Columnist Wendi Thomas Quits Before She Starts
Columnist Wendi C. Thomas, who last month bid farewell to readers of the Memphis Commercial Appeal and moved to the larger market of Baltimore to write for the Baltimore Sun, has changed her mind.
The Commercial Appeal announced today that Thomas is returning to Memphis.
“We never wanted her to leave,” Managing Editor Otis Sanford told Journal-isms this afternoon. “Wendy had a huge following in Memphis, and they were disappointed when she announced she was leaving.”
Thomas’ first column for the Sun was to appear Tuesday, and she had been immersing herself in school-system issues. Last month, Maryland’s school board moved to take over 11 embattled city schools, but the General Assembly quickly passed a one-year moratorium on the takeover, overriding a gubernatorial veto, as the Sun reported.
Thomas told Journal-isms and the Commercial Appeal that she missed her hometown. “My heart is in Memphis,” she said on the Commercial Appeal’s Web site. “The Sun is a wonderful paper, and Baltimore is a great city, but it’s not home.”
Moreover, Thomas will reappear on the front of the Metro section, she told Journal-isms, and write twice a week instead of three times, Sanford confirmed.
As reported in February, when the Commercial Appeal prepared to move March 1 to a local section zoned for city and suburbs, it moved Thomas, who is African American, out of that section after some of the new section publishers decided they did not want to keep her column on their section fronts. Thomas’ column then moved to page 2A, which meant some loss of readers.
At the Sun, Thomas was to replace Michael Olesker, who resigned in January after 27 years amid plagiarism allegations. Her presence in the Sun would have given the paper two African American local columnists. Conservative Gregory Kane remains.
Sun Editor Timothy A. Franklin told the Baltimore City Paper, “We did a national search, we had a lot of candidates for the job and a lot of talented ones, so Iâ??m confident that weâ??ll find a gifted writer for this columnist job.”
“She’s a gifted writer, and I think she would have had a major impact at the newspaper and as a commentator in the region,” Franklin said on the Sun’s Web site.
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McKinney Tries to Put Blunder “Off the Record”
“Move over Britney Spears, Cynthia McKinney’s â?? oops! â?? done it again,” Bridget Gutierrez wrote today in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“The flap-plagued congresswoman, who has been in the media spotlight since she scuffled with a Capitol Hill police officer last month, was caught bad-mouthing a senior staffer Saturday.
“Unfortunately for McKinney, a DeKalb County Democrat who is running for re-election in the 4th Congressional District, a TV microphone she was wearing picked up her indelicate grumbling.
“‘Crap!’ an irritated McKinney is heard saying after ending an interview with CBS 46 in which reporter Renee Starzyk repeatedly asked about the fallout from the police dust-up. ‘You know what? They lied to Coz and Coz is a fool.’
“McKinney, apparently realizing her blunder, then returned to face the camera and tell the reporter that comments about her communications director, Coz Carson, were off the record.”
But the TV station “aired the footage Saturday and the story later was picked up by CNN.
“Mike Machi, Channel 46’s assistant news director, said McKinney’s office was aware Starzyk would ask about the fuss in the one-on-one interview.
“‘Congresswoman McKinney has been in Washington for a long time and she has handled the media for most of her public life,’ said Machi, who was unapologetic about airing the interview outtakes. ‘There were lots of ways to handle this and I was absolutely surprised that she handled this situation in that fashion.'”
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N.Y. Times Critic Takes Buyout, Will Write Books
Margo Jefferson, whose nearly 13-year career at the New York Times was highlighted by the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, accepted a buyout at the end of February because “I decided I love book writing,” she told Journal-isms today.
Jefferson’s 146-page “Kate Moss-thin book” on Michael Jackson, so described by Touré in the New York Times Book Review, was published in January.
“Next year I’ll be teaching in the Graduate Writing Program at Columbia, and in the writing program at Eugene Lang College,” Jefferson, 58, told Journal-isms by e-mail. “I’ll still freelance for The Times and other publications. I decided to take the buyout for a couple of reasons. It took me a long time, but it turns out that I love book writing. So I’d like write more books and fewer articles. Also, I’ve taught part-time steadily through the years and find that it gives me real satisfaction. The match — teaching and book writing — feels just right.”
When she won the Pulitzer, the Times wrote that in her book reviews and other cultural criticism, she was cited for writing “forcefully and originally without ever muscling out the author in question.” “Her commentary covered topics as diverse as modeling, home economics, the French and Indian War of the 18th century, and the sayings of Annette Funicello,” the Times wrote.
It quoted this excerpt from a piece on “Amos ‘n’ Andy” and black comedy on television:
“Comedy is such a mixture of empathy and superiority, identification and alienation. Belonging to the type of the educated Negro, I found Lightning provocatively unlike me (which let me laugh at him) and yet oddly like me (which let me laugh with him). For one thing, we were both cross-eyed. For another thing, which had precious little to do with race, I was a child, and his was the comedy of regression: broad, slow gestures; grimaces and double takes; sounds that broke language into vowels, syllables and tones. Besides, what child undergoing socialization doesn’t know exactly what it feels like to get caught, literally or metaphorically, in a garbage can and to try desperately to get out before the adults find you?”
While Jefferson wrote broadly about culture, she spent a year and a half as Sunday theater critic after winning the Pulitzer.
Under terms of the buyouts, her position cannot be filled, Culture Editor Sam Sifton said.
[Added April 25: “The Times made it known that buyouts were available, if people were interested in availing themselves of the opportunity, and we made judgments among the applicants on whom we could accept and whom we could not, based on a number of factors, including seniority,” Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said.]
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Prize-Winning Papers Show Katrina Photos in Books
The Sun Herald of Biloxi, Miss., fresh from sharing the Pulitzer Prize for public service for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina, is publishing a second book of photographs of the devastation after the first was snapped up by readers who wanted out-of-towners to see what they had gone through.
Meanwhile, the Dallas Morning News, winner of the Pulitzer for breaking news photography for its Katrina photographs, is going into a second printing, in cloth, of “Eyes of the Storm, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: The Photographic Study,” published Dec. 1.
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The Gannett Co., with several newspapers in the hurricane zone, published a hardcover collection on Feb. 24, “Katrina: Devastation. Survival. Restoration: A Unique Look Through the Eyes of 40+ Journalists,” supervised by Ronnie Agnew, editor of the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger.
But it is the Sun Herald’s “Katrina: 8 Hours That Changed The Mississippi Coast Forever,” that has sold the most – more than 33,000 since its December publication, Dorothy Wilson, the Sun Herald’s special publications director, told Journal-isms today. And “We’ve presold more than 5,000 copies of ‘Katrina Before & After,’ which will be released next week,” she said.
“The people who live or lived here wanted a book that is a true memorial of what Katrina did to their homes, businesses, neighborhoods, culture,” Wilson continued. “Many people have purchased the books because they want friends and relatives in other states to really understand the Mississippi Gulf Coast story, which you know has not received as much attention as the devastation in New Orleans in the national media,” she continued.
For the new book, “Many of the ‘before’ photos were shot by Sun Herald staff photographer John Fitzhugh, who remembered some of the dramatic before and after shots produced to document Hurricane Camille some 37 years earlier. He made a point to shoot simple scene-setting shots whenever he had time before Katrina struck. Many others were culled from the Sun Herald archives after the storm,” the dust jacket says.
The cover of the new collection tells a story. “The 1840s Father Ryan House on Beach Boulevard, most recently serving as a bed and breakfast, was often described as one of Biloxi’s most architecturally important and intriguing houses, the latter because of its legendary palm tree and former resident, the Rev. Abram J. Ryan,” the book says.
“Ryan, a Confederate chaplain, gained the title ‘Poet Laureate of the South’ with his poignant poetry. After the war, legend claims Ryan created a religious grotto that included a small palm. As years passed, the grotto disappeared, the house was enlarged and the tree became so huge it seemed to be growing out of the broad front steps. The Father Ryan Palm, as it is called, survived Katrina. The house, however, did not. ‘The palm tree is a miracle,’ said Henry Lee, the most recent owner who bought the house at auction. ‘Another miracle is that a statue of the Virgin Mary floated to the house and now it sits next to the palm.”
The Morning News book has been successful in a different way.
It published 15,000 copies and was immediately sold out nationwide at $19.95 in soft covers, according to Farris Rookstool III, who is publicizing the book. “The only place that has a few copies left is www.dallasnews.com/eyesofthestorm. We taped a C-Span2 BookTV program two months ago today, before the Pulitzer was announced, and this program continues to run and gain attention to this most powerful story,” Rookstool said Sunday. “The Dallas Morning News will be presenting their charity check soon as they will be receiving the royalty check from the publisher to include with this check. We will be doing a huge event (lecture, photo exhibition and signing) around the one year anniversary at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas.”
Morning News staff photographers of color in the book include Irwin Thompson and Vernon Byrne.
The Gannett book, which has sold 13,000 copies and sells in hard covers for $39.95, includes the work of Craig Bailey, Arely D. Castilo, Michael Dunlap, Paris L. Gray, Greg Jenson, Vickie King, Greg Pearson and Natasha Smith.
A portion of the proceeds goes to support Katrina relief efforts.
Al Diaz of the Miami Herald, Brandi Jade Thomas of the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press; Nick Oza of the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph; and Wilson, the book’s co-editor, are the journalists of color contributing to the Sun Herald book. The Sun Herald has given $100,000 of the proceeds toward historic preservation, Wilson said.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which like the Sun Herald won a Pulitzer for public service last week, has no collection of its photographs but is planning one for Katrina’s first anniversary in August, a staffer said.
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Producer Wayne Bryant, Politician’s Son, Dies at 37
Wayne Bryant Jr., “the only child of long-time state Sen. Wayne Bryant (D-Camden) and an award-winning producer at New Jersey Network, was found dead at his Lawnside home Wednesday by his father. He was 37,” Joe Donahue wrote Friday in the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
“Friends at NJN praised the younger Bryant’s skills as a television producer and his congenial manner.
“He was wonderful. He was just a well-rounded, good guy,” Linda Coles, executive producer of “Another View,” said in the story.
“Mr. Bryant helped produce the award-winning show since joining the station three years ago. Coles described him as a ‘meticulous’ editor.
“‘There’s a lot of disbelief, a lot of dead stares,’ at the station, she said,” Donahue’s story continued.
“At NJN, he recently won the Gracie Allen Award for NJN’s ‘Lead Safe Public Awareness Campaign,’ according to NJN spokeswoman JoAnne Ruscio. He was slated to receive the award from the American Women in Radio and Television in June. ‘Another View’ also has been nominated for three Emmys and twice won the Unity Award in Media since Mr. Bryant’s involvement with the show, Coles said.”
“The death was the second blow to the senator in recent weeks,” Kaitlin Gurney wrote Friday in the Philadelphia Inquirer. “News reports revealed this month that federal investigators are looking into allegations that he steered state money to a part-time employer, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.” Negotiations on New Jersey’s budget paused as Trenton lawmakers mourned Bryant Jr.’s death, she wrote.
The Bryant family helped found the historically African American borough of Lawnside in 1926. The younger Bryant was a graduate of Howard University where, according to his bio, he received a B.A. in radio, television and film and studied under filmmakers Haile Gerima and Bill Duke.
He was also a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. The death was attributed to natural causes.
- Editorial, Courier-Post, Camden/Cherry Hill, N.J.: Bryant Jr. will be missed
