Maynard Institute archives

Some See Stars, Others a Black Hole

by richard0531

Committee Reports on Retention at D.C.’s Post

A “star system” among reporters, bureaucratic obstacles to communication among editors and reporters and failure to post job openings are among the chief reasons journalists of color leave the Washington Post, a newsroom diversity committee reported late last week.

The committee came together in 2004 after the managing editor’s job did not go to a senior African American at the paper, Eugene Robinson, and instead was filled by a white editor, Philip Bennett. Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., Bennett and Deputy Managing Editor Milton Coleman endorsed the committee’s undertaking.

In a cover letter accompanying the internal report, those editors noted: “Notable progress has been made while this study was in progress. Through determined recruiting, we have increased the number of minority journalists working in our newsroom to an all-time high of 152, which is 23.5 percent of our professional staff. The two percent increase from 21.4 percent at the end of 2004 is the largest ever.” They listed other steps they had taken, but added, “this report makes clear that we have more to do,” and said they would meet with newsroom staffs “to discuss further action in response to this report.”

The committee members said in their introduction, “Two of every three black, Asian and Latino members of the staff left the newsroom within the past 10 years, an exodus that has greatly undermined the newspaper’s diversity goals and, more importantly, the paper’s ability to cover our rapidly changing metro area. As the Washington region exploded in size and ethnic diversity, the ethnic makeup of the newsroom remained virtually the same – nearly 80 percent white.”

The 14 committee members, who included black, white and Asian American journalists, focused on newsroom culture, retention and job postings. They said editors “made significant strides in addressing concerns that arose” in December 2004 “upon the naming of the new managing editor. . . . The group is mindful, however, that the newspaper has a history of responding strongly and quickly to concerns raised by minority staff only to allow these efforts to wane over time.”

Many journalists will find some of the complaints familiar, but magnified by the number of journalistic “stars” at the Post, the size of the operation and a newsroom atmosphere the report described as “cold.” “Everybody should learn to look each other in the eye when they pass each other and greet each other,” said one journalist quoted in the report.

The recommendations were by and large process-oriented. Among them:

  • “Reporters and editors are hungry for feedback, especially copy editors and bureau reporters. Newsroom morale is hurt by the perception that top editors are only interested in certain stars and that only a chosen few – rarely minorities – get the kind of feedback they need to become stars. To address this, the group feels a far greater emphasis needs to be placed on frequent and honest communication and more transparency. We have suggested more formal structures for feedback, including periodic meetings between assignment editors and reporters to discuss story ideas, craft and career goals in detail. . . .”
  • “To retain more minority reporters, the Post should have a better evaluation process, improved career development, and a more dynamic approach to mentoring and assisting younger journalists and new employees. Post management must rethink the evaluation process, develop realistic goals for timely reviews, and then find ways to guarantee that managers will view evaluations as a top priority not one that can be ignored.”
  • “The creation of a computer database to track career goals of reporters and editors at the Post is an exciting and potentially powerful career development tool. Done properly, it will help editors identify and nurture emerging talents. We hope that managers who are tracking reporters will give frank feedback to staffers who have indicated that they would one day like to work in their section. Staffers deserve to know what they must do to move toward their career goals or understand if they need to revise their ambitions to better match their talents.”

The committee interviewed 50 staffers, but recommended a larger proportion of the Post’s 800 newsroom staffers be contacted “to get a more statistically accurate and detailed sense of attitudes on these issues.”

Much of the report consists of quotes from interviewees who were promised anonymity if they so chose.

One section says:

“Most reporters stressed their ideas were valued and their stories are getting published. Most editors said the same, although some expressed trouble getting reporters to adopt the ideas.

“Minority journalists expressed more hesitation on this question. Two reporters said they had encountered roadblocks when trying to get their stories regarding minority issues into the paper. This was especially true on long-term projects involving minorities. ‘They think minority reporters have agendas so they don’t seem as interested in our stories,’ said one reporter. Another reporter said that 75 percent of her stories are published, but when she tries to sell a minority issue story, she has a harder time. ‘After nearly 10 years here, don’t you think it’s time the editor trust my judgment? It’s always a constant battle.’

“Another person said she had to make her ideas seem ‘non-threatening to my boss.’ This boss takes the credit if the story works.”

Already, one blogger has commented on the report, viewing it after the entire document was leaked to the blog fishbowldc.com and posted there Thursday.

“This one sticks out for me, on page 5,” wrote Tim Graham. “One person noted an anti-religion bias in the newsroom. When referring to the faithful, ‘the word of choice around here is “kooks”.’ This same person felt offended during the recent coverage of the Pope’s death, when some of her colleagues, she said, were mocking the Pope. ‘I was [too] intimidated to complain, even since my editor was part of it, so I got up and left. Faith is derided.'”

Responded one blog reader: “Although I am not a [religious] fanatic (some say i’m not a conservative because of it, but I tend to disagree.) this just shows another example on the war on religion here in america.”

The committee members noted that little among what they found was new. It cited the Post’s own “Challenge and Change” report from 1993, and the New York Times’ Siegal Report from 2003, after the Jayson Blair scandal, which mentioned a failure to post job openings at that paper.

Members of the committee were: Keith Alexander, Victoria Benning, Justin Blum, D’Vera Cohn, David Fallis, Maureen Fan, Darryl Fears, Sara K. Goo, Anne Hull, Stephen King, Christopher J. Lee, Peter Perl, Sandra Sugawara and Sydney Trent.

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Writer Asks, How Many Published “Piss Christ”?

“Here’s a question that will test some memories,” Jonathan Gurwitz, an editorial writer and columnist at the San Antonio Express-News, wrote Thursday to the listserve of the National Conference of Editorial Writers. “How many papers published, either in news or commentary, pictures of Serrano’s ‘Piss Christ’ in 1987 or Ofili’s ‘Holy Virgin Mary’ in 1999 to illustrate the controversy over these works of art?”

He was responding, of course, to the continuing controversy over the publication of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that have sparked riots, and to the explanation by some who have justified publishing them by saying readers should see what the controversy is about.

On Saturday, hundreds of Muslims picketed one paper that used that justification, the Philadelphia Inquirer, that newspaper reported Sunday.

Some editorial writers replied to Gurwitz’s question by asking how many how newspapers ran photos of Pennsylvania treasurer R. Budd Dwyer, who, convicted of defrauding the state, shot himself to death in front of horrified spectators in 1987. Or they responded with another example: Showing Janet Jackson’s breast after her “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. Others questioned whether the analogies held up.

Gurwitz, who said he was seeking the information for a column, told Journal-isms it was not a rhetorical question, and that the New York Times “may have provided the most compelling answer.” On Tuesday, “its editorial page endorsed ‘news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.’ On Thursday its Arts page carried a photo of ‘Holy Virgin Mary.'”

It’s good material for opinion writers. Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald wrote, “what’s more dismaying is the way some in the Muslim world have chosen to respond. At least 10 people have lost their lives in these riots. All over a series of cartoons. And you wonder: Are they so far removed from the realities of the world the rest of us occupy that they don’t see the damage they’re doing their faith, their people, themselves?”

However, in a column headlined, “Blaming the Victims for the Crime,” Askia Muhammad wrote in the weekly Washington Informer that “Muslims are being judged unfairly – as is the case so often in our society.” . . . The cartoonists’ “purpose does not seem to have been to foster reasoning and debate on the subject, but rather to further poke their fingers in the eye of the angry Muslim world,” he said.

“As a person who has suffered blatant and unrepentant bias and discrimination because of my skin color and because of my religion, I know Muslims suffer a lot in ways that other people in this country – even Blacks who constantly face institutional racism – do not have to endure,” Muhammad wrote.

“In 1977, for example, when I was first a reporter in Washington for the Chicago Daily Defender, a cabinet secretary – Patricia Roberts Harris, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development – actually called my editor to complain, asking him, ‘Why do you have a Black Muslim calling my office?’ In the 29 years since that incident, anti-Muslim feelings have only increased – and exponentially since the advent of ‘Homeland Security.'”

The Associated Press reported Thursday that the controversy has been good for business: “For newspapers in France and Norway that reprinted the drawings with much international ado, sometimes in defense of free speech, the caricatures have become a profile boost and tonic for lackluster sales.”

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BET Shows Funeral Excerpts as Debate Continues

Black Entertainment Television, whose failure to join other cable networks in providing live coverage of the Coretta Scott King funeral last week was deemed “a shocker” by at least one television critic, scheduled “a special two-hour look at the spiritual praises and memorable moments from Mrs. King’s funeral” for 1 p.m. today.

TV One and the Black Family Channel aired what became a shared national experience, partly because of controversy over whether remarks by civil rights veteran the Rev. Joseph Lowery and former president Jimmy Carter, one of four current and former presidents to speak, were too “political.” Clips of their comments were still airing on newscasts today.

On Wednesday, Gail Shister began her Philadelphia Inquirer column:

“Coretta Scott King or Kanye West? BET went West. In a shocker, Black Entertainment Television took a pass on live coverage of the King funeral Tuesday, going instead with its usual lineup of music-video shows from noon to 3 p.m.”

On Thursday, BET announced it was rerunning an hour-long program on Mrs. King and adding the two hours of funeral excerpts.

“Sunday’s three-hour salute culminates the news reports, images, analysis, expressions and information delivered by BET to millions of television viewers and Internet users since Ms. King’s death on January 30,” the release said.

“Users were able to view Mrs. King’s funeral via live video on www.BET.com, which generated over 57,000 video streams; while the network’s hourly news briefs originated from Atlanta to keep television viewers updated on the service and the dignitaries in attendance. Visitors to the website could also post condolences for the King Family; read multiple news stories and features; and learn first-hand about Mrs. King’s childhood days as told to BET News Senior Political Producer Pamela Gentry by Mrs. King’s sister Edith Scott Bagley. Through diversity in their approaches, BET and BET.com combined to deliver a multi-media experience for all to share in celebrating the life of Mrs. King.”

Mike James, an Internet broadcaster based in Syracuse, N.Y., began circulating a petition to “Demand Better Programming from Black Entertainment Television!”

Coincidentally, BET was the subject of a National Public Radio piece today by Lynn Neary on “Weekend All Things Considered,” “New BET Chief Shepherds Shift from Music Videos.” It did not mention the controversy over BET’s King coverage, but quoted George E. Curry, editor in chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service: “I used to watch the news. Itâ??s not there anymore. I used to watch ‘Lead Story.’ Itâ??s not there anymore. I used to watch ‘BET Tonight.’ Itâ??s not there anymore. I have nothing to watch on BET so I donâ??t watch it.”

Meanwhile, the Kings’ hometown newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said , of the funeral, “to those who followed the careers of Mrs. King and her late husband, there was something sweetly familiar in these complaints about poor timing and about unnecessarily injecting tension into a situation.” And columnists of color weighed in on the “political” controversy and other aspects of King’s life:

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Oklahoma Student First to Serve on NAJA Board

“Some students might think they are busy,” Jessica Jackson wrote Thursday in the OU Daily at Oklahoma University.

“But imagine being a full-time student and also taking care of two 3-year-olds.

“And rushing a sorority.

“Oh, and being one of the leaders of a national organization.

“Christina Good Voice, 24, knows what that’s like. She juggles all four of these important activities on a daily basis.

“Good Voice, journalism senior, was recently named the first student of a nine-member board for the Native American Journalists Association.”

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Anchor Says Atlanta’s Ex-Mayor Paid for Vacations

“Former Atlanta TV news anchor Marion Brooks glanced over at jurors, the court security officer and the crowd. She looked at seemingly everyone but the man she had a hidden four-year affair with – former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell,” Jeffry Scott and Beth Warren reported Thursday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“. . . Her testimony, just about 40 minutes long, briefly shifted the tone of the trial from tedious details on bank records to romance. The pair took dozens of trips to romantic locales from Mexico to Paris to San Francisco to Jamaica, Campbell paying for hotels and meals with cash, and arranging airfare through his friend and poker buddy, Gabe Pascarella. Brooks said she used her credit card for their airfare to Mexico and her ticket to Paris, but the mayor paid for the other flights – in cash. He also paid for hotel stays, food and entertainment and always plunked down cash, she said.

“. . . For a few minutes, sitting in the courtroom felt a bit like watching a slide show of somebody’s honeymoon, as photos taken from Campbell and Brooks’ July 1999 trip to Paris were projected on a screen. Former Atlanta Chief Operating Officer Larry Wallace joined them on the trip. The trio stayed for four days at the Bristol Hotel, which Brooks described as: ‘Very nice, top of the line.'”

“Prosecutors allege that United Water – which had a $21 million a year contract to privatize the city’s water supply – paid about $12,000 of the expenses of the Paris trip. They claim the trip was kept secret, and never appeared on Campbell’s personal calendar.”

In a follow-up story, Bill Torpy wrote that “The affair between Brooks and Campbell raises ethical questions about the news media’s responsibility in covering public officials and potential conflicts of interest when those lines are blurred.”

Some co-workers steered clear of Brooks when they were working on stories about City Hall for fear of Brooks tipping off Campbell, Torpy’s story said.

“Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a journalism education center, said ‘it’s reasonable to conclude [the affair] could cloud your judgment. It’s very hard to do critical reporting on someone you’re sleeping with.’

“WMAQ in Chicago, where [Brooks] is an news anchor, said in a brief statement that it is aware of the affair and values Brooks as an employee.”

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Book Affair Launches Debate Over Oprah’s Power

Writing under the headline “Citizen Oprah: Why America’s most powerful celebrity should be more feared than loved,” media critic Mark Jurkowitz of the Boston Phoenix declared that:

“The 52-year-old Oprah, who Forbes estimates has a net worth of $1.4 billion, has amassed almost unfathomable power and influence through a feel-good empire of confession, redemption, and self-help magnified through the multimedia megaphone that includes everything from her talk show and magazine to her film company. By touting anything, from books to bras, she can inspire mega-mass consumption and move markets.”

What’s ultimately so scary about Winfrey, Jurkowitz said, is “She puts the ‘cult’ in pop culture.”

“Even though much of her appeal is rooted in what’s been the highest-rated TV talk show for the past 19 years, Winfrey is more than just a television superstar. (Nielsen Media Research numbers indicate that each show averages about 9.3 million viewers, and it is currently the second-highest-rated syndicated program, behind Wheel of Fortune.)

“Last year, Forbes.com listed her as number one atop its ‘Celebrity 100’ power list, with Tiger Woods coming in second. The Internet portal About.com conducted a poll of most-admired entrepreneurs and, with more than half a million votes cast, Winfrey had swamped Bill Gates, 34 percent to 20 percent, with Donald Trump third at eight percent. There is even an organized effort under way, managed by a middle-aged Maryland public-relations consultant, to get Oprah a Nobel Peace Prize.

“Yet, unlike other very powerful women (see Martha Stewart and Hillary Clinton) and unlike other media moguls with a message (see Ted Turner or Rupert Murdoch), Oprah has executed a singularly brilliant stroke: she has rendered herself largely immune to criticism or questioning – even from those made somewhat queasy by that power.”

The column did not sit well with media critic Amy Alexander, who told Journal-isms:

“I was waiting for the white media critics to start accusing Oprah of having ‘too much power,’ as if there is something inherently SINISTER in her prominence. This column more than anything in recent memory is an excellent example of why the press is so widely hated and mistrusted, particularly by people of color.

“I say this as a longtime fan of Jurkowitz – or should I say FORMER fan. I too have written in the recent past about the ‘cult of Oprah’ but mostly as a black woman viewer concerned with the homogeneity of her shows, the way they’ve skewed to a decidedly middle-class, white demo in the past decade. (Although the current season has shown a bit more willingness to take risks.) It seemed to me that in her very noble effort to get out of the trash tv biz, that she had swung too far for a while in the other direction, toward a ‘safe’ kind of self-help, New Agey tip. I actually think her current incarnation is a better balance, and that she is hitting a stride, of sorts. But, apparently, her prominence and I daresay CONFIDENCE, represents ‘too much power’ to some white folks. At least that [is] Jurkowitz interpretation. I mean, Jurkowitz writes, among other clearly limited observations, that ‘viewers winced’ at her slicing up James Frey and Nan Talese,” the author and publisher of the memoir “A Million Little Pieces,” which was found to have been exaggerated. “When I read that in his story, I asked, ‘WHICH viewers?'”

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For Oprah, Satellite Radio Is Newest Frontier

“Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart are already friendly rivals on television and in the magazine world. Come September, that competition will extend to the rapidly expanding world of satellite radio,” Lorne Manly wrote Friday in the New York Times.

“XM Satellite Radio yesterday announced that it had signed Ms. Winfrey to a three-year, $55 million deal to create a channel called Oprah & Friends for its pay service. The channel, to be broadcast from a new studio at Ms. Winfrey’s Harpo Productions headquarters in Chicago, will feature some of the personalities her imprimatur has helped popularize, including the diet and exercise guru Bob Greene and the broadcaster Gayle King .

“Though Ms. Winfrey said she would be ‘very involved’ in the development of those shows, her contractually agreed on-air time will be limited to the 30 minutes each of 39 weeks when she joins her good friend Ms. King to talk about current events and whatever else may be on their minds. ‘This deal is about my friends,’ Ms. Winfrey said.”

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“English Immersion” Not Path to Bilingual Journalists

“An editor from another Texas newspaper and I were on the phone this week talking about college students who are prospective newspaper interns,” Nick Jimenez, editorial page editor of the Caller-Times in Corpus Christi, Texas, wrote Feb. 5. “The students were all minorities applying for a program sponsored by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association, which grew out of the need to increase the really low numbers of Hispanic and black journalists working in newsrooms across the state.

“The program places these budding minority journalists in newsrooms in smaller towns across Texas for the summer. The experience is often eye-opening for both the students and their adopted communities. In many cases, the intern is the first minority journalist to work in those community newspapers. And it is the first time that the city council, county government or police in these smaller communities have been reported on by a black or Hispanic journalist.

“As we went down the list, each time we came to a Hispanic student, the editor would ask me, ‘Can she (or he) speak Spanish?’

“The question is a valid one. . . .

“This is why the State Board of Education’s thinking that English immersion is somehow the wave of the future is woefully off course. Next week the board is due to hear from proponents of English immersion as a tool to increase the English proficiency of students who are now in bilingual education. If this is well-intended concern about the effectiveness of English instruction, then the board is simply misinformed. If this is yet another attempt at an English-only world, then the Board is working against the betterment of the state.

“. . . Better is to use a student’s own language to build literacy in a second language and increase the student’s level of fluency and sophistication in both? This is basically what bilingual education is about.”

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Short Takes

  • “KPRC-TV news anchor Linda Lorelle resigned her post late Friday, ending a 16-year career at the station,” Mike McDaniel reported Sunday in the Houston Chronicle. “Lorelle’s demotion last fall from prime-time to afternoon news anchor had sparked a call for a boycott . . . [that] called for Lorelle and fellow anchor Khambrel Marshall, who had been reassigned to a weekend anchor, to have their higher-profile positions restored. . . . Since the call for a boycott, the station has added blacks to its management, including the December hiring of KHOU anchor Jerome Gray.”
  • “A magistrate judge Thursday ordered Miami Herald columnist Ana Veciana-Suarez to pay a $5,000 fine and serve 60 hours of community service for a contempt-of-court conviction, condemning her failure to disclose her father’s criminal history during jury selection for a 2003 federal civil trial,” Jay Weaver reported Friday in the Herald.
  • “WTSP-Ch. 10 anchor Reginald Roundtree was sentenced to six months probation Wednesday after pleading no contest to a charge stemming from a traffic arrest in December,” Chris Tisch reported Thursday in the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. On the air Thursday, Roundtree told viewers, “You’ve been able to depend on me for 17 years and I hope tonight, you don’t lose faith now.”
  • ABC-TV “World News Tonight” co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas and her husband, singer-songwriter Marc Cohn, are expecting their second child in late summer, the couple announced Friday, ABC reported.
  • Kevin Powell, the activist journalist and author who once appeared on MTV’s “The Real World,” is considering challenging Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., Hugh Son reported Thursday in the New York Daily News.
  • “While the University’s administration prides itself on painting our campus every shade it can find – about 38 percent of the student body is non-white – campus publications have staffs as white as the paper they print on,” Josie Swindler writes in the Blue & White, undergraduate magazine of Columbia University. “The current mastheads of the Spectator, The Blue & White, the Columbia Political Review, The Fed, The Jester, the Barnard Bulletin, The Current (well, it’s Jewish), the Birch (well, it’s Russian), and the Citadel (well, it’s conservative) don’t contain a single black editor. In the past four years, the Spectator Managing Boards, the top level of editors, have included 53 different people, with 43 of them white, two Hispanics, and eight Asians (six of whom were in business, photo, production, or web design).” The Columbia Daily Spectator is the campus daily.
  • “Televisa is seen among the likely bidders for its partner, Univision, but the Mexican broadcaster may need an ally with deep pockets to boost its stake and bypass U.S. foreign ownership rules,” Cyntia Barrera Diaz wrote Friday for Reuters.
  • “Right now, as you read these words, the telecommunications lobbyists are scurrying around the halls of Congress and every state capitol in the land, scheming to pull off yet another huge ripoff under the banner of freedom and competition,” columnist Juan Gonzalez wrote Thursday in the New York Daily News. “This time they want to steal the Internet itself. They want to grab the most important communications tool of our age right out from under the American people. Or at least they want to privatize access to it and charge the highest-possible toll for anyone to get on the highway’s on-ramps,” wrote Gonzalez, immediate past president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
  • After 24 years as co-anchor of Univision station KWEX’s signature 5 p.m. weekday newscast, Monica Navarro, was reassigned last month to KWEX’s Saturday and Sunday newscasts, Jeanne Jakle reported Friday in the San Antonio Express-News.

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