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Of Color: 10%-12% of Dallas Buyouts

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Editor Says, “You Just Have to Build Up Again”

The Dallas Morning News today informed “a little more than 100” newsroom employees that their applications for a buyout were accepted, editor Bob Mong told Journal-isms, and 10 to 12 percent of them were journalists of color.

 

Esther Wu

While Mong said the paper was not planning to release a list of those leaving, columnist Esther Wu, national president of the Asian American Journalists Association, told Journal-isms she was taking the buyout, and Mong confirmed that television critic Manuel Mendoza, who also happens to be the pitcher on the office softball team, is leaving.

Wu said the paper agreed to delay her departure until Dec. 7, so that she can serve out her term as president of AAJA, which requires that the position be held by a working journalist. About 75 newsroom staffers leave this week, Mong said.

Mong hinted strongly that an African American would succeed the departing Kevin Blackistone in his sports columnist slot, though Mong said he was not ready to make an announcement. The editor said he wished Blackistone had not taken the buyout, but said “we’re very, very pleased with his replacement.”

As reported on Sept. 1, some of the top-ranking and most prominent journalists of color at the Morning News—including Dwayne Bray, the metro editor; Vernon Smith, deputy international editor; Lennox Samuels, Mexico City bureau chief and former deputy managing editor; and Blackistone said they were applying to take a buyout.

Four additional veteran journalists of color—features writers Jean Nash Johnson, Beatrice Terrazas and Karen Thomas, and reporter Linda Stewart Ball— later confirmed they applied for the buyout package.

Mong said 580 letters soliciting buyout applications were sent to the staff. Among the applications submitted, only one was not accepted, he said. He declined to say whose that was, except to say the person worked in an area where the buyout offers were “oversubscribed.”

The buyout offer consists of two weeks of base pay per year of employment up to 15 years, plus three weeks’ pay for each year of service that exceeds 15, the News reported on Aug. 11, adding that the cash offer was capped at one year’s pay.

Mong denied reports that arts criticism took a disproportionate hit. “We have plenty of critics left,” he said. “We have one of the largest arts staffs in the country.” And while “we will be more of a local and regional paper . . . we still want to be the largest news and information source for this region,” he said.

The Morning News circulation area is 30 percent minority, Mong said, and the newsroom staff stood at 18 to 19 percent. The effect on newsroom diversity is “clearly a setback, but it is one of those things you just have to build up again,” he said. “The point is, diversity’s got to be an ongoing concern in any media company in this day and age.”

The editor pointed to Al Dia, the Spanish-language offshoot of the News, which employs 30 bilingual/bicultural journalists, as a multicultural source overlooked by outsiders. “Al Dia is very much a part of the Dallas Morning News. We run their stories; they run ours. It’s not like anyplace else in the country. It’s not an arms’-length situation,” he said.

Leona Allen, a black journalist who is from Dallas, will become acting assistant managing editor for Metro, succeeding the departing Bray, who is also a black journalist. She was Bray’s deputy.

Asked about the departure of Wu, whose column often tackles Asian American issues, Mong said, “we have some really top Asian journalists” remaining, and that the paper “is still talking to Esther about what she might do” as a freelancer.

A retention and recruiting committee is looking at the post-buyout situation, and “in November, we will be announcing a more permanent reorganization. There may or may not be the need to bring in some other people,” Mong said. The European bureau is closing, he said, but the Mexico City bureau is not.

Mong was asked what he would tell aspiring journalists who see retrenchment in the newspaper business. “They need to get the skills that will make them valuable and resilient as journalists,” he replied. “We’re an information company,” not a newspaper company, and the hunger for information is growing, not declining. “We’re in a market that is growing. Look at Al Dia. There are 30 journalists in jobs that didn’t exist three years ago,” he said. “Join companies that are in good markets and in growing markets and aren’t afraid to do new things.

“We’re doing a lot of stuff,” he continued, listing some Morning News innovations. “It’s a very exciting place to be, but it’s also been difficult. It’s just a very dynamic time in the media right now. It’s not easy anymore, but it is exciting. We’re looking forward to the future, we’re not afraid of it.”

He said about young journalists, “The state of mind has to be such that one looks at journalism as a continuing education. If they want to tell stories across many platforms . . . they will have a real career.”

 

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10 Years Later, Critics Say Tupac Is Still Alive

It was 10 years ago today that rap icon Tupac Shakur was shot and killed. Or was he?

“Contrary to the news of the past decade, Tupac Shakur is still very much alive,” Tony Hicks wrote Sunday in the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times.

 

 

“The iconic Bay Area rapper, who died from gunshot wounds 10 years ago Wednesday, has become nothing short of the black Elvis Presley—another riveting frontman whose legend eclipsed the need for a last name.

“Despite the artist’s short five-year recording career, the Guinness Book of World Records lists Tupac as the top-selling rapper of all-time— 73 million records and counting. He’s released more records dead (10) than alive (four), thanks to the large reservoir of unreleased material he left behind, as well as to studio outtakes and fragments of songs finished by contemporary rappers such as Eminem. Soldiers in Iraq listed Tupac’s 1996 song ‘Hit ‘Em Up’ as their fourth-most-played song in a Rolling Stone poll earlier this year.

“He’s still a regular on the Forbes list of top-earning entertainers, earning as much as $24 million from 2002 through 2004—which sounds a lot like another single-named dead icon. He inspired the Tupac Amaru Shakur School for the Performing Arts in Georgia. He was the first rapper immortalized this year in wax at Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas, the city where he died at age 25.”

While some music critics wrote anniversary stories that appeared Sunday or today, one—Rob Clark of the Dallas Morning News—saw his subject dominate a newspaper’s front page. Not the front page of the Morning News, but of Quick, its 100,000-circulation free sibling targeting 18- to 34-year-olds.

Clark also is the editor of Quick.

“Was there a name artist more significant in hip-hop? I couldn’t think of one,” Clark told Journal-isms. “Something about his presence that connected with people.” Clark, 32, said he had been writing about hip-hop since he was in college.

“He was the streetwise kid and the literature-loving deep thinker,” Clark wrote in his piece, which ran longer in Sunday’s Morning News. “A thug and an artist. A gangsta and a poet. A misogynist and a lover of women. A troublemaker and a leader. A hip-hop idol and the center of the East Coast-West Coast conflict.”

Clark interviewed five Dallas area M.C.’s and quoted such hip-hop veterans as Chuck D. and Ice Cube.

Among other commemorations, the hip-hop magazine XXL featured “The Definitive ‘Pac Guide” in its October issue, complete with a photo of the dead Shakur from what appears to be his autopsy. On Farai Chideya‘s first day as host of National Public Radio’s “News & Notes,” panelists debated a statement from Vern Chamberlain, office manager of the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center in Georgia, comparing Shakur with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

 

 

 

 

 

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Freelancer Says Bosses Knew of Government Work

“A journalist whose freelance contract with El Nuevo Herald was severed last week says the newspaper’s managers have known for years that she got paid by the U.S. government for Cuban cultural shows she hosted for Radio Martitilde;. She said managers never made an issue of it before,” Oscar Corral wrote Tuesday in the Miami Herald.

“Freelance writer Olga Connor was among three well-known El Nuevo Herald writers—the others were full-time reporters Pablo Alfonso and Wilfredo Cancio Isla—who were dismissed or had their contracts severed Thursday for having violated the company’s ethics policy for their work for Radio and TV Martĩ. The government-financed broadcasts are aimed at bringing news, information and entertainment to the communist island in an effort to undermine Fidel Castro‘s 47-year-old regime.”

“”At no time did any of the editorial management of the Herald indicate to me that this was considered a conflict of interest, and I continued writing for El Nuevo Herald until today,’ Connor wrote in Spanish in a letter to executives of The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and the two newspapers’ parent company, The McClatchy Co.,” the story continued.

“It’s gotta be weird to be Oscar Corral right now,” Bob Norman wrote from South Florida Monday. “The Miami Herald reporter who broke the Marti Ten story is so reviled by the hardline Cuban exile community that I wonder if he’s not in real danger,” Norman said in his blog for the New Times of Palm Beach-Broward.

Columnist Ana Menendez wrote today in the Miami Herald, “The most amusing response comes, as usual, from Cuba, where the official press has been gloating about proof that the ‘Miami Mafia’ and its journalists are bought and paid for by the U.S. government. It would be a compelling argument, except for the fact that in Cuba, government hacks are the rule, not the exception. Of the small group of Cuban journalists who don’t draw a government salary, many are, sadly, polishing their prose in jail.”

 

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Battle Over Voter ID Laws Attracting Little Notice

“Little noticed by voters, a nationwide melee has broken out pitting liberal and conservative groups in a duel over new laws that could determine who wins close elections in November and beyond,” Peter Wallsten wrote today in the Los Angeles Times.

“The dispute, which is being fought in disparate and often half-empty courtrooms in as many as nine states, concerns new state laws and rules backed primarily by Republicans that require people to show photo identification in order to vote and, in some cases, proof of citizenship and identification when registering to vote.

“One example of the skirmishing came late last month in a federal courtroom in Phoenix, where a Navajo leader, occasionally speaking in his tribal language, testified that thousands of his people would lose their right to cast ballots under a new Arizona law that requires voters to present a photo ID or other proof of identity at the polls.

“The leader, Leonard Gorman, testified that many Navajo who spend their lives herding sheep in remote areas cannot fulfill the new requirements because they do not drive, nor do they have mailboxes or even the utility bills that are accepted as alternative forms of identification under the new law.”

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17% of “Survivor” Viewers Object to Race Theme

“A Universal McCann online survey polling both regular and non-regular viewers of the CBS reality series Survivor shows that despite all the controversy surrounding this season’s format of dividing teams by race, only 17 percent of the show’s regular viewers say they were ‘personally offended’ by the series’ new twist,” John Consoli wrote Tuesday in Mediaweek.

“Caucasian viewers were a bit less likely to be personally offended (26 percent), compared to those who identified themselves as African American, Hispanic, Asian, or other ethnic groups (31 percent), the survey showed.

“Among non-viewers of the show, 72 percent agreed that the concept ‘may be offensive to some people,’ but not to them, while 85 percent of Survivor viewers agreed with that statement.

 

 

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Rolando Santos Moves to CNN International

Rolando Santos, who as executive vice president and general manager of CNN Headline News is one of the highest-ranking Latino news executives in television, is being promoted to senior vice president, international relations, of CNN International, CNN announced on Monday.

“Rolando has unrivaled experience in the creation of numerous CNN services, including CNN en Español in 1997, CNN + in Spain and CNN Turk in 1999,” Chris Cramer, managing director of CNN International, said in a news release. “As we continue to build upon CNN’s international heritage and global influence, he is the perfect choice to work alongside our worldwide partners, affiliates and colleagues.”

Writers had fun with Santos in 2002 after he told the San Francisco Chronicle that announcers were starting to use slangy expressions such as “whack,” “ill” or “sick”—”the lingo of our people,” he said—to help attract younger audiences.

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“TV News Is Hardly a Place for Family Life”

“No one would accuse Tana Castro of being a slacker among local TV news reporters. She has shadowed National Guard troops in Bosnia, filed reports from earthquake-ravaged India and spent two weeks in Mississippi last year covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” Sam McManis wrote Tuesday in the Sacramento Bee. His story was headlined, “TV news is hardly a place for family life.”

“But on Friday,” McManis continued, “Castro resigned after 12 years at Channel 3 (KCRA)—and 20 years in the TV news business—for a reason that is becoming increasingly common for those in her profession.

“‘I just have not done a great job balancing my personal and professional lives,’ said Castro, who says she is in her early 40s.

“More specifically, Castro wants to start a family. So she recently went to station management and sought a reduced schedule to allow her to balance work and domestic life. But, as so often happens in the fast-paced, 24/7 culture of TV news, Castro had to make a choice.”

Among other examples the story cites: “In July, Channel 13 reporter Stephanie Nishikawa resigned after eight years to open a boutique. ‘There were some long days working at the station,’ she said. ‘I’d come home at 8 o’clock and my son would go to bed at 9.'”

“This is a business that may attract young people, but it certainly isn’t very friendly to families and relationships,” Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute says in the story. “I teach hundreds of TV journalists a year at Poynter, and it’s more common than ever to hear them say, ‘You know what? I gotta get a life.’ “

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N.Y. Times Co. Diversity V.P. Has Bank Background

The New York Times Co. named Desiree Dancy, whose diversity background is with investment banks, as its vice president, diversity and inclusion, effective Oct. 2, the company announced today. “Ms. Dancy will be responsible for developing, recommending and leading the implementation of diversity and inclusion program initiatives. She will report to David K. Norton, senior vice president of human resources,” a news release said.

“Ms. Dancy has 12 years of experience in corporate diversity, all of which have been spent with major investment banks in New York. Most recently she served as vice president, global diversity and inclusion at Credit Suisse, which she joined in 2002.”

An internal committee at the Times had recommended appointment of a senior vice president whose primary responsibilities would be to oversee diversity efforts, warning management in a confidential report that “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.”

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Short Takes

“In 1990, months before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, which triggered the first Iraq war, a delegation of five U.S. senators, among them Senator Bob Dole, went to Baghdad for a téte-á-téte with Saddam” Hussein, retired editorial page editor Gil Cranberg recalled Monday, writing about “appeasement” on NiemanWatchdog.org. “Alan Simpson, Republican of Wyoming, commiserated with Saddam: ‘I believe that your problems lie with the Western media, and not with the U.S. government. As you are isolated from the media, the press—and it is a haughty and pampered press—they all consider themselves political geniuses. That is, the journalists do. They are very cynical.'”

“The unlawful arrest and detention of Gambian public television reporter Dodou Sanneh in an undisclosed location since 7 September 2006 has been forcefully condemned by Reporters Without Borders as another episode in a systematic crackdown on the press by President Yahya Jammeh‘s government,” the organization said on Tuesday. Sanneh, who works for the state-owned Gambian Radio and Television Services had been given the job of covering the election campaign of the opposition UDP-NRP-GPDP alliance. He was reportedly arrested because his coverage of its meetings was considered “not objective.”

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