Maynard Institute archives

O.J. Interview a “Confession”

by richard0507

Publisher Characterizes New Book, Fox Programs

The publisher of the new book in which O.J. Simpson hypothesizes about how he could have committed the 1994 murder of his ex-wife and her friend said on Thursday that she believed Simpson’s statements were, in fact, a confession, Edward Wyatt reported in the New York Times.

Commentators and citizens alike have been nearly unanimous in condemning “If I Did It” and publisher Judith Regan’s two-part television interview with Simpson, which is to be broadcast on Fox on Nov. 27 and Nov. 29.

“‘Ms. Regan defended her decision to publish the book, which she said was spurred in part because she, like Nicole Brown Simpson, was a victim of domestic abuse. She added that she was willing to help the victims’ families recover any money that flowed to Mr. Simpson from the book,” Wyatt wrote.

“Ms. Regan said that Mr. Simpson’s conduct during the interview convinced her of his guilt. A segment of the interview is on Fox’s Web site at www.fox.com/oj.

“‘When you see the interview, you’ll be stunned by his thought process,’ she said. ‘In my view, this is his confession.’

“. . . Unlike most news organizations that conduct interviews, Ms. Regan’s publishing company paid millions of dollars for the rights to Mr. Simpson’s story. The National Enquirer reported last month that ReganBooks is paying $3.5 million for the rights, but Ms. Regan said on Thursday that the amount was ‘far less,’ though she declined to specify by how much.”

So far, there seems to be no racial divide in the reaction, as there was over the not guilty verdict in Simpson’s 1995 murder trial. At least three African American columnists have joined in the denunciation.

“The saddest aspect of this travesty is that Regan knows the book will sell and Fox knows the Simpson ‘interview’ will score huge ratings,” Eugene Robinson wrote Friday in the Washington Post. “They have studied our weaknesses and calculated that sensation always trumps honor.”

On Thursday, sports columnist Stephen A. Smith wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “O.J. Simpson is a despicable human being, which is actually being kind because some would say he’s officially less than human. Any man who would attempt to profit off the double murder of his ex-wife (Nicole Brown Simpson) and her friend (Ronald Goldman) with such glee, such indifference to a brutal slaying practically everyone believes he committed, does not deserve anyone’s understanding or compassion.”

Veteran sports journalist Roy S. Johnson began his Thursday blog entry, “O.J.: Donâ??t Buy It, Read It, Watch It. Got It?” with, “Itâ??s difficult to find a low so low I was torn whether to even write about it. Doing so is just what they want. It is the very reason—that and the paper—they dove to the pits of pitdom. Judith Regan is the scum/book publisher and purveyer of depravity whoâ??s behind this junk. She knew weâ??d buy, read, watch. O.J.? Heâ??s, well, O.J.”

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Tennessee Weekly Names Blacks Who Did Not Vote

In an effort to get out the vote on Nov. 7, the Tennessee Tribune, an African American weekly in Nashville, published a 28-page section the previous Thursday listing those who were registered to vote in its predominantly black district but did not go to the polls in August.

The publisher, Rosetta Miller-Perry, told Journal-isms the strategy worked: The district had a 65 percent voter turnout, second-highest in the city, she said, up from the usual 30 to 35 percent.

But in the weekly Nashville Scene, Sekou Franklin, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Middle Tennessee State University, condemned the action Thursday, saying:

“Although the Tribune’s action did not legally violate the letter and intent of existing civil rights laws, it did violate the spirit and ethos of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Because voting in American politics is a private right and not compulsory, disciplinary measures, such as exposing non-voters to public reprimand, are callous and unethical, and they help to legitimate a culture of intimidation in electoral politics that has historically been used to dilute the black vote.”

Miller-Perry, who said she got the idea from another black newspaper publisher in Texas, dismissed the criticism. “You’ve got to do something to get people to the polls,” she said, adding that white politicians used to woo blacks with barbecue and whisky. Moreover, “If you don’t pay your property taxes, they put it in the majority press. If they can put your name and address” in the paper over taxes, “What’s the difference?”

The Tribune, which claims a circulation of 45,000, plans a rebuttal to Franklin’s piece in its next issue, she said.

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Cleveland Stations File Live on Levert Funeral

“A sea of purple invaded downtown today, as fans dressed in Gerald Levert’s favorite color sang and danced under umbrellas waiting for today’s memorial service to begin,” Cleveland’s WOIO-TV reported Friday afternoon as the funeral of the R&B singer, who died last week at 40, got under way.

Mark Silberstein, WOIO managing editor, told Journal-isms the city’s television stations began broadcasting live during early-morning shows and continued on and off until the funeral ended at about 3 p.m. Television reporters were not allowed inside the Public Hall, where the services were conducted, so they broadcast from outside.

Silberstein said his station asked viewers to express their sentiments on its Web site during the 4 p.m. show, and about 500 did so.

“Gerald Levert’s death wasn’t big news in every neighborhood; he was a black R&B singer with little if any profile on white pop radio,” Leonard Pitts Jr. wrote Friday in his syndicated Miami Herald column. “But if you are black and of a certain age, it was the kind of bulletin that made you pull over the car.

“We live in an era where music is largely impersonal, a cut-and-paste, machine-tooled artifice. Moreover, we live in an era where black music in particular is often a police blotter or a sex act or a product placement, but, less frequently, a love song. Still, some of us remember when black music was about soul and soul was about truth—particularly the truth of How It Is between women and men.”

[On the e-mail list of the National Association of Black Journalists Saturday, Neil Foote, director of communications of Reach Media, said, “It’s unfortunate that mainstream national media hasn’t covered this story. If you haven’t seen any footage, I wanted to point you all to the video segments from the public memorial service available on BlackAmericaWeb.com. One of the truly powerful moments is Stevie Wonder singing ‘All I Do’ with Eddie Levert standing by his side …”]

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2 Latinos Among Layoffs in Phoenix Newsroom

Two Latinos were among about seven newsroom people laid off Monday at the Arizona Republic, which reduced staffing overall by 31 people.

Peter Madrid, an assistant sports editor with 27 years at the paper, told Journal-isms he had no idea what was coming when he was called to a room on Monday and saw about six or seven others. “It was quite a shock,” he said of the news. Madrid, 49, was on the original staff of USA Today, which launched in 1982. Both papers are owned by Gannett.

Madrid said he took particular note of the dismissals because he is active in Associated Press Sports Editors, which reported in June that 94.7 percent of the sports editors, 86.7 percent of the assistant sports editors, 89.9 percent of our columnists, 87.4 percent of our reporters and 89.7 percent of our copy editors/designers are white.

He said an editor from another Arizona paper, “a good friend of mine,” called him Wednesday night to discuss a copy editing position at his paper after hearing about his layoff through the grapevine.

The second Latino expressed similar surprise, but did not want his name used. “I do not want problems with anyone,” he said, fearing “this could give me a bad image with any possible future employer.”

Among other developments this week:

  • Veteran reporter Ramona Logan of KXAS-5 in Dallas-Fort Worth was one of two let go. She had been with the station nearly 21 years, and had long chaired the scholarship committee of the Dallas-Fort Worth Association of Black Communicators. KXAS is owned and operated by NBC, which is implementing a cost-cutting program. Michele Greppi of TV Week reported a week ago that sources expected about 15 layoffs nationwide on NBC’s “Dateline” by midweek. At least four NBC News employees of color reportedly were laid off or took buyouts.
  • “The Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y. is offering newsroom employees a buyout package that could give some longtime workers two years of pay, while possibly reducing the staff by 10%, Publisher Stephen A. Rogers told E&P,” Editor & Publisher reported Wednesday.
  • Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of the Washington Post, “announced several general and specific shakeups ‘to maximize readership of the printed newspaper, build audience on the Web site and further reduce costs in the newsroom.’ This includes a plan to ‘shrink’ the newsroom, ‘tightening up the paper’s news hole,’ cracking down on story length and moving reporters and editors ‘within and among staffs,'” Editor & Publisher said.
  • The Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal “let five members of our newsroom go during the past three days as part of a cost-cutting plan. It is difficult and dreary work,” Managing Editor Ken Otterbourg told readers on Tuesday.
  • At the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press, “publisher Par Ridder said Monday the paper will cut the equivalent of 40 full-time positions, or about 5 percent of the staff, through a combination of buyouts, layoffs and job eliminations,” the Associated Press reported. “About 20 of the cuts will come in the 205-person newsroom, where the paper hopes to find at least 10 full-time employees to take buyout packages.”
  • At the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where 64 newsroom employees accepted a buyout, columnist Sam Fulwood III wrote about watching them pack: “Details are important to journalists. We don’t let them go easily. That’s why my old friends carefully place every wire-bound notebook or yellowed clipping, the souvenirs of a well-spent life, into take-home containers. I watched one old-timer gingerly kiss a coffee-stained cup before placing it on top of his bundle to be carted out. I’d swear his lips trembled and his eyes brimmed with tears.”

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Ellis Cose Report Pessimistic on Affirmative Action

“The number of minorities—particularly black Americans—winning government contracts and being admitted to public colleges and universities in California has dwindled since a ballot measure was passed 10 years ago outlawing preferential treatment for minorities in those areas, according to a study released yesterday,” Elizabeth Williamson and Valerie Strauss reported Friday in the Washington Post.

“The study of California’s Proposition 209 shows that it has had a major effect, according to Ellis Cose, who wrote the report for the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication.

The passage of an anti-affirmative-action proposal in Michigan this month shows that “there is a huge sense on the part of white voters that affirmative action needs to end,” said Cose, an author and contributing editor and columnist for Newsweek. Although the national implication remains uncertain, “if this thing is put before states where there is a significant white majority, it’s likely to pass,” he said in the story.

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Video Online of Black Columnists’ Panel on Midterms

A public discussion by African American columnists this week on the results of the midterm elections made plain what perspectives are missing from most airwaves.

A video of the Trotter Group panel was made available Friday on the Web site of the John S. Knight Fellowship Program at Stanford University. Hearing these columnists’ views all in one place seemed so unusual that the token representation of African Americans on political talk shows—when not missing completely—became obvious.

Below is a skeletal account of the session by Trotter member Wayne Dawkins of Hampton University:

Listen in on what six leading black newspaper columnists Monday night said was next for America after Nov. 7 congressional and gubernatorial elections that dramatically altered the nation’s political landscape:

“America took America back,” said Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press. “America begins in the cities and towns. Washington politicians thought they were supposed to play the game without us.”

Betty Winston Baye of the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal said war with Iraq defined last week’s election that demoted Republicans in the House and Senate.

War was personal: “My nephew’s father, 27, was killed in Tikrit, Iraq, last December. People like my cousin are fighting this war and others talk about it,” she said, referring to policy makers. For me, Iraq is not a conversation.”

Lewis Diuguid of the Kansas City Star agreed: Black columnists “were crucified and marginalized for criticizing U.S. war policy. It is time for us to say ‘where is our piece of the pie?’

“It is [also] time for Democrats to rewrite the Bush administration’s blue skies b.s.

“It’s got to be on now.”

Les Payne of Newsday said, “The Republic held. In the 2000 and 2004 elections, America’s structure was in jeopardy. Last week, the message was not all good but mixed, not so rosy for Democrats. They face a huge mess.”

Askia Muhammad, who writes for the Final Call and the Washington Informer, said, “Last week was a pulling back from the brink. Three weeks ago I used the word ‘tsunami’ in the lead of my story and an editor took the word out. The next time, I wrote ‘tsunami’ into the headline.

“You don’t have a war against someone who doesn’t attack you,” Muhammad continued. “President Bush is Pharaoh and our country pulled back from the Red Sea.”

Baye said incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “great challenge is going to be overcoming the ‘liberal’ media.

“We see the same tired people on the Sunday talk shows as if there is no diversity.

“And don’t forget that a lot of the Democrats elected last week are nominal Democrats.”

Riley said, “We are facing the two most important years in modern American political history.” Pelosi, D-Calif. will need to draw from the experience of Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. and John Conyers, D-Mich., she said.

Both longtime Congressional Black Caucus members are poised to chair powerful congressional committees because of the power shift in Washington.

The commentators were drawn from 30 members of the William Monroe Trotter Group, a columnist society that was meeting at Stanford. About 50 people attended the public forum sponsored by the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists.

Trotter columnist Derrick Jackson of the Boston Globe moderated the 90-minute session. Jackson noted last week’s history-making election in his state: African American Deval Patrick was elected governor of Massachusetts, the first of his race since Douglas L. Wilder of Virginia in 1989.

 

MORE FROM THE TROTTER GROUP

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BET Rebroadcasting CBS Tribute to Ed Bradley

Colleagues and admirers of CBS correspondent Ed Bradley continued to tell readers their stories this week, as Black Entertainment Television planned to rebroadcast last Sunday’s “60 Minutes” tribute to Bradley on Sunday at noon and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time.

In Newsday, magazine journalist Curtis Stephen wrote that a meeting with Bradley at a New York Association of Black Journalists event led to “a semi-regular series of meetings and conversations that continued until his death. We talked by phone and in person—initially every couple of months, later at longer stretches. We discussed everything from stories he was working on to my issues at school.”

In the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Neal Justin wrote about meeting Bradley at the J Camp program of the Asian American Journalists Association:

“Last Thursday I was in Miami, coincidentally preparing for next summer’s J Camp, when I heard the news of Bradley’s passing at age 65. I thought about how important it was for me, an Asian-American journalist, to see a minority presence on my TV screen for nearly three decades. I thought about our mutual love for the New Orleans Jazzfest, where Bradley was known to take the stage and sing an exuberant, if off-key, version of the old R&B hit ‘Sixty Minute Man.’ But most of all I thought of him surrounded by students at that J Camp reception, sharing his thoughts and lingering long after his prearranged time.”

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Short Takes

  • “Sen. Trent Lott’s return to the ranks of the Senate Republican leadership has been broadly covered as a story of political redemption. . . . But these redemption story reports have downplayed Lott’s association with and praise for racists, while greatly exaggerating his atonement,” according to Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
  • “The next chapter in the Miami Herald’s Marti saga has already been written, but we’ll have to wait until Sunday to read it,” Bob Norman wrote Friday in his blog, the Daily Pulp. “Herald Editor Tom [F]iedler announced to his staff via e-mail this morning that Clark Hoyt has done an ‘important report’ on the ‘decisions leading up to publication of [Oscar Corral’s] story about journalists on the payroll of TV and Radio Marti.’ It will run in Sunday’s Issues & Ideas section.”
  • “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton opened the First National Ethnic Media Awards with a powerful tribute to ethnic media’s role in American journalism,” the staff of New American Media reported Friday. “‘A fresh political wind is blowing in Washington,’ Clinton said. ‘Ethnic media represent the way the new Washington needs to connect to the new America.’ . . . Clinton headed a cast of Washington heavyweights who participated in the event, including Washington Post Executive Editor Len Downie, FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, District of Columbia Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and two veteran Congresspeople from NAM’s home base, Mike Honda and Barbara Lee of California, and NBC-WRC news anchor Pat Lawson Muse.
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  • On Friday, North Carolina’s two largest daily newspapers, the News & Observer in Raleigh and the Charlotte Observer, unveiled their 16-page special section on the 1898 race riot and state-labeled “coup d’etat” that drove hundreds of Wilmington’s black residents from the coastal city, and are offering the section to newspapers statewide, as the Associated Press reported earlier. As reported in June, a 600-page report on the riots recommended that newspapers—particularly the News & Observer, the Charlotte Observer and the Wilmington (N.C.) Star-News—help make amends for their role in inciting the violence.
  • “Contrary to speculation that he would stay in Washington now that Democrats have a majority, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah appears poised to announce a run for mayor on Saturday,” Catherine Lucey reported on Wednesday in the Philadelphia Daily News. “Should Fattah run, there are bound to be questions about whether his wife, Renee Chenault-Fattah, would continue as a news anchor at NBC 10.”
  • “Award-winning journalist Jim Avila has been named Senior Law and Justice Correspondent for ABC News,” the network announced this week. “Avila will take a lead role in the coverage of trials and justice issues, utilizing the resources of ABC News’ respected Law and Justice Unit.” Avila follows Chris Cuomo, Cynthia McFadden and Terry Moran in the job.
  • “Amid all the noise about female newscasters—Elizabeth Vargas’s departure as evening-news anchor at ABC, Katie Couric’s ascension to anchor at the ‘CBS Evening News,'” Felicia R. Lee wrote Thursday, Robin Roberts and Diane Sawyer have, without much fanfare, become a team since Charles Gibson left the “Good Morning America” this summer to become anchor of ABC’s “World News,” the evening news broadcast. Lee’s story focuses on Roberts.
  • The Rev. Jesse Jackson said more public hearings on the diversity practices of the advertising industry were being planned in Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta, Laurel Wentz reported Wednesday in Advertising Age. She covered a Tuesday session of the Association of National Advertisers’ Multicultural Marketing Conference.
  • “U.S. marketers are not effectively reaching the burgeoning population of U.S. Hispanics because, according to Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies Chairman Carl Kravetz, most marketers ‘are not speaking’ that demographic’s language—but he made clear he was not talking about Spanish,” Laurel Wentz reported Tuesday in Advertising Age. “He said AHAA’s in-depth Latino Identity Project research found that traditional demographic markers such as Spanish-language usage, country of origin and length of time in the U.S. are becoming much less relevant as the number of bilingual, bicultural households grows quickly.”
  • Derek Rose, reporter for six years at the New York Daily News, starts Monday as an editor on the national desk of the Associated Press. “There’s been a little bit of an exodus” at the News, Rose told Journal-isms. Among those who left is Leslie Casimir, who is on a Knight Fellowship at Stanford University. She confirmed that she had to leave the paper because the News does not support fellowships. “Oh—and can I mention—the woman who hired me actually reads my blog? Yup, and I still got the job,” Rose wrote Nov. 3.
  • “The Diane Rehm Show,” a public radio talk show originating from Washington’s WAMU-FM, reached a milestone Friday when black journalists participated in the discussion of the week’s events in both the show’s national and international segments. Foreign Editor Keith Richburg and columnist Eugene Robinson, both of the Washington Post, were major contributors to their discussions.
  • “Jon Duncanson and Sylvia Gomez, the husband-and-wife duo who came to WBBM-Channel 2 in 2003 to anchor weekend newscasts together, are leaving the CBS-owned station together,” Robert Feder reported Friday in the Chicago Sun-Times. “Their departure, effective at the end of the year, comes as no surprise since they had lost their anchor slots (to Jim Williams and Alita Guillen) and were shifted to general assignment reporting duties last January.”
  • On Thursday, Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from ‘Shaft,” the song that launched Howard University’s WHUR-FM radio in 1971, started up high definition radio WHUR-WORLD, the university’s venture into one of broadcasting’s newest technologies, Traver Riggins reported Friday on Black College Wire. “The new station said it intends to return to WHUR’s original concept, ‘360 degree Total Blackness,'” she wrote.
  • Three Eritrean reporters who have been in detention in a remote northeastern jail for five years are believed to have died in unclear circumstances, Reporters Without Borders reported, the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks said on Thursday.
  • Elligh Mothershed, a visiting American journalist, was arrested in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Wednesday on the orders of Alpha Timbo, minister in charge of labor and industrial relations, the Media Foundation for West Africa said Friday. Mothershed was cautioned, released and asked to report to the minister after meeting with disgruntled youths who had returned from a mission in Iraq to work as laborers.

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