On Malcolm X’s Day, Who Knew?

Little Attention for “Our Black Shining Prince”

Everybody knows when Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday rolls around; it’s now a federal holiday complete with department-store sales. Today was Malcolm X’s birthday, and you’d be hard-pressed to find much media notice.

“The response I’ve gotten is very weak,” publicist Melvin E. Taylor told Journal-isms this afternoon. Taylor was hired to promote the formal opening in New York today of the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial & Educational Center, “dedicated to preserving the archives of the life and legacy of the late human rights leader and his wife, a public educator and champion for social justice,” as Jared McCallister put it in an item at the end of his Sunday column in the New York Daily News.

The not-for-profit center is in the former Audubon Ballroom building, site of Malcolm X’s 1965 assassination.

“Highlighting this official announcement will be the donation of $573,000 by Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer and $150,000 from JP Morgan Chase Foundation,” a news release said.

The city of New York and Columbia University redeveloped the building. Columbia funded a multimedia installation depicting the lives of its two namesakes. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has provided content and programming for the center by curating two exhibits each year.

“I was up at 7 this morning watching NY1 News,” a local all-news cable outlet, ” – nothing on Malcolm. None of the mainstream publications had anything about him,” Taylor said.

One all but had to visit a black-oriented Web site, or be in one of the other cities where Malcolm lived, to be aware of the 81st birthday of “our own black shining prince,” as the late actor and activist Ossie Davis said in eulogizing him in 1965.

At the Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., Liz Anderson wrote an advance story about the annual pilgrimage to the cemetery that was to take place today with eight to nine buses and 40 to 50 cars.

“We’ve covered it through the years,” Anderson told Journal-isms, noting that Betty Shabazz and her family had lived in Mount Vernon, in the Journal News circulation area. Anderson covered the cemetery events today and expected a slide-show-and-audio presentation to be on the paper’s Web site.

In Lansing, Mich., where the home of young Malcolm Little’s family was firebombed, education writer Nicole Geary wrote about the weeklong celebration at the Shabazz Public School Academy, named after Malcolm, who became El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

“My editors knew that the Malcolm X birthday would be a time for us to do some kind of coverage, no matter what,” Geary told Journal-isms. “It was a great way to cover what the school is doing and remind people of who he is. Many people know that he lived here, but a lot of residents still don’t know that.” Last year, the Lansing State Journal ran a front-page story by James McCurtis headlined, “A Question of Recognition: on the 40th anniversary of Malcolm X’s death, some wonder why the Lansing area has not embraced the former resident’s legacy.”

A week ago, Mahalia Asanaenyi began a story in the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, in the city where Malcolm was born, by recalling a scene in Spike Lee’s 1992 film “Malcolm X” in which Lee and Denzel Washington strode down Harlem streets wearing zoot suits and their hair “conked,” or permed.

“The Malcolm X foundation plans to share its own rendition at an annual event May 19,” she wrote. “Each year, the celebration is scheduled on or during the week of the Omaha native’s birthday.

“The foundation plans a fashion show featuring zoot suits and African robes and headdresses.”

Apparently, that was the end of the World-Herald’s coverage.

A Houston Chronicle story seemed to be the only one from a city with no obvious Malcolm X ties. Salatheia Bryant used plans by the local National Black United Front chapter as her local connection.

“The story was my idea,” she told Journal-isms. “I am a general assignment reporter. I tend to look for quirky stories or stories that highlight Houston’s diversity. Sometimes that means searching around for anniversaries. The local National Black United Front sent me an alert” about its Malcolm X event. “I saw an opportunity to do something more on this slain icon.

“I thought it was only fitting to do this since we generally cover Martin Luther King events. It helped to have a forward-thinking editor,” former city hall reporter Matt Schwartz, “who promoted the story in daily news meetings. I had only one editor who at the last minute wanted me to find someone who thought Malcolm X should be celebrated. I was also concerned that the story wouldn’t get metro front treatment since . . . the organization refused to be allowed their picture taken by the photographer we sent out. It was a little drama but all worked out. One of the top priorities for the paper is to reflect Houston’s diversity. I wanted Houston to know that other black leaders should have a seat at the table.”

Among the more unusual mentions was one Thursday in England’s Birmingham Mail.

A filmmaker and artist “is on the hunt for memories and memorabilia of the historic visit to the Midlands of American equal rights campaigner Malcolm X,” the story began.

“Steve Page, who is originally from the Black Country but now lives in America, is making the appeal on the eve of what would have been Malcolm X’s birthday. He would have been 81 tomorrow.

“Steve said he wanted people in the local community to help him create an exhibition to be held in the USA next year. . .

“And he is now appealing for anyone who may have any old film, photographs, recordings or simply memories or comments with regards to the trip to Smeth-wick and Birmingham on February 12, 1965.”

Malcolm was killed on Feb. 21.

[Added May 20: NY1’s story ran Saturday.]

• BET.com: Remembering Malcolm
• Cary Clack, San Antonio Express-News: Blacks gather for covenant
• Michael H. Cottman, BlackAmericaWeb.com: On What Would’ve Been His 81st Birthday, Malcolm X Slated for Remembrances

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Jesse Lewis Named ME of Wall St. Journal Europe

Jesse Lewis, deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe since August 2003, will succeed Raju Narisetti as managing editor of the 86,539-circulation edition, the Journal announced Thursday.

“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to put out a daily newspaper. We have a great team in place,” Lewis told Journal-isms via e-mail. “Our editor, Raju Narisetti, who is leaving next month to start a business newspaper in India, did a great deal to build a strong, quality paper and assemble a diverse staff of talented people. I’m going to do my best to match his accomplishments.”

“If you remember,” Narisetti told Journal-isms in e-mail shorthand, “I brought him to brussels as my deputy when I was managing editor. Then I became editor and we had the ME job open for a while. Jesse will run the Journal Europe on a daily basis and [it] is a very well deserved promotion. If you remember, my entire Brussels team was 1OO percent diverse – only women and minorities incl jesse and carlos tovar, my art director.

“We actually have no white men – if you will – on the editing team in Brussels. So I am delighted that Jesse has become ME. The Journal gets a bad rap for not having minorities in prominent positions but this is a clear sign of the depth of talented and diverse staff and our continuous commitment to diversity” at the masthead level, “even if we go solely by sheer talent in giving people promotions.”

The Journal’s announcement said, “Lewis, 51, who has been deputy managing editor of the Journal Europe since August 2003, will have day-to-day responsibility for overseeing European and Middle East coverage and publishing the European edition of the Journal. He will manage the Journal Europe’s news desk and graphics editors in Brussels and help run the Journal staff’s close partnership with The Wall Street Journal Online and Dow Jones Newswires, the real-time financial and business news provider.”

The most memorable moment of Lewis’ career must have been putting out the paper on Sept. 11, 2001, when the Journal’s office across the street from the World Trade Center was evacuated after the terrorist attacks and an emergency newsroom was created in South Brunswick, N.J.

As Jim Pensiero, vice president, news operations, recounted in the American Editor of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, “The techs had set everything up. It was Jesse Lewis and me. We had no idea where anybody else was.” The Sept. 12 edition of the Journal won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news.

Two years ago, Carolyn Phillips, who as assistant managing editor was the paper’s highest ranking person of color, filed a racial discrimination suit against the newspaper.

Phillips said today that depositions are still being taken.

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Media Groups Back Shield Bill as Best Hope

“The latest step toward the creation of a Federal Shield Law occurred today with the introduction of the first bill of 2006 seeking such federal protection for reporters,” Joe Strupp reported Thursday in Editor & Publisher. “But the latest proposal has already drawn some skepticism because it does not provide absolute protection in all cases.

“‘We are unenthusiastically supporting it,’ said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. ‘But it is a political reality. I think this is probably as much as we are going to get out of this congress.’

“The ‘Free Flow of Information Act of 2006’ was put forth on Capitol Hill today by a bipartisan group of senators that include Republicans Richard Lugar of Indiana and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, as well as Democrats Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and New York’s Charles Schumer. It is similar to a House version that was one of several proposals introduced last year.

“The proposal is the latest in a string of efforts to pass a national law that would protect reporters from having to reveal sources.”

• American Society of Newspaper Editors: ASNE endorses shield law
• Newspaper Association of America: Newspaper Association of America Applauds the Introduction of Free Flow of Information Act of 2006
• Radio-Television News Directors Association: RTNDA Supports Passage of Federal Shield Law To Protect Reporters
• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: Reporters Committee supports new reporter’s privilege bill
• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: Shield bill introduced in Senate

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Immigration Debate Tied to Rise in Hate Crimes

“Tension over illegal immigration is contributing to a rise in hate groups and hate crimes across the nation, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Kevin Johnson reported Wednesday in USA Today. “It says that racist groups are using the immigration debate as a rallying cry.

“The center – an Alabama-based non-profit organization that tracks racist, anti-immigrant and other extremist groups – says in a new report that there were 803 such hate groups in the USA last year, up from 762 in 2004 and a 33% jump since 2000.

“The center’s report says the national debate that has focused on Hispanic immigration has been ‘the single most important factor’ in spurring activity among hate groups and has given them ‘an issue with real resonance.'”

• Lawrence Aaron, the Record, Hackensack, N.J.: President offers too little, too late
• Massimo Calabresi, Time: Is Racism Fueling the Immigration Debate?
• Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe: A glimmer of hope on immigration
• Ruben Navarrette, San Diego Union-Tribune: Just what will the National Guard guard?
• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Bush’s big border problem
• Gregory Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times: The mayor’s immigration dilemma
• Richard Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times: America’s impure genius
• Richard Ruelas, Arizona Republic: Going after human smugglers is just right

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Kerry Wants Probe of Compliance With Ad Mandate

“Responding to complaints from members of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is pushing the Government Accountability Office to investigate the federal government’s compliance with a policy, signed into law in October 2000, that seeks to increase minority advertising contracting opportunities,” Lisa Sanders and Ira Teinowitz reported today in Advertising Age.

“In his role as top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, Mr. Kerry on May 15 sent a letter to the GAO requesting detailed information on compliance to Executive Order 13170, signed by former President Clinton, that directs federal departments and agencies to take aggressive action to ensure inclusion of disadvantaged businesses in federal contracting, and to expand opportunities in advertising and other industries.”

NNPA is the organization of publishers of African American newspapers.

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Eva Rodriguez Heads Business Week in D.C.

Eva M. Rodriguez has been named Washington bureau chief at Business Week, the magazine announced Thursday. “In her new position, she will lead BusinessWeek’s largest bureau with a dozen staffers who cover politics and policy matters for the global business media organization.”

“Most recently, Ms. Rodriguez edited and supervised a team of Capitol Hill and legal reporters in the Washington Bureau of The New York Times. Before that, she was executive editor and editor-in-chief of the Legal Times.” Rodriguez was also a Justice Department reporter for the Wall Street Journal and staff writer for the Miami Herald. She was born in Miami to Cuban parents, a spokeswoman said.

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Memorial Funds Established to Honor William Woo

Memorial funds have been created to honor William Woo, who as editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was the first Asian American editor of a mainstream newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News reported Wednesday.

The William F. Woo Memorial Journalism Education Fund has been established to support the training of journalists in China in the principles of Western journalism, and the Asian American Journalists Association, which gave Woo its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990, plans to award an annual William F. Woo Internship Grant to support print and Web interns.

Woo’s family also welcomes contributions to research into treatment of colorectal cancer. Tax-deductible donations may be made to Stanford University for the George Fisher GI Research Fund, Stanford Cancer Center, 875 Blake Wilbur Drive, Stanford, Calif. 94305, the story said.

Woo, who was interim director of the graduate journalism program at Stanford University and a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong in China, died April 12 at age 69 after an extended battle with cancer. Memorial services were scheduled for last Friday at Washington University in St. Louis and today at Stanford Memorial Church in Stanford, Calif.

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Columnist Quizzes Readers on Knowledge of Asians

“I’ve often been asked why there is a need for an Asian Pacific American Heritage Month or, for that matter, Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month,” Esther Wu, national president of the Asian American Journalists Association, wrote Thursday in her Dallas Morning News column.

“The struggles, achievements and contributions of many people are often overlooked. Learning about our diverse society – about people who look, speak and eat differently than we do – may help us gain a better understanding of one another. And we can only hope that will lead to more tolerance,” Wu continued.

“So just for the record, here are a few Asian-American ‘firsts’ that helped shape the world we live in today.”

The previous Thursday, Wu noted that May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and quizzed readers on their knowledge of people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent.

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Townsend Saw Obligation to Show King Funeral

Airing the February funeral of Coretta Scott King was a no-brainer, according to actor Robert Townsend, now CEO and president for production at the Black Family Channel. His network and the black-oriented TV One aired the event live, but Black Entertainment Television did not.

In an interview with Lee Bailey of EURWeb.com posted Thursday, Townsend said, “You’re talking about a living legend that passes; you’re talking about an icon of the Civil Rights Movement that has gone on. We had to carry it. We think that is really responsible television. Now, I can’t comment on any other networks about why, why, why. I just know, at the Black Family Channel it was very important that we were there. People have called and asked for copies of the tape and called to say thank you. We’re at a day and age where our history gets swept under the rug. If all those presidents could’ve been there to say, ‘Hey, we acknowledge this lady,’. . . we just think it was important that we reach all of these people.

“You get sad, you get disappointed because you want to reach these people, and BET has the lion share of our audience. It’s sad because you want more people to be able to say, ‘Hey, this icon has passed,’ and these young kids need to know,” Townsend continued.

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Short Takes

• “Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said Thursday he plans to introduce legislation to impede the ability of the Federal Communications Commission to loosen agency media ownership regulations,” Doug Halonen reported Thursday in Television Week. “FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has made clear that he wants to relax rules barring daily newspapers from buying broadcast stations in their markets and limit the number of radio and TV stations that can be owned in the same community.”
• “Advance Publications Inc., owner of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, is actively researching a purchase of the Akron Beacon Journal,” Mary Ethridge reported today in the Beacon Journal.
• “The National Association of Hispanic Journalists will induct María Elena Salinas, a founding member of NAHJ and a veteran anchor of Noticiero Univision and Henry Alfaro, one of the first Mexican-American TV reporters who worked for 35 years at ABC7 in Los Angeles, into the association’s Hall of Fame during its annual convention in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., June 14-17,” NAHJ announced on Tuesday.
• “Only one in four 12- to 34-year-olds can name all four major broadcast networks: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox. Teens may not be able to name the big four, but they know MTV, Cartoon Network and Comedy Central,” Abbey Klaassen reported Monday for Advertising Age. “The finding comes via an online poll conducted by Bolt Media, a 10-year-old Web site that six weeks ago relaunched itself as a place for users to upload videos and photos. About 400 members responded to the questions.”
• Risha Grant, owner, publisher and editor of the bimonthly Xposure Business Magazine, was named Small Business Journalist of the Year by the Tulsa, Okla., Metro Chamber, the Tulsa World reported Wednesday. Grant is president of the Tulsa Association of Black Journalists. She was profiled Thursday in the Tulsa Journal Record.
• “The Curse of the Covenant,” a story by Judy L. Thomas that exposed restrictive covenants in Kansas City area deeds and homes association bylaws, has been named a winner in the 53rd annual Unity Awards in Media, the Kansas City Star reported today. Other winners were Newsweek, the Associated Press, the Detroit News, the Arizona Republic and the Hartford Courant, the story said.
• Blogger Khary McGhee of the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer announced Thursday he was ending his whimsical “Most Embarrassing Black People Awards Show.” “I had this lingering feeling that I was merely adding ammunition for white people who feel like black folks are all an embarrassment anyway,” McGhee wrote.
• “The Freedom Forum, in partnership with the Associated Press Managing Editors and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, is opening nominations for the fifth Robert G. McGruder Awards for Diversity Leadership,” the Freedom Forum said Tuesday. “Two awards are given annually: one for newspapers with a circulation up to 75,000; one for newspapers with more than 75,000 circulation. The awards go to individuals, newsrooms or teams of journalists who embody the spirit of McGruder, a former executive editor of the Detroit Free Press and relentless diversity champion. McGruder died of cancer in April 2002.”
• New York Times reporter Sharon LaFraniere won the $25,000 Michael Kelly Award for her reporting from Southern Africa on the struggles faced by the women in the region, the Atlantic Monthly announced Thursday. The award honors Kelly, editor of two Atlantic Media publications, The Atlantic Monthly and National Journal, who was killed while covering the war in Iraq in 2003. No people of color appeared to be among the judges or finalists or in the winner’s circle.
• “WNYW/Ch. 5’s Arnold Diaz will receive the Disability Rights Advocacy Award from the United Spinal Association Monday. In addition, Diaz is the emcee at the Association for the Help of Retarded Children’s 57th birthday celebration at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Saturday,” Richard Huff wrote today in the New York Daily News.
• The Arizona Press Club named Navajo Times Senior Reporter Marley Shebala as Community Journalist of the Year, the Native American Journalists Association reported May 10. “The Press Club honored Shebala (Navajo/Zuni) for descriptive writing style and coverage of the Navajo Nation.”
• “Fox Sports en Español on May 16 announced at its annual upfront presentation that it has inked a carriage deal with DirecTV, upping the network’s total reach to more than 10.3 million households,” Anthony Crupi reported Wednesday in Mediaweek.
• Linda Lorelle, who resigned as anchor on Houston’s KPRC-TV in February, resurfaced Thursday and today on KRIV-TV with a two-part special report on people who make midlife career changes. Lorelle’s demotion last fall from prime-time to afternoon news anchor sparked a call for a boycott from black community leaders. She is not scheduled for more work at the Fox station, “but there’s a possibility,” a spokeswoman told Journal-isms.