Michel Martin Joining NPR

Veteran of “Nightline” Keeping ABC Ties

Veteran journalist Michel Martin, left behind when ABC-TV’s “Nightline” picked a new team to continue in its post-Ted Koppel era, is joining National Public Radio, ABC News and NPR announced separately today.

“After 14 years with ABC News, Michel Martin will be joining National Public Radio to develop and host a new public affairs and cultural program focusing on stories of importance to African-Americans, slated to launch in late 2006. While she will be leaving her position as a full-time correspondent with us, I am pleased that she will be continuing as a contributor to ‘Nightline’ and ABC News Now,” ABC News President David Westin said in a memo to the ABC staff.

An NPR announcement said, “Martin will begin at NPR on January 16 and serve as contributor to and substitute host for NPR programs while developing the new project, to be produced by NPR in partnership with the African American Public Radio Consortium (AAPRC).

“Martinâ??s new two-hour program will serve as a daily companion show to NPRâ??s News & Notes with Ed Gordon, also co-produced by NPR and the AAPRC. Martinâ??s program will focus on U.S. and international news, events, ideas and people in the public eye as well as those overlooked by mainstream media. Additionally, the show will explore family and lifestyle issues and all aspects of the arts.”

The idea for the show is too new to know how many stations will accommodate it in their schedules, however.

Jay Kernis, senior vice president for programming at NPR, said in the statement: â??Michel has won honors and fans as a journalist who interprets news and issues in a way that provides context and perspective. With this new show, serving as a complement to the distinctive program News & Notes, its host Ed Gordon and host/correspondent Farai Chideya, NPR expands its commitment to providing a place in radio for diverse voices.â??

â??Iâ??ve always loved working with start-up programming and am thrilled to have that opportunity using the global resources and diverse talents of NPR News,â?? Martin said in the release. â??My goal is to lift up new voices and build on the standard of excellence people know and expect from NPR.â??

â??Michelâ??s reputation precedes her â?? as a serious journalist with a deep curiosity about people of all kinds and a willingness to openly engage on issues that others might find sensitive,â?? added Loretta Rucker, executive consultant for the consortium.

â??For the Consortium, this is a significant moment. It demonstrates the commitment of the AAPRC and NPR to build more programs that serve and attract African American listeners to public radio, and is a mutually-beneficial partnership built on trust. NPR walks the talk.â??

Westin’s note continued: “At ABC since 1992, Michel has been recognized for her contributions to a wide range of programs and specials, including her Emmy Award winning report for ‘Day One’ on the international campaign to ban the use of landmines. She also contributed to ABCâ??s award winning coverage of the September 11th attacks and an hour-long documentary program on the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas controversy. For ‘Nightline’ she has covered a wide range of stories and garnered praise for her reports for the series ‘America in Black and White.'”

Before joining ABC News, Martin covered state and local politics for the Washington Post and national politics and policy at the Wall Street Journal, where she was White House correspondent, as her bio notes. It adds, “She is married to Washington attorney William ‘Billy’ Martin and they are the proud parents of twin toddlers, a boy and a girl, as well as two grown daughters.”

James Goldston, a former producer for the BBC, was appointed in July to take over “Nightline,” replacing longtime producer Tom Bettag, who left the show with founding anchor Koppel. Goldston assembled a team of four correspondents, including Vicki Mabrey, formerly of CBS. Mabrey told Journal-isms in October that Goldston said he was looking for an African American with network experience and was attracted to her because she had been a London correspondent. The new incarnation debuted in November to lukewarm reviews, with some critics saying it was indistinguishable from network newsmagazines.

Last week, Discovery Communications announced that Koppel will “host and produce long form programming examining major global topics and events exclusively for the Discovery Channel” and would have the title of managing editor.

Koppel is to be joined by Bettag and eight other former “Nightline” staff members, including James Blue, who is African American; associate producer Imtiyaz Delawala, who is Indian American, and Hallye Galbraith, operations producer, who is part Asian.

[Added Jan. 12: NPR announced Thursday that Koppel will join NPR in June as senior news analyst, “contributing to its news programming on broadcast radio and on all new media platforms.

[“Koppel will provide analysis, commentary and perspective on NPR News national programming approximately 50 times a year, including the newsmagazines Morning Edition, the #1-ranked morning show on all radio, and #2 radio program overall; All Things Considered, the #4-ranked radio program overall, and Day to Day, the new NPR midday newsmagazine. He will also serve as an analyst during breaking news and special events coverage,” a news release said. Separately, the New York Times announced that Koppel would become an occasional contibuting columnist starting Jan. 29.]

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GOP Attacks Reporter Who Analyzed Alito’s Work

The Republican National Committee is attacking in personal terms the work of Knight Ridder reporter Stephen Henderson, the first African American regularly assigned to the Supreme Court, over an analysis by Henderson and a colleague of all 311 of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito’s published opinions.

“A Knight Ridder review of Alito’s 311 published opinions on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals – each of singular legal or public policy importance – found a clear pattern,” Henderson and Howard Mintz wrote Dec. 1. “Although Alito’s opinions are rarely written with obvious ideology, he’s seldom sided with a criminal defendant, a foreign national facing deportation, an employee alleging discrimination or consumers suing big businesses.”

At Tuesday’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., mentioned the article. Later, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said that the story “has, to my understanding, been rather completely discredited.”

The same day, Brian Jones of the Republican National Committee issued a news release. “FACT 1: Knight Ridder’s Writers Stephen Henderson And Howard Mintz Have Repeatedly Been Accused Of Biased Reporting On Judge Alito’s Record,” it said.

It quoted statements in which Henderson is supposed to have admitted past mistakes, and charged, “Stephen Henderson Comes To Knight-Ridder From The [Baltimore] Sun, Where He Was Associate Editor Of The Editorial Page.”

It also cited Henderson’s comments in an interview with the Chips Quinn Scholars Program, a Freedom Forum diversity initiative: “the key to dealing with bias is recognizing it in yourself, and working affirmatively to overcome it. I definitely had to do that with the University of Michigan cases last year. I went to Michigan. I’m black. I attended school just a little before the woman who sued the undergraduate college there. The case was about me! (I’m kidding.)”

Not mentioned was that Henderson went on to say, “In the end, I probably got fewer complaints about bias from those stories than any others I did last term.”

Henderson, who is covering Alito’s confirmation hearings, told Journal-isms it would be inappropriate for him to comment. However, Clark Hoyt, Knight Ridder’s Washington editor, wrote a commentary today in rebuttal to the GOP allegations.

“The Republican National Committee circulated a blistering personal attack on Henderson to some reporters, taking quotes out of context in an attempt to portray him as biased,” Hoyt wrote.

“This hysteria over a carefully researched article that documents the obvious – that Samuel Alito is a judicial conservative – is the latest example of a disturbing trend of attacking the messenger instead of debating difficult issues,” he said.

Henderson became the first journalist of color regularly assigned to the Supreme Court in February 2003 as a correspondent in the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. He was previously associate editor on the Baltimore Sun’s editorial page.

• Ruben Navarrette, San Diego Union-Tribune: Alito’s club ties prove troubling decades later

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Art Coulson Leaving as St. Paul Opinion Editor

Art Coulson, one of only two Native American editorial page editors at mainstream newspapers, is leaving the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press on Friday, attributing his departure to “stylistic” differences with Publisher Par Ridder, the son of P. Anthony Ridder, chairman and chief executive of Knight Ridder.

The younger Ridder, then 35, became Pioneer Press publisher in April 2004. Coulson, who turns 45 this week, was named editorial page editor in May 2003. He had been senior editor for suburban coverage. The paper changed editors in September, with Thom Fladung, former managing editor at the Detroit Free Press, assuming the top job.

“I tried to bring a different perspective to the paper – not better – and to give voice to some in the community who thought they didn’t have access, letting them see there is somebody like them” in the job, Coulson told Journal-isms today.

“I helped readers see there is not the monolithic Indian view of anything,” he continued. “We’ve run different perspectives from different American Indians on the page who disagreed with each other.” He recalled going to a meeting of the National Indian Gaming Association, telling members they needed to “engage the media” and explaining the kind of information journalists look for.

Coulson said he had no job lined up and was looking to stay in St. Paul. “I’m happy to be able to stay in journalism,” Coulson said, but he has to “make sure the kids have sneakers on their feet and food on the table,” referring to his two daughters.

The other Native editorial page editor at a mainstream paper is Mark Trahant, Maynard Institute board chairman, at the Seattle Post- Intelligencer. [Added Jan. 19: Not counting Travis Armstrong of the Santa Barbara (Calif.) News-Press, a registered member of the Leech Lake band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.] In St. Paul, Managing Editor Cathy Straight will become interim editorial page editor, Coulson said.

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Magazines Called Complacent About “Ivory” Staffs

The New York Observer ran a hard-hitting piece today on the lack of diversity in the magazine industry, conducting its own survey of some leading New York magazines with the help of magazine staff members who agreed to review their mastheads and provide diversity breakdowns.

“The results, magazine by magazine, looked like the far end of assorted paint-color chips: ivory, bone, mist,” Lizzy Ratner wrote in the piece, headlined, “Vanilla Ceiling: Magazines Still Shades Of White.”

“The New York publishing scene is an insular place, run, in many cases, on old tribal principles of friendship, family and college connections. It is hardly unique in this respect, but magazines’ tight margins, small staff and overall insidery competitiveness may make these tendencies more intense. People hire who they know – and perhaps people that mimic their advertisers’ preferred demographics,” the story continued.

“I’ve been surprised at how little reaction we’ve gotten,” managing editor Tom McGeveran told Journal-isms this afternoon. “Then I thought about it and I wasn’t surprised.”

“There is definitely no sense of shame about not having a diverse staff the way there was 10 years ago,” an Asian American editor at a popular glossy magazine was quoted as saying.

The story added, “The New York Observer is not a magazine, but for fairness’ sake: This newspaper is a very delicate shade of salmon. Out of 40 editors, writers and contributors, there are two people of color.”

“The story, of course, is in plain sight,” senior editor Choire Sicha told Journal-isms. “We realized a while back that folks within the industry often made dark joking references to the magazine industry’s lack of diversity — a way of dealing with their discomfort, or what have you. Also, fair or unfair, the stereotypical Conde Nast employee is, in the age of Gawker, a now-classic riff — and part of that stereotype, of course, was that the employee would be white.”

Shaunice Hawkins, director of diversity development for the Magazine Publishers of America, told Journal-isms: “We were interviewed by Lizzie Ratner, who wrote the piece for The New York Observer, and shared with her the various initiatives that MPA and its members have embarked on in terms of diversity development for the industry. Frankly, we are disappointed that she chose not to publish any of our initiatives, which, by the way, are very well-received and supported by the publishing community. We hope to do a better job of publicizing our efforts and achievements in the future.

“These initiatives include mentoring opportunities, such as participation in this year’s National Job Shadow Day; enhancement and expansion of the diversity section of www.magazine.org, which has since experienced an average of an 180% increase in traffic since the site’s re-launch; town hall forums, which [facilitate] open discussions on diversity and various aspects of publishing (i.e. ad sales, editorial, etc.); partnerships with multicultural journalists organizations like UNITY Journalists of Color, Inc., Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists and others; internship grants to students of color; a fellowship program for industry professionals of color; diversity management workshops; and the launch of the Multicultural Leadership Coalition, the first-ever industry-wide affinity and business resource group for magazine industry professionals.”

• David Carr, New York Times: To Reach the Heights, First Be Male

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Smoking Gun Site Says Oprah Was Bamboozled

“Oprah Winfrey’s been had,” declares the Web site The Smoking Gun in an unbylined piece dated Sunday.

“Three months ago, in what the talk show host termed a ‘radical departure,’ Winfrey announced that ‘A Million Little Pieces,’ author James Frey’s nonfiction memoir of his vomit-caked years as an alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal, was her latest selection for the world’s most powerful book club.

“In an October 26 show entitled ‘The Man Who Kept Oprah Awake At Night,’ Winfrey hailed Frey’s graphic and coarse book as ‘like nothing you’ve ever read before. Everybody at Harpo is reading it. When we were staying up late at night reading it, we’d come in the next morning saying, “What page are you on?”‘ . . .

“But a six-week investigation by The Smoking Gun reveals that there may be a lot less to love about Frey’s runaway hit, which has sold more than 3.5 million copies and, thanks to Winfrey, has sat atop The New York Times nonfiction paperback best seller list for the past 15 weeks. . . .

“Police reports, court records, interviews with law enforcement personnel, and other sources have put the lie to many key sections of Frey’s book. The 36-year-old author, these documents and interviews show, wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career, jail terms, and status as an outlaw ‘wanted in three states.'”

[Added Jan. 12: Winfrey broke her silence about the allegations in a surprise phone call to CNN’s Larry King Wednesday night, the Associated Press reported, as King interviewed Frey on his live television program. Winfrey dismissed the Smoking Gun story as “much ado about nothing” and urged readers who have been inspired by the book to “Keep holding on.”

[“What is relevant is that he was a drug addict . . . and stepped out of that history to be the man he is today and to take that message to save other people and allow them to save themselves,” Winfrey said.]

The site, edited by William Bastone, was founded in 1997 and acquired by Court TV in 2000.

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Don’t Pity Tribes, Wall St. Journal Writer Says

Not so fast in feeling sorry for the Native Americans who were clients of former D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to Wall Street Journal editorial writer Holman W. Jenkins Jr. Abramoff pleaded guilty last week to defrauding Indian tribes, conspiring to bribe members of Congress and evading taxes.

“All hands insist on treating Indians as Mr. Abramoff’s ‘victims,'” Jenkins wrote in an opinion piece today. “Louisiana’s Coushatta Tribe was under no compulsion to pay him $32 million; it did so to foil another tribe’s gambling project and secure its own inflated margins.

“Mr. Abramoff’s sole interesting feature, aside from his self destructiveness and his possibly larcenous attempt to get into the gaming business himself, was his chutzpah in asking for such a big piece of change to do the tribes’ dirty work.

“Political anthropologists will have to excavate why Mr. Abramoff is a mega-scandal when peeps were barely raised about previous outrages in which the chief actors were public officials who presumably owed a higher standard of conduct. Say, several political appointees in the Bureau of Indian Affairs who, in the waning days of the Clinton administration, tossed aside expert advice and recognized a bunch of new ‘tribes’ just before spinning themselves out the revolving door and into jobs as lawyers for Indian gambling interests.”

Columnists of color also weighed in on the scandal:

• Jabari Asim, WashingtonPost.com : Abramoff’s Big-Screen Potential
• Stanley Crouch, New York Daily News: Abramoff’s dirty dealings insult Americans
• Merlene Davis, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader: Politicians’ liability is charities’ windfall
• Carlos Guerra, San Antonio Express-News: Readers respond to call for real ethics reform in Washington
• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Post-scandal cleanup
• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: A lobbyist’s wretched excess
• Elmer Smith, Philadelphia Daily News: If Republicans smell blood, a politician is dead meat
• Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: DeLay’s, Reed’s pride preceded Abramoff’s fall

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Columnists Link Lou Rawls, Young Male Priorities

“Imagine that,” Tonyaa Weathersbee wrote Tuesday about Lou Rawls, who died last week at age 72. “A singer like Rawls, whose music some label as ‘pre-rap’ because of the way he’d preface some of his songs with monologues, inspiring young black people to go to school instead of prison.

“While Rawls, a man who was reared on Chicago’s South Side, knew that he could color his art with his struggles in growing up in a tough neighborhood, unlike most of the rap artists today, he didn’t make his life imitate his art,” Weathersbee wrote on BlackAmericaWeb.com. “Instead, by championing the UNCF, Rawls used his art as a tool for helping black youths to rise above the unhealthy influences in their lives.”

In the Richmond Times-Dispatch, columnist Michael Paul Williams Monday linked the UNCF slogan “A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste” to the story of Marcus Vick, the Virginia Tech quarterback who was kicked off the team Friday after stomping on an opponent’s leg.

“While Rawls’ story represents genius utilized, Vick’s gifts may ultimately prove unfulfilled,” Williams wrote.

In the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun, Adam Playfordrecalled Rawls’ friendship with Ervin Hester, one of the state’s first African American television news reporters and member of the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Also:

• Herb Boyd, TheBlackWorldToday.com: Lou Rawls, A Voice for the Ages, Stilled
• Editorial, Bryan-College Station (Texas) Eagle: Lou Rawls was a classy entertainer
• Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: Theater that once honored Rawls should do so again
• William C. Rhoden, New York Times: A Sibling Rivalry of Biblical Proportions

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BET, TV One Represent Before TV Critics

“Not too proud to brag, BET is entering its second quarter-century as the self-designated ‘new school’ home of ‘everything cool in African-American culture,'” Ed Bark reported today in the Dallas Morning News.

“As such it intends to squelch upstart rival TV One, which will celebrate its second anniversary on Jan. 19.

“The two networks aimed their latest pitches at TV critics Tuesday on day one of a midseason ‘press tour’ that will keep going and going and going – through Jan. 22.

Debra Lee, BET’s president and CEO, “discounted any rivalry between BET and TV One, which bills itself as a ‘lifestyles’ network aimed at a more adult black audience.

“‘They’re doing things we did 20 years ago,’ she said of TV One, which reaches 25 million homes. ‘Their promise of great new programming hasn’t really materialized. Right now they’re not our major concern in terms of competition.’

“TV One president and CEO Johnathan Rodgers said he expects BET to win any race to develop an unscripted comedy series.

“‘They’re in 80 million homes and make about 20 times more than we do,’ he said.

“TV One’s new programming initiatives include a reality series about a west Oakland custom paint shop and documentaries on black theater.”

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Short Takes

• “Using Al Jazeera as a model, a group of investors and supporters met in Nairobi last month to plan the creation of a pan-African channel in French and English,” Doreen Carvajal reported today in the New York Times. “They are now developing a business plan and have received commitments from some cable and satellite operators to carry a new channel, said Salim Amin, who is leading the effort and is chief executive of Camerapix, a television production and photography company in Nairobi and London.”
• Washington ABC affiliate WJLA-TV is shuffling its news-anchor lineup to give star anchor Leon Harris greater exposure, John Maynard wrote today in the Washington Post. Harris, formerly of CNN, is to anchor the station’s 6:30 and 11 p.m. Sunday newscasts.
• “Fox News Channel has grabbed former CNN family member Rudi Bakhtiar as a general correspondent,” Michele Greppi reported today in TV Week.
• “During last weekend’s ‘New York Times’ Fifth Annual Arts & Leisure Weekend,’ Aaron McGruder revealed plans to spin his wildly poplar Cartoon Networks series ‘The Boondocks’ off into motion picture and video game properties,” Karu F. Daniels reported today on AOL Black Voices.
• “On Thursday, January 5, Los Angeles’s black leaders and residents demanded that Viacom remove a Howard Stern billboard that demeaned and insulted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The billboard distorted Dr. King’s famous quote ‘Let freedom Ring’ to promote illicit sex and Stern’s radio show,” columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson reports. “The odious billboard appeared at the start of the week of celebration of the Dr. King national holiday. Viacom removed the billboard at the start of King week.”
• “Television reporter Mary Kim Titla, San Carlos Apache, has taken the bold step of leaving her position at KPNX-TV Channel 12 News in Phoenix to become the full-time publisher of the online Native Youth Magazine, focused on inspiring Native youths to new horizons,” Brenda Norrell reported today in Indian Country Today.
• Michael Ramirez, the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist let go by the Los Angeles Times, has joined Investor’s Business Daily after being offered a position as senior editor as well as staff cartoonist, Dave Astor reported yesterday in Editor & Publisher.
• “The husband-and-wife team of Jon Duncanson and Sylvia Gomez are about to anchor their last weekend newscast after 2-1/2 years together on WBBM-Channel 2,” Robert Feder reported yesterday in the Chicago Sun-Times. “The CBS-owned station announced a new weekend anchor lineup Monday that will shift Duncanson and Gomez to full-time general assignment reporting duties.”
• Theresa Gutierrez, pioneering Hispanic reporter and public-affairs program host at Chicago’s WLS-TV, is one of six to be inducted into Silver Circle of the Chicago/Midwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Robert Feder reported today in the Chicago Sun-Times.