Renee Graham Among 34 Taking Boston Buyout
Arts Editor Alerted TV Critic’s Boss to Duplication
An editor at the rival Dallas Morning News was the “reader” who tipped off a counterpart at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that a background paragraph in an article by Ken Parish Perkins looked to be plagiarized, Morning News Editor Bob Mong confirmed for Journal-isms today.
The call ultimately led to Perkins’ resignation last week. Perkins was one of only four African American television critics at a daily newspaper.
The caller, Morning News Arts Editor Rick Holter, “basically said if the situation were reversed, I would like a heads-up on this,” Mong said. Holter likely called Rick Press, Star-Telegram features editor, Mong said. Both Holter and Press were out yesterday.
The Morning News and Star-Telegram compete fiercely in areas of the circulation area that both share. Perkins had been at the Morning News before joining the Star-Telegram in 1996.
In another development, John Cook, a former Chicago Tribune television critic who is now a contributing writer to Radar Magazine, wrote on the Web site referencetone.com that Perkins, while “briefly the Chicago Tribune’s TV critic in 1994. . . . according to my sources there . . . was let go in part for allegedly inventing quotes, including running an interview the subject of which insisted never took place. The Tribune let him go quietly, without alerting readers or, apparently, his next employer that he had a history of fabricating stories.”
Jim Warren, the Tribune’s deputy managing editor for features, confirmed for Journal-isms one anecdote cited by Cook, that then-Court TV chief Steven Brill told Warren in 1993 that Perkins had written a complimentary column on him, but that Brill never said the words attributed to him.
“I remember it well,” Warren said, but since “I was not one of his managers, I was not involved” and simply passed along the information.
Perkins told Journal-isms earlier today that he was not yet ready to discuss the events.
Star-Telegram Executive Editor Jim Witt told his staff today that “In light of the news last week about Ken Parish Perkins, I asked training editor Larry Lutz to set up some workshop sessions next week that will focus on attribution, plagiarism and credibility. Although we’ve spent a lot of time on these issues in the past, we obviously can’t take anything for granted when it comes to earning the trust of our readers.
“The sessions will last about an hour. Everyone (including supervisors) is expected to attend. If you can’t, let Larry know and he’ll set up some alternate times.
“In addition, every time a new employee joins us, Larry will meet with them to go over the information and the standards the Star-Telegram expects them to meet.”
The possibility of involvement by the Dallas Morning News in the Perkins tragedy was reported in the online D magazine today in a note from Eric Celeste, a former arts and features editor at the Fort Worth paper who was Perkins’ supervisor when Perkins arrived in 1996. “Since I have friends there, and since his wife shared inside information with me, I’ve been able to come to a fuller understanding of what happened and why,” he wrote.
Arguing that Perkins’ punishment was too harsh, Celeste said, “The Star-Telegram was scared that since the Morning News alerted them, they would do something on it in their paper. Making an independent decision could get one into trouble,” wrote Celeste.
“Taken as a whole, the number of problems found in Ken’s copy was very troubling. There’s no denying that. But was it worth destroying a man’s career?” Celeste continued.
In response, Witt told Journal-isms, “We do agree on one thing. When I sat down with Ken to get his side of things, I told him I would have no problem recommending him to any other editor or publication as a great writer and idea person, a tireless worker and overall excellent employee.
“I also told him, of course, that I would have to be perfectly upfront with them about this situation too.
“Ken’s overwhelming pattern of violating common journalistic standards of attribution – and our consistent punishment of every other person at the paper who has done the same thing – led to this unfortunate ending.”
As to whether a call from the Morning News instigated the investigation, he said, “I won’t deny it OR confirm it, because it really has no relevance. We treat ALL calls we get questioning our work the same way – we check it out. We’ve unfortunately had five people either fired or leave the paper in the past 15 years because of allegations of plagiarism, and the tips came to us from a wide range of sources.”
Mong was asked whether he would take Perkins back at the News. “I never say never,” the Morning News editor said. “My recollection is he had a good run here. He was a fine person and a good reporter.”
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Knight Ridder Freezes Diversity Programs
Knight Ridder, the nation’s second-largest newspaper company, is putting its employment diversity programs on hold until the future of the company is less uncertain, Larry Olmstead, the company’s vice president/staff development and diversity, said today.
Knight Ridder announced last week that its “Board of Directors has decided to explore strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value, including a possible sale of the company. The company is working with Goldman, Sachs & Co., its long-time financial advisor, in this process.”
Olmstead told Journal-isms tonight, “given that, and given the dynamics around that announcement, we’re suspending new hires into our diversity employment programs until this process is completed and resolved.”
Involved are programs affecting about 30 people, he said: a one-year internship program, a Minority Scholars Program involving five high school students, and minority summer internship programs. There will be no 2006 Minority Scholars Program, he said. However, all those currently in the programs “are fine,” Knight Ridder properties were told of the decision Thursday, he said.
Knight Ridder developed the motto, “Diversity. No excuses.” Olmstead said that individual newspapers may still continue their internship programs and that Knight Ridder would maintain a presence at job fairs and other recruiting venues.
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Philadelphia Inquirer Says Farewell to 70 Journalists
“We said goodbye to about 70 Inquirer journalists today,” blogger Daniel Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote Friday.
“Those who left got a buffet, heart-felt hugs and bracing applause. We sent them off with framed copies of the newspapers from the day they were hired – black and white sheets with names like Rizzo and Longstreth on them.”
Among those departing are longtime columnists Acel Moore and Lucia Herndon, as well as Wendy Tanaka, Anthony Twyman, Ira Porter, Traci James, Pat Banks, Golda Keith-Cross, Nate Hobbs, Art Chambers and Enjoli Frances.
“This time we were spared the speeches from the departing about how everything will be all right,” Rubin said.
“Veteran cop reporter Tommy Gibbons – himself a former officer shot in the line of duty – arrived with a motorcycle-police escort. Columnist Acel Moore talked about the only employer he ever had – and how the wondrous thing that empowers the community, the Internet, is the thing that threatens newspapers.
“Publisher Joe Natoli and editor Amanda Bennett said how they’d hoped this day would never come, a day when 15 percent of the newsroom was paid to walk away early.
“It was part funeral, part seance.”
The Inquirer and its sister Knight Ridder paper, the Philadelphia Daily News, announced on Sept. 20 they would slash 16 percent of their newsroom staffs through buyouts or layoffs.
“Readers will soon see a different product, a new, sharper focus,” Moore wrote in a column Sunday that noted he will remain as a consultant and columnist.
“Things will not be the same as they used to be – nor should they. But I am confident that high-quality journalism will still be this paper’s pervading characteristic, its goal.” Moore was praised as a hero and mentor in a separate column by former Inquirer recruiter Arlene Notoro Morgan. She is now associate dean of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
Lucia Herndon, whose column spotlighted people doing good deeds, told readers Sunday, “During my tenure here, I’ve spoken to multitudes of schoolchildren during career days. One of the most oft-asked questions (after ‘How much do you make?’) is ‘Have you met any famous people?’
“I always had to admit to the students that in my career I had met few famous people. ‘But I’ve met a whole lot of important people.’
“It’s been great finding these important people who spend most of their time out of the spotlight of fame.”
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Renee Graham Among 34 Taking Boston Buyout
Thirty-four people in the Boston Globe newsroom, including op-ed columnist Tom Oliphant and arts critics Steve Morse and Renee Graham, are on a list circulated at the newspaper late today of those who have accepted a buyout.
In addition to Graham, who writes about pop culture, journalists of color on the list include Shirley Jobe of the Living section, Tatsha Robertson, New York bureau chief, and Tito Stevens, a sports copy editor.
“Graham the paper’s pop culture writer, has been a Globe staffer since 1988,” the Boston Phoenix’s Mark Jurkowitz wrote on his blog at 5:50 p.m., before the full list was known. “‘It just felt like the right move at the right time,’ she says. ‘I have all sorts of things I’d like to do.’ She plans to stay in writing, saying ‘It’s just been too big a part of my life.'”
In an Oct. 5 memo to the staff, Globe Publisher Richard Gilman said the Times Co.’s New England Media Group, which includes the Globe and the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette and which Gilman also heads, hoped “to achieve the majority of . . . 160 staff reductions through voluntary buyouts” and that “we will try to complete these staff reductions by the end of this year.
As reported Oct. 18, the Globe planned to close its national news department, but not its Washington bureau, to help achieve the cost reductions mandated by its parent New York Times Co. The move affects National Editor Kenneth J. Cooper, the paper’s highest-ranking African American line editor, as well as Robertson. Cooper told Journal-isms he was not eligible for this buyout.
Others accepting the paper’s offer include Peter Accardi, Bill Boles, Tina Cassidy, Maureen Dezell, Richard Dyer, Tony Flint, Wendy Fox, Dave Gillis, Billy Griffith, Bob Hardman, Ron Indrisano, Nick King, Tom Landers, Tom Long, Maureen McCafferty, Margaret Murray, Peg O’Shea, Marvin Pave, Judy Rakowsky, Eddie Siegel, Cheryl Sinapis, Charlie Stein, Carol Stocker, Nancy Sullivan, Jack Thomas, Susan Trauch, Lisa Tuite and Judy Van Handle.
- Jennifer Saba, Editor & Publisher: More Tribune Job Cuts Coming, This Time at ‘Newsday’
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Amsterdam News Editor Denies Embezzlement
The executive editor of the New York Amsterdam News faces charges of grand larceny after Publisher Elinor Tatum called the district attorney and accused the editor, Jamal Watson, of stealing checks from summer interns, New York tabloids reported over the weekend. Watson denies the charges.
“Several checks were written out to interns without the proper endorsement,” Tatum told Journal-isms, after the story was reported in the New York Post and Daily News. “We looked at the back of the checks, and it was questionable.”
Watson was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday. A trial was scheduled for March 7, the Daily News reported.
The Harlem-based weekly is the city’s oldest and largest newspaper aimed at African Americans.
Watson denied the allegations, saying every intern was paid, and told Journal-isms it was under his leadership that the internship program began. He said he single-handedly recruited seven interns from as far away as Chicago.
“What’s unfortunate is that we should have paid these bright young students more than a measly $100 per week,” said Watson, “but the owner refused to do so. I had to fight them tooth and nail just to provide metro [transit] cards to these students so they wouldn’t have to spend their own money to cover story assignments.”
He said the relationship between Watson and Elinor Tatum and her father, former publisher Wilbert Tatum, became uneasy when Watson criticized the elder Tatum on WNYC Radio, defending Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s decision not to show up at the Apollo Theater during the recent election campaign. Wilbert Tatum and Watson debated on the show for about 10 minutes.
Watson also criticized Tatum for keeping the column of conservative Armstrong Williams, who accepted money to publicize an Education Department program.
Watson, a former Boston Globe reporter, said he would continue to write for the New York Sun. He said a report in the Daily News that he was facing a hearing for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend was false.
Elinor Tatum said the “staff has rallied together” since the incident and that “Jamal was a fantastic editor. He was able to bring the newspaper forward, and bring new ideas and a fresh approach.”
She urged anyone interested in the editor’s job to contact her at ElinorT@aol.com.
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NewsBlues Draws Out “Simmering White Blacklash”
Mike James‘ popular NewsBlues subscription-only Web site of news and gossip about television news has raised eyebrows before among journalists of color, and today James built on that tradition with an item about himself called “Surly Editor Is a Racist.”
“It has become inevitable that whenever NewsBlues airs a story with racial implications, a small minority of our readers interpret this as a clear indication that your surly editor is a racist. They are right, and they are wrong at the same time,” it began.
“Racism can be described as the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others. I do not subscribe to this theory, and I have a long and clear history of having actively supported the civil rights movement. I live and function daily in a rural community in which minorities represent the majority, and I relish the diversity and move smoothly through the cultural gaps.
“Racism can also be defined as discrimination or prejudice based on race. This is what I write about on NewsBlues. I report stories about people who see skin color or sexual orientation as a right to entitlement, about people who believe they deserve more or better because they are different. I report on people who use skin color as a crutch or an excuse or a weapon.
“I have no patience for organizations such as the National Association of Black Journalists or the Asian American Journalists Association or the National Association of Hispanic Journalists or the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association because they, by their very definition, promote exclusivity and encourage separatism. Their foundation is built on entitlement and discrimination.
“And, I disagree with people, like Melanie and the Rev. Bill Lawson” – The Rev. Lawson is leading a community boycott of a Houston television station and Melanie Lawson is anchor on a competing outlet – “who believe that minority hiring quotas should be met. Advancement in the business of media and journalism should be based entirely on individual ability and not skin color.”
“No, I do NOT believe that race accounts for differences in human character or ability or that a particular race is superior to others. But I DO believe that skin color or ethnic background or sexual orientation does not a journalist make. If this makes me a ‘racist,’ then your surly editor stands by that definition proudly.”
James, a former Florida sports anchor whose subscription list runs into “many, many thousands,” told Journal-isms that he had received close to 400 e-mail messages on the item by 11 a.m., 2 1/2 hours after it was posted. He said he thought he could safely state that a “simmering white backlash” existed.
“I am so sick and tired of holding my tongue. I plan to post your article on the newsroom wall. I’ll probably get canned,” said one message.
“You’ll be hearing from Richard Prince soon, and he’ll nail you to the cross for not being diverse enough,” said another.
Still, Tom Jacobs, a veteran African American television producer, replied, “Like you I believe that journalists should be hired based upon their ability and not just skin color. But you and I both know that ability is sometimes the last reason a particular person is hired, particularly in television. It can be their ‘look,’ their ‘presence,’ their ‘connection’ with the audience. All subjective things that have little to do with their ability. That’s the nature of the business. And I don’t have a problem with that as long as you try to find those things in a representative group of folks and not just one group, be it black, white, brown, yellow, whatever. Unfortunately, that’s not the case and that’s how situations like the one in Texas develop.
” . . . I just spent six months as a Kiplinger Fellow in Public Affairs Journalism. My project was the production of a documentary that looked at whether diversity has become a casualty of the ‘new’ television. I talked with some really thoughtful folks, like Bernard Shaw, Antonio Mora, Bob Papper, Maureen Bunyan and many others. And what we all concluded was that not only had diversity become a casualty, but journalism was an even bigger casualty in today’s television newsrooms. And that my friend is a true tragedy.”
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Sandra Haggerty, L.A. Times Op-Ed Pioneer
An item last week about the Los Angeles Times’ hiring of Erin Aubry Kaplan for its op-ed page originally said Kaplan would be the paper’s first black op-ed columnist.
That was before Sandra Haggerty’s colleague Bill Reader, at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, alerted us to Haggerty’s time there.
“Indeed, I was the first black columnist featured on the op-ed pages at the Los Angeles Times and the first black columnist carried by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate,” Haggerty told Journal-isms via e-mail. “That, of course, was back-in-the-day. My column ran for about 10 years, starting in 1969.
“Prior to that, I was the first black columnist (first black anything) at the Oakland Tribune. I started there in the mid-60s. This was during the rise of the Black Panther Party (whom I credit with scaring the Tribune into giving me a job). I had been ‘asking’ for the white establishment to address inequities in Oakland, but the Panthers ‘demanded’ changes (with loaded guns to back up their requests) . . . . which, of course, scared the beegeebies out of white folks at the time.
“During and since that time, I’ve been involved in media one way or another. I was the first black woman to teach journalism at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. I was the first black woman to do a radio talk-show at KSL in Salt Lake City. I was the first black woman to teach journalism at the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.
“Now, at age 66, I’m thinking about the next big thing. I’ve been a faculty member here at Ohio University for 27 years. My current interest (in addition to teaching) is journalism in the New South Africa.”
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Bob Johnson Forms Asset Management Company
“Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, today announced that he has signed a letter of intent with Deutsche Asset Management (“DeAM”), the asset management division of Deutsche Bank AG, to form and operate an asset management company with an initial focus on hedge fund of funds products,” BET announced today. “The new venture will seek to provide investment products and services to public and private pension funds and other institutional investors.
“The RLJ Companies, Mr. Johnson’s holding company, will form the new company with the goal of becoming the largest asset management company owned, controlled, and directed by African-Americans.”
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Short Takes
- Pankaj Paul, design and presentation director at the Wilmington News Journal in Delaware, has been promoted to managing editor of niche and new initiatives. Paul is a board member of the Philadelphia chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association.
- CNN en Español is betting on anchor-analyst Carmen Aristegui’s cross-border appeal, Reed Johnson wrote Sunday in the Los Angeles Times. During her 15-year career, she “has gained a large, respectful following in her native Mexico. Now her bosses at CNN are betting that this genial but no-nonsense journalist can dramatically expand her fan base on both sides of the border.”
- Commentator and author Earl Ofari Hutchinson has joined New America Media, formerly New California Media, as a contributing editor, the company announced today. Hutchinson told Journal-isms his job would be to recruit, discover and nurture new African-American writing voices, do a weekly commentary for New America Media’s radio network, represent the group at media conferences and events and network with the black press.
- Departing Republican Kathleen Abernathy of the Federal Communications Commission “was a genuine expert – and supporter – of equal employment opportunity and minority ownership initiatives,” the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council said in a statement today. “Her personal interest in the Commission’s Advisory Committee for Diversity in Communications for the Digital Age was valuable to the cause of media and telecom diversity.”
- Ben A. Franklin, 78, “a retired New York Times reporter long based in Washington who covered civil rights battles, strip-mining dangers and a gallery of corrupt union and political leaders, died Nov. 19 at his home in Garrett Park. He had lung cancer,” the Washington Post reported today. A white reporter, Franklin was supportive of early journalists of color at the Times.
- “Not every black boy rejects a life of the mind or seeks fast times and quick money on drug-infested streets,” Sam Fulwood wrote Saturday in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “That we don’t see as many black boys studying to become accountants, engineers and even journalists doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It only means we don’t see them. . . . If for no other reason, successful black men owe it to black women to step into the limelight. By remaining in the shadows, they make it difficult for black girls (and women) to believe that a good man will one day be available as a boyfriend or husband.”
- “A Swedish journalist who spent four years in an Eritrean prison for demanding press freedom in the east African country was unexpectedly released Saturday,” the Associated Press reported. “Dawit Isaak, a 41-year-old Eritrean native, was ‘feeling really well’ after leaving prison, said Leif Obrink, the leader of a Swedish organization that had fought for the journalist’s release.”