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TV News, Race and Katrina

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2 Black Journalists on “Meet the Press”

For the first time since it went on the air on NBC on Nov. 6, 1947, Sunday’s “Meet the Press” included two black journalists.

Gwen Ifill of PBS and Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post joined Judy Woodruff, formerly of CNN, and Byron York of the National Review.

The development came seven weeks after a study by the National Urban League, “Sunday Morning Apartheid,” found that “Three of the four programs presenting political roundtable discussions had no blacks in their roundtable discussion in more than 85 percent of the shows broadcast,” among other findings.

Asked for the reasoning behind the breakthrough, NBC spokeswoman Barbara Levin said, “Gwen, Gene and Judy are all top notch reporters.”

CNN’s “Reliable Sources” media show also featured black journalists Sunday. Host Howard Kurtz asked, “journalists have discovered the poor and black residents of New Orleans left behind. Why have the media devoted so little attention to this other America?”

With him to discuss the question were Ellis Cose, author and Newsweek contributing editor; Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune columnist; and radio talk show host Blanquita Cullum.

But for its next reporters’ roundtable, to discuss the nomination of John Roberts as chief justice, the show reverted to an all-white team — Gloria Borger of CBS News, Bill Press, former CNN commentator, and Bob Zelnick, chairman of the journalism department at Boston University,

A study by the group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that, as of 2003. “White guests outnumbered all others on Reliable Sources, 194 to 9, making the show?s guest roster 96 percent white.”

On ABC’s “This Week” yesterday, the panel included George Will, Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson; and on “Fox News Sunday,” Juan Williams held down his usual spot as the sole black journalist alongside Chris Wallace, Mara Liasson, Brit Hume and Bill Kristol.

On “Meet the Press,” Ifill and Robinson spent considerable time discussing Iraq and tax cuts before the conversation turned to race.

Ifill: “You know, I’m going to take a line from Gene Robinson’s column this morning where he talked about Kanye West, the rapper, coming out and saying George Bush doesn’t care about black people. Well, even though what—to a lot of people—and Condoleezza Rice has said, ‘Oh, come on, that’s ridiculous’—the question is the wrong question, whether he personally cares. This isn’t about whether the president is a racist or whether anybody in his family is. It’s a question about whether this catastrophe exposed a divide that was already there in a way that allowed not only black folks but a lot of white folks, too, to say, ‘There is a real problem here.’ . . .

“What this has exposed is that this is not a political solution. This is not a political problem. This is a social concern, which has been roiling for a while. But that it took something this catastrophic for the president to address, in the way he did, in his speech Thursday night, and, even then, only addressing it as a regional concern.”

Robinson said: “One thing it shows is that—is that problems of race and class don’t get better if you just kind of ignore them and pretend they’re not there, which is, essentially what—you know, what this country has done for a while. And it—Katrina certainly did kind of pull back the facade. I was stunned in New Orleans at how many black New Orleanians would tell me with real conviction that somehow the levee breaks had been engineered in order to save the French Quarter and the Garden District at the expense of the Lower Ninth Ward, which is almost all black.”

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Is BET “Pulling Its Weight” on Katrina?

The question from Farai Chideya on National Public Radio’s “News and Notes” today drew answers that must have given heartburn to the executives at Black Entertainment Television:

“BET is undergoing some restructuring,” Chideya asked. “Reginald Hudlin was brought in to revamp programming. The BET News is, you know, boasting that it will have a new look on Oct. 3, coming up. Some people have been extremely happy with BET’s response to this disaster. Other people said, `Why did you keep playing all those music videos? Why didn’t we have wall-to-wall, 24-hour coverage?’ Now I know it’s an awkward thing to ask you, since you’re working for BET, but do you think that the channel or other African American channels should have just turned themselves into news outlets and gone wall-to-wall, 24 hours as at least the initial disaster was unfolding?”

First to answer was Jeffrey Johnson, host of BET’s “Cousin Jeff Chronicles.” “As a citizen and somebody that’s concerned with the issue, as I’ve been down to the Gulf on three occasions now, I thought it would have been fantastic if those networks did that,” Johnson said. “As somebody that has some insight on the behind-the-scenes piece, I understand that that’s a more difficult proposition, once you start talking about resources to do that. I think BET was caught in a very difficult place, being in the middle of restructuring and not having the pieces in place to be able to do that.

“However, I think BET could have done a better job than it did of providing updates, of providing information, of ensuring that people were on the ground to tell the stories that otherwise have not been told. And I don’t know if any of our networks, TV One, the Black Family Channel or BET, from a television perspective, had the resources to be able to do that.”

George Curry, editor of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service, said, “Let’s just go ahead and cut to the chase. BET has downsized. It’s de-emphasized its news programs, its public affairs programs, and I used to be one who defended it because even with the rump shaking, they had ‘BET Tonight,’ they had ‘Teen Summit,’ they had ‘Lead Story’ and then recently had the news. They have basically gotten rid of all those programs. I don’t care how they try to repackage it and say, `We’re going to have news updates,’ there has been a de-emphasis of news on BET.”

Glenn Loury, economics professor at Brown University, added that he was no expert, but “my sense is that the news is having a hard time getting the resources inside these corporations that it needs to be done properly across the board. I wish that we had greater infrastructure to bring a kind of sympathetic and humane portrayal of the lives of African Americans in the face of this disaster and otherwise into the American media stream, because it’s desperately needed to counter the stigmatizing and stereotyping images and conceptions that are being projected otherwise. I hope that BET pulls its weight in that regard.”

Asked to comment, BET spokesman Michael Lewellen told Journal-isms via e-mail:

“If these individuals were going to debate BET programming, perhaps they should have done so with actual network executives present, individuals directly in charge of the business and programming of the network. BET devoted three-and-a-half hours of primetime programming on September 9 and raised more than $12 million to benefit the hurricane victims, yet ironically none of these critics spoke of that effort.

“Even with BET’s news production currently being revamped for our new Fall season, BET News still sent multiple reporter teams into the Gulf region to develop news briefs and on-line streamed video reports seen daily on BET.com. Apparently these individuals have not watched enough of our network to have seen any of those reports; the informational on-screen crawls; or our other coverage dating back to when the storm first hit. A BET documentary on Hurricane Katrina televising Sunday afternoon can now be counted among our responses, with a second documentary coming in October.

“There are only two networks designed, staffed and financed to provide 24-hour news coverage—CNN and FOX News Channel. To expect BET or any other network to completely reinvent its entire programming format in a reactionary manner is unrealistic. Like other networks, we’ve done what we could with the resources and access available to us. BET has captured stories and perspectives on this disaster different from mainstream media, and will continue to do so — even with critics such these casting judgment from a distance.

“The future of news programming on BET is positive. It will always have a prominent place in our lineup, now with an expanded all-day, hourly presence rather than being limited to a traditional half-hour slot at night. With weekend newsmagazine and analysis shows also in the works and a quarterly commitment to issues-driven news specials, there will actually be MORE news on BET as the weeks and months unfold.

“Couple this with an expanded role for BET.com with more in-depth stories, political blogs from Capitol Hill, streamed video news packages and a developing wireless strategy for the network and it becomes obvious that BET is investing in news programming via 21st century methods.”

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Journalists of Color Rise to 19.4% at Gannett

“Gannett newspapers set company records — and industry-leading standards — in a range of key minority-staffing categories,” news executive George Benge told Gannett Co. colleagues in reporting the results of its annual “All-American Review: Mainstreaming and Diversity” contest.

“The records included:

“19.4 percent of all journalists at Gannett newspapers were people of color — the first time in the All-American program’s 22-year history that the 19-percent level was reached. The previous record was 18.6 percent.

“34.2 percent of all newsroom hires were people of color, eclipsing the old mark of 32.1 percent.

“19.2 percent of Gannett managers were people of color, breaking the former mark of 18.7 percent.

“33.9 percent of newsroom promotions went to people of color, replacing the old record of 33.2.

“In addition, the percentage of interns of color at Gannett newspapers climbed from 48.1 percent in 2004 to 52.1 percent.

“By comparison, the number of full-time journalists of color working at daily U.S. newspapers in 2005 was 13.4 percent, according to the annual newsroom census of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Benge noted that, “Gannett newspapers also were again ranked No. 1 in the Knight Foundation’s annual report on how well staffing at daily U.S. newspapers reflects the diversity of the newspapers’ communities.”

In an accompanying report, the “reviewing editors” for the nation’s largest newspaper company wrote:

“Some newspapers have a long history of success in this review. In analyzing their consistently strong performance, reviewers identified the following common characteristics. These newspapers:

“Focus on key-topic coverage and develop meaningful enterprise reflecting voices from throughout their community. Write with impact and ensure that routine, institutional coverage is told from the perspective of the individuals most affected by the action.

“Tackle the longstanding challenge of diversifying sports pages by developing enterprise and features that create a venue for the inclusion of minorities besides those at the center of the news. Reach into the community and translate what they hear into content. They also ensure that minority source lists are updated and treated as an important part of the news-gathering process.”

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Bush Speech, “Looting” Talk Are Grist for Comment

President Bush’s speech Thursday night on Hurricane Katrina’s recovery efforts, and the use of the word “looting” to describe behavior in the hurricane’s aftermath, provided fodder for columnists of color.

“Jeannine Jones, an evacuee from New Orleans, told me that if the ‘thugs’ hadn’t stolen food, cooked it and shared it with people stuck in deplorable conditions at the New Orleans Convention Center, she and others would have gone hungry,” Readers’ Representative James Campbell wrote Saturday in the Houston Chronicle.

“The news media and politicians have made survival and looting two different things,” Jones told Campbell.

“Now comes the real looting!” Les Payne wrote Sunday in Newsday.

“The $200 billion that President George W. Bush has earmarked for rebuilding the Gulf of Mexico region is chum for the big-ticket, GOP contributors. It will bring in the Great White contract-seeking sharks from Maine all the way to Iraq.” In the Philadelphia Daily News, Elmer Smith said much the same.

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Unchecked Rumors Made Way Into News Reports

“Many instances in the lurid libretto of widespread murder, carjacking, rape, and assaults that filled the airwaves and newspapers have yet to be established or proved, as far as anyone can determine,” David Carr wrote today in the New York Times in a story about the Katrina aftermath headlined, “More Horrible Than Truth.”

“And many of the urban legends that sprang up — the systematic rape of children, the slitting of a 7-year-old’s throat — so far seem to be just that. The fact that some of these rumors were repeated by overwhelmed local officials does not completely get the news media off the hook. A survey of news reports in the LexisNexis database shows that on Sept. 1, the news media’s narrative of the hurricane shifted.

“. . . the misinformation extracted a terrible toll in another way. An international press eager to jump on American pathology played the unfounded reports for all they were worth, with hundreds of news outlets regurgitating tales of lawlessness. ‘They’re Going to Kill or Rape Us, Get Us Out’ read the headline in The Daily Star, a British tabloid. ‘Tourist Tells of Murder and Rape,’ was one headline in The Australian. ‘Snipers Shoot at Hospitals. Evacuees Raped, Beaten,’ The Ottawa Citizen reported.”

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White Cartoonist Stirs Flap by Using ‘N’ Word

“An editorial cartoon that ran in the University of Florida’s newspaper the Independent Florida Alligator on Tuesday (September 13) featuring rapper Kanye West and the word n**ga has generated controversy and outrage from numerous student groups, who said the paper was reinforcing stereotypes,” Nolan Strong reported Friday on allhiphop.com.

“The cartoon played off of West’s comments that ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people.’

“. . . The cartoon, which ran in Tuesday’s edition, featured West handing a playing card labeled ‘The Race Card’ to United States Secretary of State, [Condoleezza] Rice.

“Over the cartoon was a caption with the words ‘N**ga Please!'”

Some African Americans on the Florida campus, such as Ashley N. Mitchell, objected to the cartoon, but alumnus Brian Chapman wrote of the word in a letter to the editor: “It’s used generously by the black rappers we listen to. It’s used flippantly by black actors and comedians in the shows we watch. Hell, it can even be overheard while walking through Turlington Plaza. Yet when a skinny white cartoonist uses a derivative of the word to make a point in a political cartoon, it’s labeled ignorant” and derogatory.

The flap comes two weeks before Aaron McGruder‘s “The Boondocks” comic strip is scheduled to debut on television as a show in which McGruder pledges to use the “N” word.

“Fifteen, 16 years after the advent of gangsta rap, the young, white kids have heard the word n—–,” McGruder said in July in the St. Petersburg Times. “If they start using it all of a sudden on Oct. 3, I take no responsibility.”

Mixed Verdict on Chief Justice Nominee Roberts

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Even Some on Team Dislike Redskins Name

Some members of the Washington Redskins object to the name of the NFL team, and new research discredits the team’s rationale for using it, Washington Post sportswriter Mike Wise wrote Saturday.

“I have been wanting to write about this issue since I got this job 18 months ago. The boss told me to hold out before I alienated most of the city, their pigmented Indian-face flags flopping along the Beltway on the way to FedEx Field on a September morning,” Wise wrote.

“So I waited a year and observed, trying not be too judgmental, figuring I was just some knee-jerk newcomer who didn’t get it.

“I still don’t get it.

“. . . The team got its name in 1933 from the late owner George Preston Marshall. He wanted to pay tribute to the Indian ancestry of his coach at the time, William ‘Lone Star’ Dietz. But a revealing story published two weeks ago in the Baltimore Sun, which focuses on new research by a California multicultural studies professor, discredits Dietz. Turns out he was a white man ‘who began taking on an Indian identity as a teenager and ultimately seized the past of a vanished Lakota tribesman and made it his own.’ The coach was convicted of misrepresenting his identity on military draft documents. So there was no American Indian for which the team was named, just a perpetuated stereotype of the time.

“. . . ‘I understand the people who may have those complaints,’ said Ray Brown, the team’s 42-year-old offensive lineman, who is black. ‘If I can assist them in any way, I would.’

“In an authentic, modest act of sensitivity, Brown tries not to refer to the team name in conversation. ‘I don’t tell people I play for the Redskins,’ he said. ‘I just tell them I play for the ‘Skins. When I sign autograph items, I do the same thing. I put ‘Skins. It’s my thing. I’m not saying everyone else should do it, but that’s what I do.'”

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Short Takes

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