Two Black Journalists Get Key Beats
The New York Times has assigned two black journalists to key beats – at the State Department and as city hall bureau chief, Executive Editor Bill Keller told online readers this week. He cited the reassignments as evidence that the New York Times wants “a diverse newsroom at all reporting and editing levels, and we are pushing hard to get there.”
The Times has been taken to task by a council of its employees, who recently told management, “The Times is a newspaper at risk. If it fails to diversify its work force and to make attendant changes in its corporate culture, the Times will inevitably lose stature.” Employees have said privately that they do not view Keller as a strong diversity advocate. The highest- ranking person of color remains Charles Blow, deputy design director for news.
Named to the two posts were editorial writer Helene Cooper, to the State Department, and Diane Cardwell, who has been covering city government and politics, as city hall bureau chief.
Keller’s response came to two questions in an online chat. One, from Lowell Thompson in Chicago, asked:
“I’m an African-American in Chicago who wonders what you’re doing to increase the participation of African-American journalists at all levels of your professional staff. After the Jayson Blair incident and the the forced resignation of the highest ranking black member of your editorial staff,” a reference to former managing editor Gerald Boyd, “it seems the subject has become observed by its absence. Are you still working to improve the participation of ‘unwhite’ people in your company? If so, tell me how.”
Keller replied: “We are committed to diversity in the newsroom, not as a matter of social justice but as matter of good journalism and expanding our readership. If we are to cover a diverse world it is important that our staff encompass and comprehend a diversity of experience – including not only the experiences of race and gender, but class and geography and background. (I wish we had more journalists with military experience, more from rural upbringings, more who grew up in evangelical churches.).
“We make a concerted effort to hire and promote talented minority journalists. When we assess our employees we, of course, put the highest premium on performance; to do otherwise would be condescending. But once you get past the threshold test – can this person do the work up to our high standards? – we also look broadly at what else they bring to the table.
“Currently about 17 percent of our newsroom work force is African-American, Latino, Asian or Native American, the highest percentage ever. We have recently named African-American women to two of our most prestigious reporting jobs: the New York City Hall bureau chief and the State Department correspondent. We want a diverse newsroom at all reporting and editing levels, and we are pushing hard to get there.” He went on to answer a second question about the hiring of women.
The reassignment of Cooper, who starts her new job in June, reduces the number of blacks on the editorial board back to one, Brent Staples.
“Many of you already know Helene, who was a formidable competitor when she covered international economic and foreign policy matters for the Washington bureau of The Wall Street Journal,” Philip Taubman, Washington bureau chief, wrote to the Times staff in a memo Tuesday. “More recently she has been a NYT colleague as assistant editorial page editor. Earlier in her career, Helene worked in The Journal’s London bureau and was a reporter at The Providence Journal Bulletin. She is a native of Monrovia, Liberia, and her memoir, ‘The House at Sugar Beach,’ will be published in 2007. Helene is an inspired reporter and gifted writer. She also happens to be one of the most ebullient and congenial people at the paper. Her fine journalism, and spirited company, will be great assets for the bureau.”
Metro editor Joe Sexton wrote on March 8, “Diane Cardwell’s first byline in the paper a dozen years ago carried this headline: Rapwear. Soulwear. Hipwear. The story introduced a new and fresh voice to our pages, and it is a voice that over the years has shown itself to be wise as well as witty, authoritative as well as nuanced, tough as well as tender. She wrote, for instance, the obituaries of Onofrio Ottomanelli – the famed Village butcher – and Freddy Ferrer – the Bronx pol who didn’t quite, ahem, make the cut.
“She profiled the assassin at City Hall and Mr. Bloomberg’s more or less constant companion,” a reference to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Diana L. Taylor, the New York state banking superintendent. “She traveled the country and filed from the battleground states in 2004, then returned to Brooklyn and took up a different kind of turf fight at the Atlantic Yards.
“Along the way, her coverage of the City Council earned her a reputation as a shrewd and sophisticated observer of one of the city’s more curious institutions. It made you laugh and cry, which pretty much means she got it just right.
“Starting next month, Diane will bring her voice – and all the intelligence and instinct and rigor that informs it – to her role as City Hall Bureau Chief. It’s an appointment we make with enormous excitement and great satisfaction. Diane, who has a real feel for the landscape and its inhabitants, also has a host of bold ideas for chronicling the second term of the Bloomberg administration and taking a true measure of its arguable accomplishments and potentially lasting improvements. We are, too, quite confident she will serve as an artful manager of a very busy and very talented couple of accomplices in Room 9.
“In short, Diane – child of Harlem and lifelong lover of the city – rocks. We can’t wait to get the party started.”
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Howell Raines: “Soft Spot for Ex-Junkies”
“Those who think the title of Howell Raines’ forthcoming memoir, ‘The One That Got Away,’ refers to Jayson Blair surely will be disappointed. In fact, the Blair Affair receives minor notice in the book, to be published in May,” Greg Mitchell wrote today for Editor & Publisher. “The book covers much of the 13 years that have elapsed since Raines’ last memoir, ‘Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis,’ with only full two chapters out of 43 devoted to his downfall at The New York Times.
“Raines muses that while he was sometimes accused of being too soft on blacks, ‘I think my soft spot for ex-junkies caused me a lot more trouble.’
“As for Blair: ‘There was no question he was liar.’ And: ‘Never before had a dog eaten so much homework.’ Raines refers to memos ‘charting the little man’s journey through my Times,'” Mitchell wrote.
“He calls Blair’s promotion to full reporter in 2001 ‘puzzling,’ while noting (wouldn’t you?) that it took place seven months before Raines was appointed executive editor. He also hits the Newspaper Guild for complaining that Blair was being ‘harassed’ when the copy desk found one error after another in his work.
“. . . Yet Raines remains sad that while ‘Little Jayson Blair’ had taken “only one thing” from him, it was significant: ‘a benign circuitry of connection with people at the Times,’ dating back over a quarter of a century.”
The former New York Times executive editor echoed comments he made in the Atlantic Monthly in May 2004, when he said that it was learning that Blair had undergone treatment for drug problems that prompted him to approve assigning Blair to cover the Washington-area sniper shootings, despite problems with his previous work.
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Newsweek’s “Poverty, Race and Katrina” Honored
Newsweek magazine’s Sept. 19 issue, “Poverty, Race and Katrina: Lessons of a National Shameâ?? won the Society of Professional Journalists’ award for public service in magazine journalism, the organization announced today. It was one of several Katrina-related awards.
The staff of the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., won for Public Service in Online Journalism (affiliated) for its â??Online Coverage of Hurricane Katrinaâ??; the staff of “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” won for breaking news coverage (Network/Top 25 Markets) for â??After Katrina: A Disaster Unfoldsâ??; the staff of CBS Radio News won for breaking news reporting in the radio category; and the Associated Press won in “Photography Spot News.”
In the radio journalism category, WNYC radio in New York won the public service award for “Feet in Two Worlds: Immigrants in a Global City.”
“Hosted by author Frank McCourt, and set in New Yorkâ??s immigrant communities, ‘Feet in Two Worlds’ features personal stories from reporters from the cityâ??s ethnic press, as well as from WNYC reporters,” according to a description on the station’s Web site. “Stories include a look at the emotional and financial ties that link Haitian immigrants to their desperately poor country; Ecuadorian immigrants using videoconferencing technology to connect with children they left behind; and South Asian gays who find sexual liberation in New York, but also embrace traditional Indian and Pakistani family values.” Minnesota Public Radio, the Center for New York City Affairs at Milano, the New School for Management and Urban Policy and John Rudolph of New York shared the award.
A news release announcing the Newsweek project began, “For the moment, at least, Americans are ready to fix their restless gaze on enduring problems of poverty, race and class that have escaped their attention, writes Senior Editor Jonathan Alter . . . While it may not mean a new war on poverty, Alter writes that this disaster, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, may offer a chance to start a skirmish, or at least make Washington think harder about why part of the richest country on earth looks like the Third World.”
Journalists of color who shared in the awards include Ping Yeh of Seattletimes.com in Investigative Reporting (affiliated) for â??Selling Drug Secrets,â?? Juri Tatsuuma in Feature Reporting (all other markets) for â??Domestic Violence: When Love Hurts,â?? News 12 Westchester, Yonkers, N.Y.; and Andre Chung of the Baltimore Sun in Non-Deadline Reporting (circulation of 100,000 or greater) for â??On Their Own.â??
TV Photographer Collapses, Dies on Assignment
Photographer Ernie Moore of Richmond, Va.’s WWBT-TV, known as NBC12, collapsed while on assignment yesterday and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital, station associates said. He was 56 and had worked at the station for 37 years.
Sports Director Ben Hamlin told Journal-isms that he and Moore were at a “Media Day” event for the Richmond Kickers soccer team about 10 a.m. yesterday when Moore collapsed as he was shooting Hamlin interviewing a player. Moore was serving as satellite truck operator.
“He just passed out,” Hamlin said. The team’s medical staff rushed to his aid attempting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but Moore was pronounced dead after being taken to Henrico Doctors Hospital. His brother, Anthony Moore, said Moore, who had high blood pressure, had suffered a heart attack.
“If he could have bottled his calm and cool, he would have been a millionaire,” Hamlin said of his partner. “He was just a joy to be around.”
Willie Redd, the station’s chief photographer, said he had known his colleague since Moore was school photographer at Maggie L. Walker High School in Richmond. Redd said he came to the station directly from school and worked in the photofinishing lab, eventually becoming the first photographer at the station to shoot videotape. He remained at the station throughout his career, except for a brief time as photographer in its Washington bureau.
Survivors include Moore’s wife, Lisa, and four children. Funeral services are scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Monday at Richmond’s Mimms Funeral Home.
The station reported on the death last night.
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AP Photos Show Depictions of Indian Lynchings
“Murals depicting early Idaho life were produced under the Works Projects Administration,” reads a caption for an Associated Press photo by Troy Maben. “Two of them, including the one directly above, depict a lynching, and some historians say they should be preserved as a reminder of injustices against American Indians. Others say they should be removed or painted over. The courthouse where they are located will be a temporary home for the Idaho Legislature.”
Photos of the mural accompanied the story Thursday in at least one paper, the Denver Post, which ran the images on Page 2 of the A section.
“‘The shame is not on those who painted the picture, but on those who refuse to acknowledge our history for what it is,’ said Ted Howard, cultural resources director for the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes on the Idaho-Nevada line,” John Miller wrote in the AP story.
“Preservationists said they will fight attempts to remove the murals, among 26 in the building that are products of the Works Progress Administration Artists Project, a Depression-era program that put artists to work.
“People entering the courthouse will have to walk past the murals as they climb steps to where the House and Senate will meet.
“Race relations in Idaho, home to the white supremacist Aryan Nations group up until 2004, have been a sore spot for years.”
- Indian murals at EPA building to undergo review (Indianz.com)
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Newspapers Challenge Tribes’ Closed Meetings
“How the Maine Supreme Judicial Court defines the functions of governing most likely will determine when Maine’s Indian tribes are subject to the state’s Freedom of Access Act, justices on the state’s high court indicated Wednesday,” the Bangor (Maine) Daily News reported Thursday.
“Justices asked pointed questions Wednesday about what constitutes governing when they heard oral arguments in the appeal of a Superior Court verdict that found the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation did not have to give reporters access to its tribal meetings or minutes of those meetings.
“The Bangor Daily News and the Quoddy Tides sued the reservation when its reporters were told they could not attend tribal council meetings or see the minutes of meetings where a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal was discussed.”
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A Sameness Among Chicago Tribune Critics
“In the wake of the Chicago Tribune replacing its movie critic with its theater critic, a faithful reader tipped me to something I dearly wish I had noticed first,” Steve Rhodes wrote Thursday in Chicago’s Beachwood Reporter. “See if you can spot the problem with this lineup:
“Architecture: Blair Kamin
“Art: Alan Artner
“Dining: Phil Vettel
“Jazz: Howard Reich
“Internet: Steve Johnson
“Movies: Michael Phillips
“Music: John Von Rhein
“Rock music: Greg Kot
“Theater: Chris Jones
“Yup. All men. (And all white.)
“The Tribune is not oblivious to this. . . . For the record, Chicago is a majority-minority city. Whites make up 41.97 percent of the city’s population, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Blacks make up 36.77 percent of city’s population, while Hispanic/Latinos make up 26.02 percent of city’s population.
“Women make up 51.5 percent of the city’s population.”
Telemundo Seen Missing an Opportunity
“Four years after NBC paid $2.7 billion to acquire Telemundo, some members of the Hispanic media space are suggesting the Spanish-language broadcaster has missed its opportunities,” Jay Sherman reported Monday for Television Week.
“Despite the backing of a powerful media giant and the fact the network sits at the center of the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, many industry insiders say Telemundo has yet to become the network that NBC Universal officials have hoped for.
“Much of that view is driven by Telemundo’s perennial second-place rank against Spanish-language broadcasting behemoth Univision Communications. A debate has been brewing over whether Telemundo’s current programming strategy is right for the broadcaster in the long term, and questions have been raised as to whether NBC has fully leveraged its assets to help build up the network.
“Some Spanish-language media experts say Telemundo is missing an opportunity to go after a largely underserved audience: Hispanics who speak English and want English-language content geared toward them.”
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Univision Anchor Salinas on Immigration, Voting
“I’ve been covering immigration for 25 years. . . . I’ve been the daughter of immigrants, one legal and one undocumented, for many, many years,” longtime Univision nightly news anchor Maria Elena Salinas said in an interview with the Associated Press.
“I’ve never really changed my point of view. I don’t think there should be an open border policy. But I cannot imagine how anyone thinks logically that you can round up 12 million people and send them to their countries of origin. I mean there’s over a million undocumented immigrants who come just from Europe.”
“On her 25th anniversary with the top Spanish-language network, the Miami-based Salinas, who co-anchors with Jorge Ramos, turned her skills inward, offering what is rare in journalism – a look at the person behind the reporter. Salinas’ memoir, ‘I Am My Father’s Daughter,’ will be released May 11,” Laura Wides-Munoz wrote Wednesday.
Wides-Munoz asked, “What role do you think the Spanish-language media has played in the United States?”
“Salinas: Spanish language media in general has had a tremendous influence in the growth of the Hispanic community.
“In the beginning of my career in 1981, we had little political representation, especially in L.A. At the local level, we had no one in City Hall. When a seat did open up, and I went out to ask people in Lincoln Heights about their vote . . . 15 out of 16 didn’t even know there was an election. I knew that we in Spanish-language media had to play a big role in helping educate them and helping them see the responsibility they had.
“AP: Is that advocacy journalism?
“Salinas: I can go out and tell them to vote, but I’m not going to tell them who to vote for. I think there’s a fine line, and you have to know how to balance that line.”
- M.L. Ingram, Philadelphia Tribune: Are Illegal Immigrants Taking Jobs from Blacks?
- Gregory Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com: Before We Join with Latinos on Immigration, Let’s Ask What They’ve Done for Us
- Dwight Lewis, Nashville Tennessean: Like race, we must address immigration
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Women, Men Use Media Differently to Manage Anger
“When men and women are angry, they both choose the news media articles they read with the goal of regulating their moods, a new study suggests. But, in some circumstances, men choose to read articles that will fuel their anger, while women choose articles that will dissipate it,” the Web site eMaxHealth.com reported on Tuesday.
“Researchers found that when men were angered and anticipate the chance to retaliate, they chose to read negative online news stories, presumably to sustain their anger until their opportunity to get even.
“Women faced with the same situation, however, chose to read more positive news to help dissipate their anger before a possible confrontation.”
Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University, and Scott Alter of the University of Michigan conducted the study. Their results were published in the journal Human Communication Research.
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Short Takes
- Giant, the “ultimate entertainment magazine,” announced it has hired Vibe magazine founding editor Scott Poulson-Bryant as its editorial director, the number two editorial job, Dylan Stableford reported Wednesday on FishBowl NY. Poulson-Bryant is author of the recent “Hung: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America.”
- “TV One, a cable channel that targets black viewers, said Monday that it has acquired rerun rights to a slew of movies and TV series, including such films as ‘The Color Purple’ and ‘Malcolm X,’ and UPN sitcoms ‘All of Us’ and ‘Eve,'” Kimberly Nordyke reported Tuesday in the Hollywood Reporter. “The multiyear deal, with Warner Bros. Domestic Cable Distribution, marks the biggest programming acquisition for the network in its two-year history.”
- “Following a week of [extravagant coverage] of Katie Couric’s pending move from NBC’s Today show to the CBS news anchor slot, Gallup is out with a poll today suggesting that, at heart, few really care. The poll found that the dramatic shift will produce no more viewers for the CBS Evening News, and no fewer viewers for Today after Meredith Vieira takes over,” Editor & Publisher reported Wednesday.
- “Thomas Drayton, who has co-anchored Fox 40’s 10 p.m. newscast since 2002, has signed a new, long-term contract, the station announced Tuesday,” Sam McManis reported Wednesday in the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee.
- “Ch. 2’s new morning news lineup kicks off Monday – but whether Shon Gables remains with the station has yet to be determined,” Michael Starr wrote today in the New York Post. “Gables was displaced from her anchoring gig in the wake of the a.m. newscast changes, which sent Maurice Dubois back to mornings to co-anchor with newcomer Kate Sullivan from 5 to 7 a.m. Gables, who joined Ch. 2 in 2003, makes her last morning anchoring appearance today; her contract expires in June.”
- Robert Holguin, morning and midday news anchor at KVIA-7-ABC in El Paso, starts in June at KABC in Los Angeles, where he will be a fill-in anchor and reporter, KABC confirmed today.
- “China’s government has told local TV stations not to use video from foreign sources to produce news bulletins. New rules ban the use of footage acquired from foreign satellite TV and other channels that are not state-run,” Peter Feuilherade reported Thursday for the BBC.
- “Venezuelan Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez informed local press Thursday of the arrest of the possible killer of Venezuelan photo reporter Jorge Aguirre, who was shot at a demonstration protesting the quadruple murder that moved the entire society,” Prensa Latina reported yesterday from Caracas. “The accused, Boris Blanco, is a former police officer from the municipality of Chacao, in Caracas, and the motorcycle used in the crime was identified, in possession of another man, who was also arrested.”
- “Journalists across the country have been advised to ensure that they imbibe the spirit of factual representation of facts in all their reports and do away with such flashy headlines that do not help to promote democracy,” Ben Duru wrote today in the Daily Independent in the state of Lagos, Nigeria. “Handing down the advice to members of the newly inaugurated State Executive Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Imo State . . . the state governor, Achike Udenwa, insisted that it was the responsibility of newsmen to help sustain democracy in the country.”
- Bryan Monroe, vice president of news at Knight Ridder and president of the National Association of Black Journalists, told Dubai’s Gulf News that Africa is largely ignored by Western media partly because many Americans feel far removed from the problems that plague Africans on a daily basis. “For Monroe, Africa started resonating on his and the NABJ radar when a student member of the organisation died of malaria during a conference last year. Akilah Amapindi, a 23-year-old journalist from New York, had just completed an internship in Namibia, where she contracted the disease,” Nina Muslim reported. “It really brought malaria home. Most Americans don’t even think of malaria,” Monroe said in the story. Monroe was on the Maynard Institute’s Editing Program faculty in 1991.
- In Nepal, “Thirteen journalists were arrested today in Baglung, west of Kathmandu, while protesting against media restrictions during the seventh day of a nationwide strike, the Federation of Nepalese Journalists reported. Others detained during the past week, including veteran journalist Kanak Mani Dixit, remain in police custody,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported today.
- In Congo, “The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about newspaper publisher Patrice Booto, who has been in jail in the capital, Kinshasa, since November 2, 2005,” the organization said Thursday. “Booto recently told a representative of Journaliste en Danger (JED), a Kinshasa-based press freedom organization, that he was suffering from several health problems and had not received adequate medical care in prison. Booto suffers from gastrointestinal problems and has not been allowed to see a physician, he told JED.”
