U.S. Ethics, Cuban Journalists

Miami Publisher’s Exit Laid to Clashing Customs

“The divergent policies for two newsrooms under the same roof lie at the crux of the resignation of Jesus Díaz Jr., publisher for both” the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, Christina Hoag wrote Wednesday in the Miami Herald.

“The contrasting opinions also illustrate differing roles of journalism in Latin America and the United States — and how that divide plays out in South Florida. American journalism today, unlike decades ago, prizes objectivity, while Latin American journalism may advocate for change.”

Hoag’s story began, “The editors of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald differed sharply Tuesday over whether their journalists can appear as guests on TV and Radio Martí­, the U.S. anti-Castro propaganda channels.

“Under no circumstances, said Miami Herald Executive Editor Tom Fiedler. ‘The U.S. government is on one side,’ he said. `We really hold to the standard that we are the watchdogs of government.’

“Yes, but not for money, said El Nuevo Herald Executive Editor Humberto Castella. Cubans rely on TV and Radio Martí­ for information, he said: `They have no free press.'”

” . . . The firings hit the heart of El Nuevo’s small newsroom, on the sixth floor of 1 Herald Plaza. Many staffers there fled the Castro regime, including Castella. Several were political prisoners.

“For those who have not lived as adults under a socialist regime, understanding the passion exiles harbor for bringing democracy to Cuba can be difficult, Castella said at an employee meeting three weeks ago. Some exiles see it as their duty to do what they can to overturn the Castro government.

”It’s very normal and natural for us, for the Cuban journalists,” he said.

“Dí­az quit after grappling with fallout from his firing of two El Nuevo Herald reporters and one freelancer who were paid by TV Martí­.

“On Tuesday, the journalists were offered their jobs back after further inquiries by management.” Staffers at El Nuevo Herald told Journal-isms the reinstated staffers had not returned, and said they might do so Friday or Monday.

In a separate Herald story, Douglas Hanks wrote, “Top Miami Herald and McClatchy executives announced a new policy that no journalists in the future will accept pay for appearances on government-sponsored media. They also sought to counter the perception that they caved to pressure from some in the Cuban exile community and from the cancellation of more than 1,900 subscriptions.

“Nonetheless, the rehirings were heralded as ‘a victory for the community’ by Spanish-language TV reporter Juan Manuel Cao. Spanish-language radio personalities Ninoska Perez-Castellan and Armando Perez-Roura also told listeners the decision to offer amnesty to the reporters was a ‘victory for the exile community’ over the ‘monster on the bay.’ Perez-Castellón and Cao were among 10 reporters cited in the original Miami Herald article as accepting payments.”

Hanks wrote that Dí­az actually quit two weeks ago —”about the time of a blow-up over a column by Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen.

“Díaz believed Hiaasen’s sarcastic essay on the three El Nuevo Herald writers paid by Radio and TV Martí­ shouldn’t run. Hiaasen threatened to quit. Díaz wasn’t yielding.

“A furious Hiaasen phoned friends close to The Miami Herald’s new owner, the McClatchy Co. Within hours, Howard Weaver, McClatchy’s top news executive, called The Miami Herald to voice his support for strong columnists in the company’s papers.”

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Ex-Atlanta Anchor Held on Cocaine Charges

“Legal problems are mounting for former WSB-TV news anchor Warren Savage after his arrest early Wednesday in Forsyth County on felony cocaine charges,” Nancy Badertscher reported Wednesday for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Savage, who worked at WSB for 10 years before abruptly leaving the station in September 2005, was already facing a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge from August in neighboring Gwinnett County.”

“Savage, 42, was arrested by Forsyth County deputies around 5 a.m. Wednesday on charges of cocaine possession and possession with the intent to distribute cocaine, both felonies.

“Forsyth County Sheriff Ted Paxton would not disclose how much cocaine was involved or if others were arrested.”

As Journal-Constitution TV columnist Rodney Ho wrote at the time, Savage left WSB with this e-mail to staffers:

“A rapper once said, ‘before I sell out, I get the hell out.’ Since I’m more a musician than a rapper, I prefer to take a cue from the late, great Miles Davis, ‘If you don’t feel it, don’t play it.’ Thus has become my sentiment here at WSB-TV.”

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Maxine Waters Blasts Tribune Co. at FCC Hearing

“The concentration of media ownership in a few large corporations came under attack Tuesday as the Federal Communications Commission opened a series of hearings on the issue,” the Associated Press reported from Los Angeles Tuesday.

“‘Without diversity in ownership and participation, our democracy is in danger,’ Rep. Maxine Waters said at the initial hearing held at the University of Southern California.

“Waters, a Los Angeles Democrat, and others criticized ownership of the Los Angeles Times and KTLA-TV by Chicago-based Tribune Co., which also owns the Chicago Tribune, WGN-TV and WGN-AM 720.

“Speakers said the situation stifled competition and diversity of local opinion.

“The FCC is reconsidering a number of broadcast ownership rules, including whether a single company should be able to own both a newspaper and TV station in the same market.

“. . . Tribune is hoping the FCC will eliminate the current ban on a single company owning a newspaper and TV station in the same market.

“In the meantime, the company has asked the agency for a waiver so it can renew its broadcast license and retain ownership of both Los Angeles properties. The station license expires Dec. 1.

Waters said she would campaign against the waiver and recited a list of newspapers and television and radio stations owned by Tribune.

“If that’s not concentration, I don’t know what is,” she said to loud applause from the more than 500 people at the hearing.

Other speakers included Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, James S. Granelli reported in the Los Angeles Times.

Variety said, “Waters was particularly critical of the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of problems at King-Drew Medical Center, for which the paper won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year,” and said Jackson “pointed to Free Press watchdog group stats showing that minorities own only 3% of U.S. media outlets.”

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Ex-GM Loses Mayor’s Race, Calls Politics “Ugly”

Ed Bradley, the general manager of a Shreveport, La., television station who quit his job to run for mayor, finished in fourth place in elections Saturday, the Shreveport Times reported.

Bradley told Journal-isms today that “politics is an ugly game” that he had entered with cynicism, having dealt with it for 30 years, but “when you actually participate in it, you say, ‘wow.’

Ed Bradley

“Politics is the art of who can make a deal — and the deals are made not for the people, but for the individual,” he said.

As reported in July, the idea of a general manager running for public office was so unusual that a spokeswoman for the Radio-Television News Directors Association could think of no other who had taken such a step. Should other media executives follow his lead and cross over into politics? Yes, if “by some instance you think there are some right-thinking folks out there. But politics is not about being right — it’s about the money trail,” Bradley said.

He added that Shreveport is “15 to 20 years behind the times. There exists on both the white and black sides a plantation mentality.”

Bradley, 57, said he was exploring his options after having spent more than 20 years in the media business, most recently as station manager of KSLA. He said he was hampered by having taken himself out of the job market, but “hopefully I can land in some organization,” not necessarily in the media.

• Carl DiOrio, Hollywood Reporter: A call for more owners

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Lesson From Shootings: They’re Not an Urban Thing

“While I, like any other person with a pulse, empathize with those who have been personally touched by the tragedies of school shootings, I can’t offer a solution as much as I can point to a lesson,” Tonyaa Weathersbee wrote Tuesday on BlackAmericaWeb.com after five children were slain in a one-room Pennsylvania schoolhouse.

“That lesson being that isolated, middle-class white communities don’t provide an escape from the gun violence that is used to characterize — and to stereotype — black urban communities. And the idea that one can deal with fears of violence by simply moving away from black people is an idea that should have been shot to hell — pardon the pun — at least since the Columbine massacre.”

• Eugene Kane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Violence has no color or ZIP code
• Gail Shister, Philadelphia Inquirer: Killings bring a massive response from newscasters

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PBS “NewsHour” Guests Found Lacking in Diversity

The “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” PBS’s flagship news program, touts its “signature style — low-key, evenhanded, inclusive of all perspectives . . . But a new FAIR study finds that the NewsHour fails to provide either balance or diversity of perspectives — or a true public-minded alternative to its corporate competition,” the liberal media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting said Wednesday.

FAIR’s magazine Extra! studied the “NewsHour’s” guest list from October 2005 through March 2006. Its findings included: ” Among partisan sources, Republicans outnumbered Democrats on the NewsHour by 2-to-1 (66 percent vs. 33 percent). Only one representative of a third party appeared during the study period.

“People of color made up only 15 percent of U.S. sources. African-Americans made up 9 percent, Latinos 2 percent, and Asian-Americans and people of Mideastern descent made up one percent each. Alberto Gonzales accounted for more than 30 percent of Latino sources, while [Condoleezza] Rice accounted for nearly 13 percent of African-American sources.”

Anne Bell, public relations manager at PBS, told Journal-isms, “We stand by our programming.” Given the war in Iraq, many of its commentators come from the military and a lot of them “are white men. As far as the people we choose to interview, we try very hard to provide balanced and diverse views and opinions,” she said.

• Eric Deggans blog, St. Petersburg Times: Lack of Diversity at the NewsHour?

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Implications of Mark Foley Scandal Explored

“Misconduct is all the more likely when one party is clutching all the keys to power.” Cynthia Tucker wrote Wednesday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, commenting on the resignation of Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., after revelations of his sexually explicit overtures to male pages.

“From Tom DeLay to Bob Ney to Duke Cunningham to Mark Foley, the GOP Congress has been rife with corruption â?? a cesspool of arrogance, recklessness and disdain for the public,” Tucker wrote.

In the Wall Street Journal today, Sarah Lueck explained how the story came to the media’s attention.

• Deborah Mathis, BlackAmericaWeb.com: Mark Foley’s Resignation Underscores the Hypocrisy Germ Infecting Public Officials
• Ana Menendez, Miami Herald: Moral outrage shouldn’t be limited to sex
• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Untangling Foley’s Web
• Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: No Spinning Past This Scandal
• Elmer Smith, Philadelphia Daily News: Lawmakers: Hear that beeping sound?
  
• Dawn Turner Trice, Chicago Tribune: E-mail scandal’s fallout rolls up Hill to Hastert

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A Journey to “Inner Circles of Native American Hell”

“It was clear that I was descending rapidly into the inner circles of Native American hell,” George Benge, a Gannett news executive and columnist, wrote for the Gannett News Service. Benge was describing, “from an Indian perspective, the experience of attending a game of the team whose name is an unspeakable affront to Native Americans everywhere.”

For his first column in the series, Benge went to a Washington Redskins game. Benge told Journal-isms his idea is to attend one pro, one college and one high school game featuring teams that have Native American mascots and nicknames.

• Suzan Shown Harjo, Indian Country Today: ‘N-word,’ ‘R-word,’ Redmen and more macaca

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Hampton U. Challenges AP Story on Black Colleges

Hampton University is challenging a widely used Associated Press story by Dionne Walker that says enrollment is declining at historically black colleges and universities.

The AP story begins: “When prospective college student Jessica Page trundled off to Hampton University in March, she’d considered the visit a formality. She’d already made up her mind to attend the waterside school, considered by many a jewel among the nation’s historically black institutions.

“Then she saw the campus.”

A university news release cited new campus buildings and added, “The reporter acted in a very sophomoric manner by taking one individual’s opinion and aligning it with her preconceived notion that historically black universities offer aging campuses and therefore are facing a ‘resulting exodus.’ Walker also declined to offer another perspective by rebuffing our offer to speak with a student who chose to attend Hampton University instead of a state institution such as UVA,” the University of Virginia.

The release also said, “In 1996, the University had a total enrollment of 5,554 and in 2005, the University had a total enrollment of 6,309, clearly illustrating a historical increase in enrollment figures.”

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2 Columnists Differ With Juan Williams Thesis

Two more columnists have expressed differences with the thesis put forward in a new book by Juan Williams of National Public Radio and Fox News, “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America â?? And What We Can Do About It.”

“Williams laments what he sees as a black underclass mesmerized by racial hucksters playing ‘old school’ politics: corporate blackmail disguised as boycotts, naked shakedowns leveraged by rhetorical threats and the like,” in the words of a Washington Post Book World review.

In the Los Angeles Times, Erin Aubry Kaplan wrote Wednesday: “Black leadership didn’t fail in a vacuum. A federal government â?? one that was at best ambiguous about black equality â?? failed right along with it.

“Whites who abandoned schools, neighborhoods and local economies because of a perceived black threat failed us too.

“So did the whole American culture industry, which romanticizes and commercializes the black threat â?? otherwise known as the ghetto â?? and turns it into gold records and high fashion, beginning with those baggy pants.

“No, we’re all to blame for the rotten state of Denmark. But observations like that don’t sell books.”

In the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Jarvis DeBerry did not name Williams or his book, but wrote on Sunday, “I’m not sure that it’s fair to expect the NAACP or any other organization without police or investigatory powers to be truly effective in a fight against crime.

“An organization committed to the advancement of its people can’t turn a blind eye to crime, of course, but one wonders if it isn’t setting itself up for failure in jumping into this fight without any real weapons.”

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Short Takes

• Kenyan journalist Peter Makori visited one black public high school in Kansas City and one white, private one. “Makori said the black teens he saw were loud ‘ruffians,'” Lewis Diuguid reported Wednesday in the Kansas City Star. “‘If racism is the issue then the blacks need to use it to fortify their intent to get into a better state,’ Makori said. ‘The onus is upon them to look into avenues to promote their social development so they operate on the same level as whites. To take the carefree attitude as the basis of explaining oppression to me is defeatism and is not justifiable.'”
• The Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle has been named top winner of Gannettâ??s first annual All-American Diversity Award, presented to Karen Magnuson, vice president/news and editor at the paper, at a meeting of Gannett editors Tuesday in McLean, Va. The newspaper also received $5,000. The News-Press at Fort Myers, Fla., was runner-up and received $3,000. Finalists were the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger, the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader and the St. Cloud (Minn.) Times.
• Arthur L. Jones, former Boston newspaper and TV reporter and deputy press secretary under President Clinton, has died of complications from treatment for leukemia. He was 61, Bryan Marquard reported Tuesday in the Boston Globe. Jones, an African American, “was part of the staff at The Boston Globe that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service in 1975 for the paper’s coverage of school desegregation. He also was an award-winning reporter for WBZ-TV,” the Associated Press said.
• The 2004 documentary “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till“ is due to premiere on Court TV on Sunday at noon Eastern and Pacific time, director Keith Beauchamp announced.
• If last Sunday’s disappointing ratings are any indication, it could be a long season for the new CW Network, as well as the predominantly black shows that make up its Sunday night lineup, Monica Lewis wrote Tuesday on BlackAmericaWeb.com.
• New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell is the subject of a lengthy piece by Tom Scocca in the Oct. 9 issue of the New York Observer. “Something has happened to Mr. Gladwell’s style of argumentation over time â??- it has become more self-referential, till the framework dominates the portrait,” Scocca wrote in his “Off the Record” column.
• Metro reporter Jacquie Charles is becoming the Miami Herald’s Caribbean correspondent, effective Oct. 9. An example of one-person diversity, “Jacquie was born in Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Her mother is Haitian and her father a Turks Islander. She spent her childhood moving between Turks and Caicos and Haiti. She eventually moved to the United States with her mother and stepfather, who was Cuban-American,” an announcement said. “In South Florida, Jacquie grew up in Overtown and Allapattah. . . .Jacquie practically grew up at The Miami Herald. She arrived here as a 14-year-old high school intern.”