one-time $250 grant from the foundation to help replace books and study materials lost in the hurricane and subsequent flooding. The Society will administer the fund. Membership in SPJ is not a requirement to qualify for this assistance.”
The hurricane region includes historically black colleges and universities, who have been covering the storm’s aftermath for the Black College Wire.
The South Asian Journalists Association has also created a Web page, “What South Asians Are Doing to Help.”
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
