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Castro Story Becomes Everyone’s

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“Big Deal” for Both Mainstream, Spanish Press

The illness of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the temporary transfer of power to his brother Raúl Castro received expanded coverage Wednesday as news organizations had their first full news cycle to explore the development.

That was particularly true for the Spanish-language press.

“It’s not simply a big deal for the Cuban community,” Alberto Vourvoulias, editor of New York’s El Diario/La Prensa told Journal-isms. Castro “is a historical figure. He represents a lot of things in relation to U.S. relations with Latin America, and he’s an icon of world history.

“He’s one of the old dinosaurs. He was alongside Kennedy and Brezhnev and Nkrumah and Nehru and the people who made the history of the 20th century.”

El Diario made Castro its cover story today and devoted five front pages to the developments, Vourvoulias said. The paper used stringers in Caribbean and Latin American countries, interviewed Cubans in New Jersey and in Latin America and made use of material from its sister ImpreMedia papers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Orlando.

The ImpreMedia chain has no reporters in Cuba, but Ed Diario telephoned residents there, he said. It also ran an editorial, “Castro and the Future of Cuba,” which is available in English.

In Dallas, Castro “is the play story and photo on 1A and we have two pages (10A and 11A) devoted to the Castro story, which includes a story talking to local Cubans,” said Gilbert Bailon, editor and publisher of Al Dia, Spanish-language product of the Dallas Morning News. “It’s a huge Latin American story that generates interest [though] our Cuban population is relatively small in a much bigger Hispanic population of 1.5 million.”

Javier Aldalpe, editor and vice president of the Tribune Co.’s Hoy, which publishes in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, said: “We got the news Monday night and were able to cover it in all our editions Tuesday, as well as on our website. Today’s editions include local reactions from Cuban community members in all three of our markets. In addition, we worked with the staff of our sister publication, El Sentinel in South Florida, to get reaction from the Miami community. We have the added advantage of having a Tribune reporter, Gary Marx, in Havana.”

Mainstream news outlets interviewed their local Cuban communities, from Boston to Chicago to Greensboro, N.C., and Madison, Wis.

The Boston Globe ran a reaction piece from its correspondent in Bogota, Colombia, Indira A.R. Lakshmanan.

The event gave New York Daily News editorial writers the opportunity to use the headline “Close, but no cigar.”

Although U.S. television networks weighed in with their own coverage, in Miami, the network to watch was in Havana.

“A Havana TV news show hooked plenty of Miami viewers Tuesday because it was the sole Cuban source of information about Fidel Castro’s health,” Elaine De Valle reported today in the Miami Herald.

“Many Cubans in Miami tuned in to the Cuban government’s top-rated evening news program, Mesa Redonda, or Round Table, which was simulcast live by two Spanish-language channels in South Florida.”

But if viewers hoped to see the mystery character in the unfolding drama, they were disappointed.

“Absent from the broadcast: Brother Raúl Castro,” De Valle continued.

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Monkeying With Meaning of Rice Cartoon

“Above and beyond the steady anti-American hatred promoted by the Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders for years, they seem to have a special penchant for hating Condoleezza Rice,” begins a July 30 screed on the Web site of the pro-Israeli Palestinian Media Watch. “Some of the attacks have included expressions of racial hatred, as in an article this week referring to Rice as a ‘raven’ and a previous article that referred to her as ‘the colored . . . the dark skinned . . . the black lady.'”

What might seem particularly racist is a July 24 cartoon from the London-based Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, “Rice speaks about birth of a new Middle East.” It shows Rice pregnant with a monkey.

The quote is a reference to Rice’s July 21 statement on the outbreak of war between Israel and Hezbollah: “”What we’re seeing here, in a sense, is the growing — the birth pangs of a new Middle East. And whatever we do, we have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one.”

Some Arab American journalists say not so fast on a racial interpretation of the cartoon.

Osama A. Siblani, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Arab American News in Dearborn, Mich., told Journal-isms that among Middle Easterners, ancient folklore holds that God turns humans into monkeys when he is angry with them. Thus, the cartoon argues “This is the kind of Middle East she wants us to have, an ugly Middle East,” he said.

Discounting racism as a motive, Siblani said, “Half the Arab world is from Africa. This is a cartoon intended for an audience that has nothing to do with this culture” in the United States.

Jamal Rayyis, a freelance writer on wines who is of Palestinian descent and is treasurer of the new Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association, said, “I cannot speak with any authority about folk-beliefs,” but “This particular cartoon is being distributed now by an avowedly right-wing Israel-interest group.

“It is doubtful that they would reprint racist cartoons from the Israeli press – let a alone very racist commentaries that compare Arabs to insects, made even on the floor of the [Knesset]. Given his service to the Bush II administration, it’s hard to believe that Colin Powell would ever be the target of racist portrayals in Israel – but I recall seeing a few years ago some racist portrayals of General Powell that had appeared in the Israeli press, apparently expressing unhappiness at Colin Powell’s supposed softness toward Arabs.

“Cartoonists all over the world have used crude carictures to portray their subjects, sometimes, regrettably, using racist images. These surely need to be questioned, and perhaps, protested,” he said.

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“Tabloid Wars” Premiere Not a Ratings Winner

The July 24 premiere of “Tabloid Wars,” the Bravo network reality show about the New York Daily News, attracted only 460,000 total viewers in Nielsen’s overnight metered markets, including a repeat showing that evening, Marianne Paskowski wrote Monday in Television Week.

“Those numbers are a far cry from those of ‘The Closer,’ which routinely attracts millions of viewers on Monday nights in that same 9 p.m. (ET) slot. So the scheduling was suicidal, if you want my two cents here,” she said.

In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, television writer Joanne Weintraub noted a lack of diversity on screen.

“‘Tabloid Wars’ is a pretty sweet sundae itself, but instead of a cherry on top, it’s got a pickle,” she wrote. “In the first episode, we barely see a woman in the newsroom, with the exception of gossip columnist Joanna Molloy, and unless I missed something, we don’t see a single African-American. The second episode introduces a few more women but, apart from metro editor Dean Chang, an Asian-American, no apparent minorities.

“No black journalists involved in reporting, editing or photographing a story about race and violence? If that’s true, someone should have been asked to address the issue; if it’s not true, why not show them?”

Bravo spokeswoman Nora Grudman told Journal-isms that Weintraub was wrong. News spokeswoman Donna Dees said she had seen only the first two episodes, and that the first showed Tamer El-Ghobashy, a member of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association, chasing a shooting in the Howard Beach section of Queens. Leon Carter, the News’ sports editor, who is African American, will be in the fourth episode, she said.

Elizabeth Jensen, New York Daily News: ‘Wars’ docu keeps tabs on News

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Rep. McKinney Challenges Cynthia Tucker Column

Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., is demanding a retraction of statements made in a column Sunday by Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The column contained material that was “untrue, defamatory and libelous,” McKinney’s lawyer, J.M. Raffauf, wrote in a letter dated Monday.

In an Internet story picked up by other Web sites, it was erroneously reported yesterday that McKinney had filed a lawsuit.

In the letter, McKinney’s lawyer disputes the recap in Tucker’s column, headlined, “Voters Can See Through McKinney,” of McKinney’s encounter this year with a Capitol police officer. It also cites a study by Congress.org on the effectiveness of members of Congress, challenging Tucker’s assertion that Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., is more effective.

“Congresswoman McKinney demands that your retraction and correction be accompanied by an editorial in which you specifically repudiate your libelous statements,” the letter said. “Tucker and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution have made these statements maliciously and with intent to injure the Congresswoman in her office and profession.”

Angela Tuck, public editor of the paper, told Journal-isms that the paper had received the letter only today and that “we have to look into this.” Later this month, Tucker is to be honored as Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists. McKinney faces an Aug. 8 runoff in her reelection bid.

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Richmond Columnist’s Farewell Piece Spiked

“When editors at the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch told Randy Fitzgerald that they were dropping his freelanced weekly column after 18 years, they also invited him to write a farewell piece,” Mark Fitzgerald reported Tuesday in Editor & Publisher.

“Then they killed it.”

“Executive Editor Glenn Proctor declined comment Tuesday, referring calls to Times-Dispatch Promotion Manager Frazier Millner, who said the column was ‘an internal issue’ and would not elaborate.

It was the latest episode causing buzz at the Richmond paper since Proctor and Publisher Thomas A. Silvestri took over less than a year ago.

Last month, executives suspended an intranet forum a day after a cover story in Richmond Style Weekly, “Truth and Consequences,” detailed anxiety at the paper since Proctor and Silvestri took charge. On Monday, Louise C. Seals announced she was stepping down as managing editor after having been in the job since 1994 and at the paper since 1968.

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Stereotypes of Heavy Black Women Gaining Ground

A caricature playing on stereotypes of heavy black women as boisterous and sometimes aggressive has been showing up for some time in stand-up comedy routines and in movies like “Big Momma’s House” and “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” Jeremy W. Peters wrote Tuesday in the New York Times.

“Often, the pieces are produced by directors and writers who are black themselves,” Peters wrote.

“With black creators giving more acceptability to the image, it is now starting to appear more often in television commercials as well.

“Most recently some variation of this character has appeared in commercials for Dairy Queen, Universal Studios and Captain Morgan rum.

“But despite the popularity of such characters among blacks, the use of the image of big black women as the target of so many jokes is troublesome to some marketers and media scholars. . . .”

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All Major TV Outlets Said to Suffer in Credibility

“While American news audiences remain polarized by ideology, a new study finds that regardless of their individual political leanings, Americans are unilateral in their increasing skepticism about the credibility of all major TV news outlets,” Anthony Crupi reported Tuesday in Mediaweek.

“According to the latest study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, fewer than a quarter of the 3,204 adults surveyed believe all or most of what they see on NBC News (23 percent), ABC News (22 percent) or CBS News (22 percent), continuing a downward trend in credibility that stretches back to the mid-1980s.

“Cable has fared no better. Back in 1998, CNN boasted a stellar 42 percent approval rate, only to drop to 28 percent this year. Rival Fox News Channel has remained steady since it was first added to the Pew study in 2000; that year, 26 percent of respondents said they trusted FNC, a figure that is more or less consistent with the 25 percent approval rate in 2006.

“CNN is by no means the least trusted news net among GOP respondents, as every outlet from C-SPAN (21 percent) to MSNBC (18 percent) scored lower on the credibility scale.”

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