On Deadly Indian Bombings, Some Still Go Colonial
The terrorist bombings of a railway station in India Tuesday, which left at least 200 people dead, have given an added news edge to this week’s South Asian Journalists Association convention in New York, and highlighted a division in the news media over whether to call India’s commercial capital by its official name of Mumbai or its British colonial designation, Bombay.
“Mumbai eliminates the last vestige of British imperialism and restores the original ethnic name,” the chief minister of Maharashtra state, Manohar Joshi, said in 1995 after Hindus took control of the legislature and changed the name.
But some in the Western news media have been slow to make the change. Many no doubt agree with David Lamb, who wrote an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times in March under the headline, “In replacing the colonial names of several cities, India loses some of its spice.”
In reporting on Tuesday’s developments, the Associated Press, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune called the city “Bombay.” Time magazine used both terms in different places on its Web site.
The BBC, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Newsweek, NBC News, ABC News and CBS News all used “Mumbai,” sometimes followed by “formerly Bombay.” The L.A. Times made the change only last month, Mike Faneuff, foreign operations chief, told Journal-isms, adding that it had also adopted India’s revised names for Calcutta (Kolkata) and Madras (Chennai).
Stories in Newsday and the Philadelphia Daily News explained the distinction between “Mumbai” and “Bombay.”
“The issue of what to call cities in India is not new and not as clear-cut as we all might hope,” Norm Goldstein, editor of the Associated Press Stylebook, the bible in many newsrooms, told Journal-isms today. “For example, the AP bureau chief in India says that while the Marathi language name Mumbai is increasing in use in India, Bombay is still what people in the city use most to describe where they live.
“We are looking at it again, as we always do with these kinds of decisions. Our effort is to be consistent and in English, which is the language in which we publish.”
Members of the South Asian Journalists Association, in addition to issuing a reminder that the city is properly called Mumbai, fielded 30 media inquiries Tuesday and early today, ranging from how to spell the city’s name to whether the city had previously experienced terrorism, according to board member Sree Sreenivasan, who confessed that he, too, sometimes calls the city Bombay (“It’s generational,” he said.)
SAJA put together a Web site of resources in covering the tragedy, listing blogs, sources and other information, including a list of freelancers available to help cover the story.
On the ABC News blog the World Newser, ABC News Now anchor Hari Sreenivasan wrote:
“If you watched some of the cable networks in the United States, you might think that terrorism just reached India – that somehow post 9/11, post Madrid, post London, India was getting a wakeup call. It reminds me of the old adage if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it really fall,” he wrote, citing previous terrorist incidents on the subcontinent.
“Then again, if you listened to half the newscasts in the U.S. or even saw an Associated Press wire story, you’d notice many of the stories still calling the city by the old name. The name is Mumbai by the way – and it has been for 11 YEARS!
“Leave it to Sumit Ganguly, the Tagore Professor of Indian Cultures and Civilizations, and a Professor of Political Science at Indiana University to put it bluntly ‘India is as much a victim of terror as Madrid, or London, the world can’t pretend that brown lives are not worth the same, terrorism is seamless regardless of where it happens’.”
SAJA anticipates about 700 people at its New York convention Wednesday through Sunday, Sree Sreenivasan said.
Business writer Vikas Bajaj of the New York Times, the Bombay-born convention chair, said he expected the explosions to be part of panels on press freedom and economic development, and said he thought Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South Asia, would discuss how the explosions will influence foreign policy.
On Saturday, Tom Curley, president and CEO of the Associated Press, is to be presented the SAJA Journalism Leader Award.
As reported here in May, some at the AP have said the news organization has lost ground on diversity under Curley. However, Bajaj said, “we’re honoring him for his commitment to a free press. That’s the reason we’re honoring him. . . . standing up for a free press” and for “saying the First Amendment and the press’s ability to do its job is important.”
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Carole Simpson Blasts Some in “The Big House”
“During most of my 40 years as a broadcast journalist, I was absolutely convinced that if more women and minorities held executive and decision-making positions, there would naturally be more minorities in the corporate suites, in the newsrooms, on the air, and behind the bylines of the big stories. WRONG!!!,” Carole Simpson, the former ABC News anchor, told Journal-isms this week.
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“Many of us black journalists worked so many years and spent our own money on scholarships, to help get more women and people of color into journalism. We had some remarkable successes. We got some of them inside and a few ‘up there.’ But then what did the ones ‘up there’ do?”
Simpson retired from ABC News in 2006 after 24 years. She had been anchor of “World News Tonight Sunday” from 1988 to 2003 and a senior correspondent. Before that, she was at NBC News. Journal-isms asked for her thoughts on diversity efforts from the perspective of her new life in Boston.
She continued: “I pray that somewhere, female and black executives are trying to ‘do the right thing,’ like promoting and hiring more people of their race. Not just because of their color but because they are qualified. But from my personal experience, too many of them are trying to out-white the white guys, who still retain the real power. They are so happy to be out of the ‘fields’ and workin’ in the ‘Big House,’ they have embraced the corporate culture, which unfortunately still believes black people are not yet good enough, and women, ‘too difficult.’
“I was always a ‘thorn in the side’ of the companies I worked for because I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind on matters of race. I felt I had an obligation because of all those black people who marched, were beaten, and killed, to secure equal rights for all of us.
“So one of the great disappointments of my career is that the two people who did more to damage my career and try to get me off the air were – ta-dah – a white woman and a black man. Two people I had fought to get into the positions they held.
“Did I waste my time? No, I learned an important lesson. It’s not enough to have a female or a black in important positions. They have to be the right woman and the right African American: those who want to, and are willing to take the risk, to make a difference. Are there any of those still around?”
So what is Simpson doing in Boston? “My husband and I moved to Boston in May to be close to our daughter, her husband and our first grandchild, ‘Baby James,’ now 16 months old. My grandparents had all died when I was growing up and I wanted to be a grandma and spoil this baby to death. I plan to finish my book, teach a course at one of the universities, and do voice and media consulting,” she said.
“After I left ABC, as much as I love Washington, there really was no reason to stay. (I’m originally from Chicago.) The older you get, the more important family becomes,” rather “than beating your brains out at some job where you’re not appreciated. It has turned out to be a tough adjustment here in Beantown, but we plan to make the most of it.
“BTW, my daughter, the Harvard-trained Dr. Mallika Marshall, is the TV doc on WBZ here in Boston, the CBS affiliate. And she appears every Saturday on the CBS ‘Early Show,’ and still practices medicine and has a young child. I’m so proud of her.”
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Atlanta Paper Won’t Run “Racial Cleansing” Series
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, flagship of the Cox Newspaper chain, won’t be running the Cox News Service “Leave or Die” series on “racial cleansing” because the paper has already covered the subject in Forsyth County, Ga., Hank Klibanoff, the Journal-Constitution’s managing editor/news, said today.
“In large part, we feel the story’s been told,” Klibanoff told Journal-isms. “This was not new ground for us.”
The series by Elliot Jaspin, described here on Monday, said a “computer analysis of thousands of U.S. census records dating back to the Civil War identified about 200 counties, most in states along the Mason-Dixon Line, where black populations of 75 people or more seemed to vanish from one decade to the next. . . . in 103 cases, the data indicated that there might have been a conscious effort by whites to drive blacks out.”
Among the counties that “stand out in the history of expulsions” were Forsyth and Dawson counties in Georgia. Klibanoff said his newspaper addressed the expulsions of African Americans in Forsyth County about 1987, when national attention focused on Forsyth County.
Then, a biracial group of 75 marchers was met by about 400 demonstrators led by members of the Ku Klux Klan, some of whom threw rocks, bottles and mud.
Civil rights leaders then organized a march that attracted about 25,000 demonstrators, according to the Associated Press, and Oprah Winfrey televised her talk show from the county.
Other papers, including the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union; the Journal-News in Hamilton, Ohio; the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post; the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer and the Middletown (Ohio) Journal, did start “Leave or Die” on Sunday.
The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, the Cox paper that sponsored the series, has received about three or four dozen responses on its Web site, according to project director David Pasztor. Educators have asked whether the paper planned to make the series available on DVD, a prospect “that would be incredibly gratifying.
“In the majority of e-mails, folks said they learned something they didn’t know or they share their experiences – things that happened to them in a similar vein,” Pasztor said. “About 15 percent are from people who say, ‘why are you bringing this up?’ That doesn’t surprise me; I’m encouraged to be seeing less of it than I had feared,” Pasztor told Journal-isms.
For the print edition, “we are not being overwhelmed by letters,” Arnold Garcia, editorial page editor, said. “I’m just speculating, but people are going to take a wait-and-see on how the other episodes unfold and then react. This is extremely difficult to read. It ain’t about Jessica Simpson’s latest boyfriend. It’s tough stuff,” but “people need to know this history.”
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Vibe Lets 20 More Staffers Go
“The new owners of Vibe magazine, who already alienated staff by firing six key staffers within hours of taking control, have just laid off 20 more employees from all departments,” Nat Ives reported Tuesday in Advertising Age.
“Staffers were already incensed and confused about the way the takeover has been handled since it was announced last week. ‘There’s just things that are happening that are so unnecessary,’ said one Vibe employee today – before being fired this afternoon. ‘New owners, new personnel, no problem. But there’s a professional, dignified way to do this with some class – and then there’s the way they’re going about it, which is just incredible in its clumsiness.’
“Those dismissed today include Lori Yacovone, managing editor; Karla Y. Radford, who was executive director-events and artist relations and had been with Vibe since its earliest days; Florian Bachleda, design director; Rondell Conway, associate music editor; and Vince Bailey, director of manufacturing.
“They join the editors and execs ousted last week, including longtime Editor in Chief Mimi Valdez; Kenard E. Gibbs, president; and Shani Saxon-Parrish, executive editor.”
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No-Dreadlocks Policies Prompt More Twists, Turns
Another columnist has joined the debate, still taking place on the Journal-isms message boards, over workplace policies that ban dreadlocks. Eric Aubry Kaplan, writing today in the Los Angeles Times, said:
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“What’s troubling is that, by being forced to change their hair, black people once again are being forced to shoulder the burden of proof: We’re not as fearsome as we look. It’s up to us to mitigate our dark skin and ethnic features by framing them with hair that’s as neat and unethnic as possible.
“That the requirement comes from black institutions only makes it more disturbing.”
Kaplan’s comments follow those this month by Rochelle Riley in the Detroit Free Press and Barry Saunders in the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer.
They were prompted to write in part by the case of Mashaun Simon, the summer intern at Black Enterprise magazine who was told to cut his dreadlocks if he wanted the job, and did so. Before that, some had criticized the hair policy of a five-year master’s of business administration program at Hampton University.
More recently, Kaplan noted, “A Louisiana sheriff said last week that anyone on the streets in dreadlocks ‘can expect to be getting a visit from a sheriff’s deputy’ because a murder suspect answering that description remained at large.”
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Short Takes:
- The National Association of Hispanic Journalists completed its challenge grant fundraising efforts at its June convention, the association announced Tuesday. In June 2005, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, Ford Foundation and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation awarded NAHJ $100,000, but NAHJ had to raise $200,000 by July 1 in order to receive it, a statement explained. “The association superseded the goal at its Florida convention. Overall, $214,000 was raised with $74,000 coming solely from donations made during the convention,” NAHJ said.
- A June 20 op-ed piece called “The N-Word, a Never-Ending Obstacle.” was credited to Carlton R. Manley, described by the Philadelphia Daily News as “an African-American who lives in Philadelphia.” In an editor’s note on Monday, the paper said, “We subsequently discovered that the piece had been plagiarized from noted writer Anthony Asadullah Samad. To have one’s words stolen by another is one of the greatest injustices that can occur to a writer. We regret that Anthony Asadullah Samad had to suffer that injustice.”
- “African Americans who experience racial discrimination have poorer physical and mental health than others, finds a study out of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health,” Ben Harder reported on Tuesday in the Washington Post. “Health problems – including depression, emotional troubles and physical conditions that limit daily activity – were greater even when researchers corrected for socioeconomic factors such as education and income.”
- “Black media needs desperately the sensibilities and talents of these people trained in mainstream media,” Eric Deggans, media critic for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, told Jackie Jones of BlackAmericaWeb.com. He was commenting on the hiring of Bryan Monroe by Johnson Publishing Co. to be editorial director of Ebony and Jet magazines. “There were black people who were there not because they wanted to be but are there because they couldn’t go someplace else. People don’t want to talk about it,” Deggans said. “But when I see someone like Roland Martin go to the Chicago Defender and Bryan going to Ebony and Jet, I think, ‘Here are some guys who are acclaimed journalists and are respected regardless of the venue and bring a professional standard that we don’t see as often as we’d like in ethnic media.'”
- With a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Youth Programming Initiative of KHDC Radio Bilingue in Salinas, Calif., trains 10 high school students a year in the mysteries that lurk behind a radio console, Claudia Melendez Salinas reported Sunday in the Monterey County (Calif.) Herald. “‘We had an initial grant for one year and the funders liked the results so much they renewed it for three years,’ says Delia Saldivor, the station manager. In November, the station got another $250,000, two-year grant for the program.”
- “Any time you write about race, people get incensed,” Jemele Hill, sports columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, said Friday in an interview with Liz Cox Barrett of CJR Daily. “I recently wrote a column saying that there is just as much evidence against Lance Armstrong as there is [against] Barry Bonds, and part of the reason there is this extraordinary benefit of the doubt extended to Lance is because he’s white. That’s not the overwhelming reason, mind you. Just a factor in the whole equation. I got a ton of mail about that one, even though I posed the racial element in the next-to-last graf of the column.”
- In Touch Weekly reported this week that both CNN and Fox News Channel have approached Star Jones-Reynolds, formerly of “The View,” about hosting jobs, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough wrote on Tuesday. “However, Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti said the network had ‘no interest’ in Reynolds. CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said there have been no conversations with Reynolds, although she didn’t rule out the possibility in the future.”
- Monica del Carmen Villavicencio, a native of Springfield, Va., is one of three 2006-07 participants in the Joan B. Kroc Fellowship, a year-long intensive training program at National Public Radio designed to bring exceptional graduates into public radio and journalism, NPR announced Tuesday. A graduate of Columbia University and the London School of Economics, Villavicencio is Nicaraguan-Filipina and contributed a chapter to the book “Waking Up American: Coming of Age Biculturally.”
- A proposal to erect a public monument in Charleston, S.C., to Denmark Vesey, a freed slave who was hanged in 1822 with 34 co-conspirators for plotting a rebellion, has alarmed listeners to talk radio and readers of the local newspaper, reported Drew Jubera Tuesday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The local Post and Courier newspaper was inundated with letters. . . One called Vesey an ‘advocate of ethnic cleansing.’ Another called his scheme ‘a Holocaust.'”
- “The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the fate of Mexican journalist Rafael Ortiz Martinez, who has been missing since Saturday morning. CPJ is investigating whether the disappearance is related to his work,” the organization reported on Tuesday.
- The news media in Ghana commonly refer to President J. A. Kufuor as “a vampire,” according to media research findings from the chief executive officer of the Centre for Media Analysis, the Ghanaian Chronicle reported today.
- “Without getting too Ralph Ellison, I actually relish being a sort of invisible man,” Robert Benzie wrote on Sunday in the Toronto Star. “In my line of work, it can make for better and easier newsgathering because you can blend in and unobtrusively observe. . . . Being of ‘mixed race’ keeps me enough of an outsider that I almost feel above the racial fray on most occasions.”