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No Journalists of Color in Management Promotions

On Monday, the New York Times announced that three people would split the No. 2 job in its Washington bureau. On Wednesday, the paper named three assistant managing editors. And on Thursday, it announced a new metro editor.

None was a journalist of color.

In fact, Times spokesman Toby Usnik confirmed today, the last promotion of a journalist of color into or within management was in May 2004, when Charles Blow, who is African American, was made deputy design director for news.

Usnik hastened to add that “we’ve just completed” the annual diversity census of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, “and people of color now make up 17.6% of the approximate 1,000 journalists in The New York Times newsroom and editorial board – the highest percentage in our history.”

He did not respond to a question about the diversity figures for supervisors, but Times insiders say the numbers are few.

“We don’t have much in the way of leadership,” said one, adding that the departure of Steven A. Holmes, the deputy education editor who left the Times last summer for the Washington Post, “was a big loss.” At the Post, Holmes is a deputy national editor overseeing domestic policy.

In 2003, Gerald M. Boyd stepped down as the Times’ first African American managing editor, a result of the Jayson Blair scandal.

Another staffer of color cautioned that not all management changes had been announced, but said part of the problem is that journalists of color are not being nurtured for the management track. Top newsroom managers usually have foreign-desk or Washington bureau experience, and by and large, that is not where the journalists of color are.

Many of these factors were stated in a 58-page in-house report at the Times after the scandal involving Blair, who plagiarized and fabricated material before being discovered and forced to resign.

“Expand the recruitment of experienced journalists from a diverse pool as a necessary complement to the apprenticeship programs already in place,” read one recommendation in the publicly available Siegal Report of 2003. “This is a necessary objective not only in its own right but also to counteract damage done by the Blair scandal in stereotypically identifying minority journalists with apprentice-level programs.

“Mid-career hiring should be a primary goal not only of the Career Development Editor but of all masthead editors and department heads. Expanding upon the work already done by our News Administration group, we should develop a talent bank of resumes to track mid-career and more senior minority journalists at other publications.”

It continued:

“Enforce company policy requiring managers to consider a diverse pool of candidates for every job, including medium-term assignments. On the business side, this process has helped create a staff that on the whole is more diverse than the newsroom. A job should not be filled until a department head has assured the Career Development Editor that a good-faith effort has been made to assemble a diverse pool.”

And:

“Expand the search for mid-level minority reporters and editors, with special attention to Latinos and to minority managers and copy editors. Some new strategies include:

The new assistant managing editors, whose names now appear in the newspaper’s masthead, are Glenn Kramon, who was an associate managing editor in charge of career development; Susan Edgerley, the metropolitan editor; and Richard L. Berke, an associate managing editor for news.

The three new deputy Washington bureau chiefs are: Rebecca Corbett for enterprise, Doug Jehl for national security coverage and Dick Stevenson for domestic and economic affairs and politics.

Joe Sexton, who is second in command on the Metro desk, was named Metro editor. The Times’ news story noted that in 1984 Sexton was a founding member of the City Sun, the muckraking African American weekly paper founded by the late Andrew W. Cooper based in Brooklyn. It folded in 1996.

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Oprah-Frey Flap Unlikely to Lead to Fact Checking

Oprah Winfrey’s confrontation Thursday with author James Frey and his publisher was front-page news and a hot subject on cable and the morning broadcast television shows, but the admission that Frey had exaggerated facts in his best-selling “memoir” might not have much effect where it counts: in the publishing industry, Publishers Weekly reported today.

“Many publishers acknowledged the importance of the fact-checking issue, and the call for change by the book industry’s biggest media patron, though many remain circumspect about the viability of hiring factcheckers, as suggested by a journalist on Winfrey’s show,” Charlotte Abbott reported on the magazine’s Web site.

“Grove’s Morgan Entrekin did the math: someone earning $35,000 a year could check 10,000 words a week at most, adding roughly $8,750 to the cost of producing a 125,000-word nonfiction book. ‘That’s more than the type-setting, copy editing and proof reading cost combined – and it’s just not viable,’ he said.”

On Thursday’s show, Winfrey secured an acknowledgment from Frey that he had fabricated parts of the book about his addiction, “A Million Little Pieces,” and his publisher, Nan Talese, senior vice president of Doubleday, maintained that no red flags leaped out at her or her staff.

“I would say to the publishing industry, you guys have got to cut this out,” Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen told Talese on the show. “You’re not little shops anymore with two or . . . three people working with quills, you’re part of a large corp – large corporation; hire somebody for $25-$30,000 a year as a fact checker. A fact checker would have found out in a half an hour that some of this book didn’t – didn’t work, because the book doesn’t pass the smell test.”

In her piece today, Abbott asked, “What would hold the line on veracity?” then quoted Entrekin:

“We have to make sure we are going into business with people we can trust, we have to look at their CVs, look to their agents, and ask a lot of questions,” Entrekin said. “Others emphasized the importance in nonfiction contracts of the author’s warrant that all facts are true to the best of the author’s knowledge and that it’s a breach of contract if there’s any proof that falsehoods were knowingly included. ‘But publishers would have to be more willing to sue,’ said one observer, noting that such aggressive action runs against the industry’s genteel culture,” Abbott wrote.

Scott Collins and Matea Gold reported in the Los Angeles Times today, however, that “In the wake of Thursday’s telecast, Riverhead Books, the publisher of Frey’s latest bestseller, a memoir titled ‘My Friend Leonard,’ said it was reevaluating its relationship with the author, including contracts for additional books.”

In apparently the first commentary on the program by a journalist of color, media writer Amy Alexander wrote today on MSNBC.com:

“Despite the personal humiliation she clearly felt, Oprah forced a long-overdue conversation about fact versus fiction in pop culture. More importantly, she sought to hold at least one publisher accountable for perhaps willingly blurring the line between the two. This is far from your typical daytime talk show fodder, or even a subject that gets much attention from serious news programs on a consistent basis – unless it concerns fabricating journalists like Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair.

“Thursday’s broadcast made one thing abundantly clear: Oprah Winfrey, a former local TV journalist and troubled teen from a dirt-poor Mississippi town, has bigger cajones than most of the men elected to national office these days.”

Others suggested that the publicity would sell even more books. “A Million Little Pieces” was 2005’s second most widely purchased hardcover. And while there seemed little racial about the confrontation, slate.com writer Troy Patterson wrote that, “Oprah occasionally wore the wounded air of Angry Black Mom, and Frey’s publisher, Nan A. Talese, did a decent turn as Indulgent Auntie.”

The absence of black journalists among the three in the studio with Winfrey, Frey and Talese continued as a topic on the listserve of the National Association of Black Journalists. A spokeswoman for Winfrey’s Harpo Productions told Journal-isms “we have no further comment” about the selection of commentators and was “standing by the context of the show,” in which African American commentator Stanley Crouch was one of three journalists who offered quick sound bites on videotape.

[Added Jan. 29: Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, who had been in Yemen for the Committee to Protect Journalists, told Journal-isms today: “I did receive a call and an e-mail from Oprah’s producer while I was in Yemen but e-mailed back, with great regrets, that I would not be able to do the show. She e-mailed back an invite to send a videotape of my comments, but, alas, that was not physically possible in time for their show.”]

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Papers Uncover “Indian” as White Gay-Porn Writer

“A former Chapel Hill author isn’t the Navajo Indian he claimed in nationally acclaimed memoirs about his troubled childhood growing up in the Southwest, a newspaper reported Friday,” the Associated Press wrote today from North Carolina.

“The man, known as Nasdijj, is actually Timothy P. Barrus, who’s of Scandinavian descent from a middle-class neighborhood of Lansing, Mich. and had a career writing gay pornography, The News and Observer of Raleigh reported. The newspaper cited public records and several people who know Barrus.

“Doubts about Nasdijj were raised Wednesday by alternative publication LA Weekly.

“The News & Observer, which had a Social Security number for Nasdijj because it had paid him for freelance work, had a private company match Barrus to the number using public records.

“Also, an Esquire editor said the magazine had made out a check to Tim Nasdijj Barrus for a 1999 article considered the author’s breakthrough piece. The article was about his adopted son, a [Navajo] named Tommy Nothing Fancy, and the boy’s death from fetal alcohol syndrome.”

“The Esquire piece, as successful as it was heartbreaking, was a finalist for a National Magazine Award and helped establish Nasdijj as a prominent new voice in the world of nonfiction,” the LA Weekly wrote.

Also today, Kimberly Maul of the book-industry publication the Book Standard wrote that Barrus’ former agent, Jim Cypher, “has confirmed to The Book Standard that Barrus and Native American writer Nasdijj are the same person.”

The publisher of two memoirs by Nasdijj said today it would no longer ship his books and would accept returns of copies from booksellers, according to the Associated Press.

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Bennett, Now on CNN, Knocks “Distortion of My Life”

A day after CNN announced that William J. Bennett would join CNN as a regular contributor, the former education secretary and drug czar Thursday went on Wolf Blitzer’s CNN show “The Situation Room.”

After discussing news of the day, Blitzer said, “I have to ask you about those controversial comments you made a few months back, that some suggested were seen as racist, when you said in a hypothetical discussion that if you go ahead, you can repeat what you said.

Bennett replied: “I don’t think I will.”

BLITZER: “If you go ahead and abort all black babies, there will be a reduction in crime. It caused a huge stir. Since this is the first time you’re joining me here on CNN, I want you to explain to our viewers what you were thinking because I’ve known you [for] many years. I know you’re not a racist. And I just want our viewers to have an understanding of what you were saying.”

BENNETT: “Well this was – first, I want to thank CNN for looking past this canard, or through this canard and taking me on. But I’ve had a number of controversies in my life and some of them, frankly deserved. This one was not deserved.

“I was dealing with a hypothetical, talking about lowering crime rate by aborting babies in the black community. And that this was a hypothetical. Obviously it was a matter that had been under discussion in articles and newspapers and in some discussions and books.

“But I brought it up as a hypothetical to point out how noxious it was. After having brought up the hypothetical, I said of course that would be a reprehensible and impossible thing to do, direct quote.

“Well some of the media that replayed it played the hypothetical, but they didn’t play my condemnation of the hypothetical. I’m a college professor, old college professor, I use hypotheticals.

“And sometimes you bring up an extreme or ridiculous position in order to show how absurd it is. That was the point of it. So, it was based on a distortion. But more than that, Wolf, it was the whole thing, as it went on, was based on a distortion of my life.

“I appreciate what you say about me. I went to Mississippi in 1997, I taught, I taught Martin Luther King[‘s] letter from a Birmingham jail. I’ve been committed to civil rights and all anybody has to do is look at my life, my record and the work that we still do.”

BLITZER: “Bill Bennett, welcome to CNN and you’ll be spending a lot of time here in ‘The Situation Room.'”

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Town Splits on Honor for Vietnamese Journalist

“The industrial street that zigzags through the heart of Orange County’s Vietnamese community is named after a farmer whose fields eventually made way for the tract homes and commercial districts that dot Westminster, Mai Tran reported Thursday in the Los Angeles Times.

“Now, some would like to rename a stretch of that street for the now-ailing publisher of the first daily newspaper to serve the town’s Vietnamese community. It would be the first street to carry a Vietnamese name in Little Saigon, the bustling enclave that is home to the nation’s largest Vietnamese population.

“The suggestion to change Moran Street to Yen Do Street has drawn a mixed response.

“City leaders in Westminster, a middle-class town that changed dramatically with the arrival of Vietnamese refugees in the late 1970s, aren’t sure it would be right to erase the name of a town pioneer.

“Those in the Vietnamese community say it’s time a city street sign carry a Vietnamese name. It’s just that they’re not certain Do should be the first person so honored.

“And Vietnamese journalists are upset that a road that’s become the Vietnamese equivalent of Fleet Street – the historic newspaper row in London – would be named after a competitor. A handful of Vietnamese newspapers and other media outlets are on Moran.”

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Editor “Most Likely” Would Run Same Story

The Asian American Journalists Association is protesting the prominence given to ethnicity in a Jan. 11 story, “Iranian immigrant enters country illegally,” in the Deming (N.M.) Headlight, but the editor says he “most likely” would publish the story the same way again.

“We are puzzled” about why Medhi Ahmadi’s “nationality figured so critically that it merited mention in both the headline and the lead,” AAJA National President Esther Wu wrote to Headlight Editor Billy Armendariz.

“The concern we at AAJA have is the suggestion that Ahmadi’s act of crossing the border illegally is tied to his country of origin, a potentially inflammatory suggestion given that people of Middle Eastern descent have since the Sept. 11 attacks unfairly come under suspicion.”

Armendariz told Journal-isms today that “it’s highly unusual for somebody of his ethnicity to be in this area,” near the U.S.-Mexico border. “The U.S. Border Patrol even has a term” for people who come to the States from Mexico who are not Mexican, he said, and “in light of the political climate,” the paper made the right decision.

Meanwhile, Wu today wrote to KLSX-FM in Los Angeles to complain “about the racist segment that aired on Adam Carolla’s radio show on Jan. 24.

“During the broadcast, Carolla made derogatory remarks about the Asian Excellence Awards, a program that paid tribute to Asian Americans in the media who have made a difference, including the late actor Pat Morita,” Wu’s letter said.

“Carolla and his radio crew mocked the awards presentation, which was conducted in English. They repeated chants of ‘ching chong, ching chong’ as part of a pretend interview of the Asian American presenters and honorees. The attempt at humor was crude, offensive and inexcusable.”

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Writers Faulted on Ethics, Knowledge of Economics

“A recent survey by the American Society of Business Publication Editors raised some serious questions about the ethical standards in the business-to-business publishing field. With 157 trade publication editors responding, a strong majority (90 percent) say their publications need editorial ethics guidelines,” Kevin Sweeney reported Monday on businessjournalism.org, a Web site of the American Press Institute.

“Just 57 percent of editors said that their publication had an editorial code in place. Of those editors, however, 42 percent viewed their organization’s codes as informal.

“For business reporters and editors at daily newspapers, the survey brings the newspaper code of ethics under the magnifying glass and refreshes critical communication issues for senior management.”

That’s not the only fault some find with reporting about numbers.

“Brad DeLong -â?? the Berkeley economics professor whose popular blog includes more than a bit of media criticism â?? launched a fascinating experiment last week: He joined forces with Journalism School Professor Susan Rasky to teach a class for would-be journalists called ‘Covering the Economy,'” Dan Froomkin wrote Monday on the Nieman Watchdog site.

“In DeLong’s hands, the class might be better titled ‘How Not to Cover the Economy.’ As DeLong writes in the syllabus, he took up the challenge ‘because he is being gradually driven insane by stories in major newspapers and other outlets.'”

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