Missing the Satire, Host Activates Racist Listeners
“Barry Saunders and Rush Limbaugh? Those are two names you wouldn’t normally pair together, but the N&O metro section columnist found himself being quoted — unfavorably — on Limbaugh’s talk radio program last week. The show stirred heated discussion among readers and non-readers of The News & Observer,” public editor Ted Vaden wrote Sunday in the Raleigh News & Observer.
“Saunders said he received some 500 messages commenting on his column, most of them critical, some racist (Limbaugh posted Saunders’ picture on his Web site.)” Saunders is African American.
“Limbaugh hyperventilated over a Saunders column Tuesday that poked fun at the shotgun mishap of Vice President Dick Cheney. ‘Accident, my eye,’ is how the column began, and you might guess how it goes on from there:
“Just as surely as a fish wrapped in a bulletproof vest means ‘Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes,’ that shotgun blast to Whittington’s face was meant to convey that I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby had better bite his tongue and forget about testifying against Cheney, his former boss, in the Valerie Plame spy case.
“Do you believe that Saunders literally was accusing the vice president of the United States of intentionally shooting hunting buddy Harry Whittington as a warning to Libby? Apparently hundreds of folks did. . . .
“Limbaugh read about half the column over the air. But he left out the half that made clear that the N&O columnist was satirizing the Cheney affair. . . .
“I suppose if there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that satire is a tricky weapon to wield in column-writing. That’s because humor so often is not what the writer intends, but what the reader perceives. As Saunders told me, ‘If you are a Republican or a conservative, you didn’t see the humor. If you’re a liberal or an independent, you did see the humor.'”
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Limbaugh Tells Listeners White Candidate Is Black
“Brown is black in the eyes of Rush Limbaugh,” the Associated Press reported Friday.
“When Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett was forced out of the Democratic primary in the U.S. Senate race in Ohio, the conservative commentator criticized The New York Times for not saying that the Democrats’ preferred candidate is black.
“Limbaugh later found out from e-mails to his nationally syndicated radio show that the candidate, Rep. Sherrod Brown, is, in fact, white.
“Uh, Sherrod Brown’s a white guy? Then I’m confusing him with somebody. OK, I’m sorry,” Limbaugh said this week.
Brown is a seven-term congressman and former Ohio secretary of state who is running against GOP Sen. Mike DeWine.
“. . . Later in his show, Limbaugh said he kept getting e-mails. ‘We have corrected this, and I, you know, I’m not gonna apologize because I don’t think it’s an insult to be black,’ he said.
“In 2003, Limbaugh was pushed off ESPN’s NFL preview show after he said quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed.”
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FAMU J-Program Receives Provisional Accreditation
“The Division of Journalism received a recommended provisional accreditation from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,” Mia Small and Sarah Chester reported Friday in the Famuan, campus newspaper at Florida A&M University.
“The site team cited noncompliance for one out of nine areas.
“According to the report the school was in compliance with most items, including: curriculum and instruction, diversity and inclusiveness, full-time and part-time faculty, scholarship, research, creative and professional activity, student services, professional and public service and assessment of learning outcomes.
“The only section the Division of Journalism did not comply with was the mission, governance and administration policy.
“. . . The Division of Journalism became the first accredited program in 1982 at any Historically Black College and University.”
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NAHJ Blasts Use of Pepper Spray in Puerto Rico
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists last week condemned “the aggressive tactics of the FBI against journalists in Puerto Rico as agents of the federal bureau searched five homes and businesses Feb. 10 to thwart an alleged ‘domestic terrorist attack’ planned by an island pro-independence group.
“Reporters gathered outside an apartment building in the San Juan area to cover the FBI operation when they were sprayed with pepper spray by bureau agents. The incident was filmed and broadcast by a local television station,” the association said in a statement.
“Luis Fraticelli, special agent in charge of the FBI on the island, said that the FBI agents were using ‘non-lethal force’ to keep media and protestors from crossing into a law enforcement perimeter.”
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported Friday that three U.S. congressmen asked FBI Director Robert S. Mueller to launch an investigation into what they said was excessive use of force against the journalists.
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White House Reporter Ed Chen Quits L.A. Times
It was just last month that Edwin Chen, one of the highest-profile Asian American print journalists, enthusiastically told Journal-isms he was leaving the Los Angeles Times’ White House beat. He was swapping jobs with Jim Gerstenzang, the Washington Web editor/writer.
Now, Chen, 57, is leaving journalism. In an e-mail last week to fellow board members of the White House Correspondents Association, Chen said:
“Alas, I must resign from the board after all…
“I’ve decided to leave the LATimes, leave TribuneWorld, leave the newspaper industry…for a movement that protects trees instead of killing them…
“Am taking a newly created job, Washington communications director, for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“So you may soon see me, on your way into work, outside picketing…”
“Tis true — am bailing from journalism to do the Lord’s work!” Chen messaged Journal-isms today.
Chen has been at the paper for 26 years, in San Diego, Los Angeles and Washington, holding down the White House beat for seven years.
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Media Mogul Charles Cherry II a Force in Daytona
“The man who has been wearing traditional West African clothes for more than a decade has a big say in what Volusia County’s black community reads and hears,” Ken Ma wrote Sunday for the Orlando Sentinel in a Black History Month feature.
“He is Charles Cherry II, vice president and general counsel of Tama Broadcasting Inc., a black-owned media company with holdings that include two newspapers and nine radio stations, including the Daytona Times and 1590 AM (WPUL) in Daytona Beach.
“Even though he lives in Plantation, the son of the late Daytona Beach City Commissioner Charles W. Cherry Sr. influences public opinion by controlling local black media.
“In his role as publisher of the Daytona Times, a 15,000-circulation weekly newspaper, Cherry, 49, sees himself as a catalyst and watchdog for the black community.
“‘My editorial policy is ‘”let’s expose it all — good, bad and ugly,” ‘ said Cherry, sitting at his office desk, where pictures of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Frederick Douglass hang on the wall behind him,” Ma’s story continued.
- Pioneer journalist Francis Ward says media coverage has improved (Syracuse Post-Standard)
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BET Reconsidering Book, Magazine Publishing?
Debra Lee, newly installed as chairman and CEO of Black Entertainment Television — described as “the most prosperous African American business in the country,” is “currently looking to further the franchise beyond television to magazine and book publishing,” according to Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn, who wrote about Lee last week for the Associated Press.
However, BET spokesman Michael Lewellen told Journal-isms that there were “no plans in the works” for book or magazine ventures.
BET famously got out of the magazine business in 2000, when it gave management control of its three magazine properties — Emerge, a now-legendary magazine covering social and political issues; BET Weekend, a Sunday newspaper supplement that focused on lifestyles, arts and entertainment; and Heart & Soul, a health-and-fitness publication — to Vanguarde Media, Inc.
Vanguarde went bankrupt in 2003. Heart & Soul has resurfaced under new ownership. Emerge was transformed into Savoy, a lifestyles publication that is on hiatus under its new owners. BET Weekend died quietly.
BET left the book business only a few months ago. In October, the company announced it had sold BET Books, which it had touted as “the nation’s leading publishing house for African American-themed romance novels,” to Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. of Toronto. BET Books published under the imprints Arabesque, Sepia and New Spirit, and some of its novels were adapted into made-for-TV movies on BET.
“I have to answer the question of where do we take this brand from here on out,” Lee mused in Littlejohn’s story. “We have a lot to do and it’s an exciting time.” She also said BET Mobile will provide content for cell phones.
Johnathan Rodgers, CEO of TV One, often portrayed as a rival of BET for adult viewers, is quoted complimenting BET for its choice of filmmaker Reginald Hudlin as entertainment president.
“It was a statement to the creative community,” said Rodgers, “and a statement to America that they were no longer going to be stuck in comic and video programming. That, in fact, they were going to give the audience much more, and we all benefit from that.”
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Black Harvard Students Unveil Glossy Magazine
Black students at Harvard University unveiled a full-color, glossy 35-page magazine last week that features a piece on Hurricane Katrina and the political response that followed, the Harvard Crimson reported last week.
The publication, Remix, is a revamped version of a black-and-white newsletter-style publication founded in 2002 “to create a forum for open discussion on issues pertinent to black men at Harvard,” President Tracy “Ty” Moore of the Harvard Black Men’s Forum said in the story.
“Sharlene M. Brown ’08, one of the incoming editors-in-chief, said that the next step for Remix is to distribute to other colleges across the nation, first focusing on other Ivy League schools and historically black colleges. The current issue of Remix is ‘definitely geared more for the Harvard black community and especially more for males, but we are looking to diversify in terms of audience and gender,’ Brown said.” Michael P. Anderson, the social chair of the forum, said the group also hopes to eventually reach a high school audience with the magazine, the Crimson story said.
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Talk With Plain Dealer’s Fulwood Migrates to TV
“It all started over dinner conversations between two friends — Channel 3 anchor Tim White and Plain Dealer columnist Sam Fulwood III,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Saturday.
“When they invited four other Clevelanders and the WKYC cameras, the result was ‘Cleveland Café,’ a 30-minute special airing at 7 tonight on WKYC Channel 3.
“The show was filmed at Fahrenheit restaurant.
“The unscripted conversation ranged from regionalism and poverty to bad parenting and the youth culture.”
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Diversity Columnist’s Lament: “Is This Thing On?”
“I think there is a disconnect between the industry and the simmering dissatisfaction among the audience of ethnic minorities, disabled people and gays and lesbians,” Lillian Jackson wrote today in TV Week.
“I encounter it constantly as I do research for this column. When I mention to people that I am writing a column on diversity in television, without my asking, they talk about how they’re frustrated by the limited choices. Asians, blacks and Latinos I speak to complain about the scarcity of programming and frequency of stereotypical casting as criminals, clowns or domestic servants.
“When I was in college I was a dormitory resident assistant for a year. I was den mother to roughly 25 young women, among whom I was the only African American. One afternoon I dropped in on a group of my residents while they were watching TV — ‘The Jeffersons.’ As I entered the room, one girl piped up, ‘Hey, Lil, we’re watching one of your shows!’ It was meant to be funny, and it was; we all laughed. But here it is 2006, decades later, and broadcast viewing is still greatly divided between yours, mine and theirs. And “mine” is still almost exclusively sitcoms.
“People are frustrated by the slow pace of progress and tired of the lip service and facile explanations like the commonly heard chestnut that television is a business motivated by only one color: green. But that is a trick of smoke and mirrors to obscure the fact that every TV season mainstream dramas like ‘Just Legal,’ ‘The Book of Daniel’ and ‘Head Cases’ become costly cancellations, but their failures don’t prevent the appearance of more costly untried mainstream dramas the next season.
“I suspect these excuses protect the status quo. After all, if more programs are about people of color, then there likely will be more writers and actors of color and ultimately more network executives of color, which means fewer places for white writers, actors and executives.
“But if programming is truly a crapshoot, then why not take a chance on something different? Here’s a plan: For one year, every broadcast network sets aside one hour a day of prime time and one hour a day of daytime for programming by and about the disabled, people of color or lesbians or gays. Every cable network will set aside any two hours of every day. To fill those two daily hours, networks would be forced to seek out content beyond the comical or criminal. I think viewers would tune in during these hours, if just to see what the experiment produces.
“Do I expect this to happen? Not really, but like a vaudeville comedian who taps the mike and asks, ‘Is this thing on?’ I want to know if anyone is paying attention. Perhaps a radical idea will wake up the industry to the fact that change is necessary and unavoidable.”
On the same site last Monday, Sheree R. Curry traced the history of African Americans in television dramas under the headline, “Black History Month: It’s Time to Be Taken Seriously,” subheadlined, “Historically, Black Sitcoms Have Been Popular, but Mounting a Hit Drama Proves Elusive.”
Curry wrote:
“‘I believe that progress feels like two steps forward and one step back,’ said LeVar Burton, who burst onto the acting scene with his 1977 role as Kunta Kinte in ‘Roots’ and leapt several hundred years into the future to play Geordi La Forge in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation.’ He also directed more than four dozen episodes of four later ‘Star Trek’ series, and holds the record for the most ‘Star Trek’ episodes directed by a ‘Star Trek’ actor. . . . ‘More women and more minorities are able to make a living at their chosen profession now than 30 years ago,’ he said. ‘I am lucky I am able to do what it is I do and what I do best, but I am under no illusions that we are in a perfect universe.'”
- BroadReach, new diversity business quarterly for broadcasters (National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation)
