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A Journalist Confronts His AIDS

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African Writer Ends Silence, Organizes

“It was after constant malaria attacks, recurrent fevers and hiccups in 2002 that Elvis Basudde Kyeyune, a journalist with Uganda’s New Vision newspaper, gathered enough courage to test for HIV and his fears were confirmed. ‘I tested HIV positive and feared stigma and discrimination,’ he told Mmegi,” a newspaper in Gaborone, Botswana, in southern Africa.

 

 

“Little did he know that when writing about HIV/AIDS and describing its effects, he would one day be writing about what was happening to himself,” Thato Chwaane wrote on Wednesday.

“When he got sick, he said, he absconded from work for a whole three months. He did not want his employers to know about his condition and so resorted to being taken care of by his family at home. He was in denial and, after his editor called him at home, she sent someone to take him to hospital. ‘I was immediately admitted in hospital. I had developed full blown AIDS,’ Kyeyune said. ‘I was in a bad shape, a total mess. My face was sunken, with a body of a stranger. After three months in hospital, I was put on anti-retrovirals.’

“His wife walked out on him and the neighbours discriminated against him. He was struck with severe paralysis and for three years, he could not walk. He started to receive physiotherapy and that helped him to use a wheelchair. He progressed well and was later able to stand on his own. ‘Had I died, I would have been the seventh in the family to be claimed by the disease,’ he said. Kyeyune said that since God saved him, he decided to publicly declare his status and to tell his story through the pen.”

 

 

 

Dec. 1 was World AIDS Day, and no doubt there are American journalists who are continuing their work despite having full-blown AIDS. But in Uganda, where the World Health Organization reports AIDS to be the second-highest reported cause of death, Kyeyune has gone a step further.

The story continued:

“‘My colleagues condemned me for using my face and full names in my stories,’ he said. However, a girl contemplating suicide, who read his story, reversed her decision saying her experiences were nothing compared to his. Kyeyune said this is one of the ways of mitigating the disease. He was commended for breaking the silence on AIDS and contributing to society. Now, he said, as the president of Global Alliance of HIV Positive Journalists representing Africa, he had mobilised and recruited others. ‘I am the first journalist in East Africa to publicly disclose my status,’ he said.

“Now married again, to an AIDS activist, Kyeyune is a proud father of a two-month baby. He said a counsellor advised that he would do better to find a partner. His CD4 count is 500 and he has gained weight to 80kg. Kyeyune said they consulted doctors before making the decision to have a baby and his viral load was undetectable. He said that the risks at the time were less and they took all precautions to prevent HIV transmission to the baby since it was delivered through caesarean section and the baby is not being breast-fed.

“‘It is better to know your status than to live in ignorance because you can start on treatment early,’ he said. ‘Be kind because tomorrow it might be your turn.'”

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Media “Slant” Driven by Readers, Study Shows

“Any politician will tell you that sometimes what we call things is the most political decision of all. Political consultants like Frank Luntz, a Republican, have become legendary for their way of spinning language to partisan advantage: ‘death tax’ instead of ‘estate tax,’ ‘war on terror’ instead of ‘war in Iraq.’ But most people expect spin from politicians. When they perceive partisan slant in the news itself, they typically interpret it as evidence of underlying bias by reporters or media owners,” Austan Goolsbee, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, wrote Thursday in the New York Times.

“New research by two University of Chicago economists, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, entitled ‘What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers’ compiles some compelling and altogether unusual data to answer the question.

” . . . they showed that the main driver of any slant was the newspaper’s audience, not bias by the newspaper’s owner.

“A comparison of circulation data (per capita) to the ratio of Republican to Democratic campaign contributions by ZIP code showed that circulation was strongly related to whether the newspaper matched the readers’ own ideology.”

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Russ Mitchell “Confident” on CBS Diversity Progress

“With Rene Syler leaving the Early Show and Ed Bradley’s passing last month, two of the network’s highest-profile black journalists have left the building,” Eric Deggans, media columnist at the St. Petersburg Times, said to Russ Mitchell, who is joining “The Early Show” as a news anchor. “Does this indicate CBS has a problem developing a bench of talented journalists of color?”

“CBS, like anyplace else, has made progress . . . but there’s still progress to be made,” Mitchell answered, Deggans reported Friday on his blog. “I’m confident that will happen. There are several people at CBS who would qualify as being strong players for the future. I’ve gotta believe we will continue to get more. I think that, given the role some of us have been given, it’s a step in the right direction . . . It’s not really my place to sit here and give you names of people. The fact that I am the anchor of this Sunday night broadcast, which has been a position that over the years has been held by some pretty impressive people, I think says a lot . . . (And) I got the job because they thought I could do it.”

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Esther Wu Column to Continue in Dallas Paper

Esther Wu, outgoing president of the Asian American Journalists Association, will continue writing her column for the Dallas Morning News even though she took a buyout that set Friday as her last day as an employee, Wu told Journal-isms.

 

 

“The Dallas Morning News has offered me the opportunity to continue my column on Asian American issues. I have decided to take them up on their offer at this time so my column will continue to be published every Thursday in the Dallas Morning News for now,” Wu said.

“Last week, I presided over my last AAJA governing board meeting. The AAJA board is very concerned about the number of journalists who have been impacted by the general downsizing of newsrooms from coast to coast.

“We, at AAJA are in the process of reexamining programs we currently offer our members. We want to make sure we are doing all we can to help our members succeed by providing them with opportunities to learn new skills as well as the opportunity for management training.

“We are also looking at ways to cross train students during our annual conventions so that they may become comfortable working in multi-disciplines.

“In short, we are working not only to encourage more Asian Americans to join this profession we are working to help them stay in it.

“I got into this profession because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to give something back to the community. It is my hope that I will be able to continue to do so.

“For the past 30 years, journalism has been my passion, my family, my life. Despite the discouraging turn of events in the media, I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

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Witness Says Abu-Jamal Didn’t Shoot Officer

“William Singletary has lived with the Mumia Abu-Jamal case from the beginning,” Valerie Russ reported Friday in the Philadelphia Daily News, writing about the celebrated death-row inmate and former president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists.

“‘I just want the truth to be heard,’ he said yesterday. ‘For 25 years, it’s something that’s rested on my mind heavily.’

“Singletary was there, at 13th and Locust, when Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was killed in the early morning hours of Dec. 9, 1981.

“That is perhaps the only fact on which he and the Philadelphia police agree.

“‘Mumia Abu-Jamal didn’t shoot Daniel Faulkner,’ Singletary said.

“‘The passenger in the righthand side of the Volkswagen [that Faulkner had stopped] got out of the car and shot him,’ Singletary said.

“Singletary was a Philadelphia bar owner and gas-station operator at the time. He now lives in North Carolina.

“Singletary said Abu-Jamal came running up minutes after Faulkner was shot. He said the passenger ran away.”

As reported on Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to denounce a French city for naming a street in Abu-Jamal’s honor.

20 Latino Students Chosen for N.Y. Times Program

The New York Times Student Journalism Institute announced Friday the 20 participants admitted into its inaugural program with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, to be held Jan. 3-13 at Florida International University in Miami.

The institute is a competitive, 10-day, hands-on journalism residency program offered to aspiring reporters, editors and photographers who are members of NAHJ. It is patterned after the institute program at Dillard University in New Orleans, a partnership with the Black College Communication Association, faculty advisers at historically black colleges and universities.

“Students will be offered the opportunity to sharpen their writing, reporting, editing and photography skills while covering real stories in the Miami area and working under actual newsroom deadlines. They will learn from professional journalists from The New York Times, The Boston Globe and the Times Company’s Regional Media Group,” a release said.

This year’s students are: Brian Aguilar, University of California, Berkeley; William Bans, San Diego State University; Javier Barrera, Hunter College; David de Sola, University of Southern California; Marie D. DeJesus, Daytona Beach Community College; Cristela Guerra, Florida International University; Javier Hernandez, Harvard University; Arelis R. Hernandez, University of Maryland, College Park; Jonnelle Marte, Florida International University; Matt Mireles, Columbia University; Victor Morales, Columbia University; Arash Shawn Mosaleh, University of Nevada, Reno; Mariana Muniz-Lara, University of Puerto Rico; Rochelle Oliver, Florida International University; Eduardo Quinones, University of Missouri, Columbia; Joshua Thomas Rey, Florida International University; Laura Rivera, New York University; Adrianna C. Rodriguez, University of Florida; Jennifer Surgent, Daytona Beach Community College; and Myrna Villa, New Mexico State University.

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Clarence Page Not Joining Supreme Court Protesters

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page wrote Wednesday that he cannot join those who are fighting for the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold two school desegregation plans.

“The Louisville and Seattle public school racial-integration plans — now before the court — offer troubling examples of the overreaching of ‘reverse discrimination’ that affirmative action foes rail against,” Page, a Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of the National Association of Black Journalists 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award, wrote.

“. . . Worse, as Bill Cosby forcefully told civil rights leaders at the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision, what have we gained when the past half-century of desegregation has failed to close the academic achievement gap between blacks and Latinos on one side and whites and Asians on the other?

“Some of my fellow African-Americans were offended by Cosby’s candor, but he spoke the truth. Close the grade and test-score gap and the affirmative action debate ends.”

In Seattle, one of the affected cities, columnist Jerry Large interviewed Theodore M. Shaw, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and concluded on Thursday:

“We all want a good life for our children, but does it have to be every family, every race, every class for itself? I guess we’ll see when the court makes its decision.”

 

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Columnists, Comedians Feast on Epithet Debate

“Michael Richards has been displaced as the racist boob of the hour by a black man, writer and TV producer John Ridley,” Betty Bayé wrote Thursday in her column in the Louisville Courier-Journal.

“Ridley’s essay in the current issue of Esquire, ‘The Manifesto of Ascendancy for the Modern American Nigger,’ includes his boast, ‘I have no qualm about using the word nigger. It is a word.'”

“I suspect Ridley’s diatribe wouldn’t have been published if ‘niggers’ and ‘hillbillies’ were target audiences for Esquire’s upscale advertisers,” Bayé wrote.

Meanwhile, the Comedy Union club in Los Angeles promised to assemble last night a roster of black comedians who would all use the racial epithet in a “Freedom of Speech comedy event.” A telephone recording last night indicated the show was sold out. Comedian Rodney Perry, the host, explained on the show’s Web site, “I submit that it is never the word that is the problem, but it is the intent of the author of that word. The decision to stop using the word NIGGER should be an individual choice. We must recognize that we have great power in our words. That power can be used to divide or to unite.”

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FCC Hearing to Boast Country Stars, Media Figures

Country music stars and Nashville area news media figures are scheduled to testify Monday as the Federal Communications Commission holds a public hearing in Nashville on media ownership.

A 5:30 p.m. panel discussion, “Nashville Market Overview and Issues Affecting Broadcasters and Independent Programmers,” is to include Gary W. Cunningham of Nashville Community Newspapers; Bob D’Andrea, president, Christian Television Network; Elden Hale, senior vice president, Meredith Broadcasting Group; Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government; Ellen Leifeld, publisher, Nashville Tennessean; and Wendell Rawls, investigative reporter and editor, among others.

Legendary country musicians George Jones, Porter Wagoner, Naomi Judd, Dobie Gray and Craig Wiseman are to testify about media consolidation’s impact on musicians, as the Tennessee Independent Media center reported.

A live audiocast of the hearing is to be available at the FCC’s Web site, www.fcc.gov.

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Bebe Campbell’s Friend Recalls Husband’s Words

Bebe Moore Campbell’s close friend, journalist Patrice Gaines, paid tribute to the novelist and journalist who died last week at age 56 in her column Thursday in the Washington Informer, and to Campbell’s husband, Ellis Gordon.

“When she started talking about moving from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles. Ca. to be with a man, some necks started working and eyes started rolling,” Gaines recalled.

But “if you had to take a risk for a relationship, here was someone worth the investment of courage. Bebe moved to L.A. and within months they married,” Gaines wrote. “It lasted 22 years, until Bebe departed.

“At the service, people gave Ellis a standing ovation for the months in which he had been her caregiver, moving at one point into Bebe’s room at the hospital, taking her, her wheelchair and medication across the country to her beloved Martha’s Vineyard for one last summer visit.

“‘I took my vows seriously,’ Ellis said. ‘In my eyes, I did what I was supposed to do.’ He implored those present at the service, ‘Cherish your mate. Recommit yourself to your vows.'”

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NAHJ Leader Among “20 Under 40” Worth Watching

Rafael Olmeda, 37-year-old president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and assistant city editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, is one of Presstime magazine’s “20 Under 40,” an annual feature designed to recognize those who have proved themselves as “change agents within their companies and the industry, providing much needed leadership and vision,” according to the editors. Presstime is a publication of the Newspaper Association of America.

“As a role model, Olmeda is second to none, says Sun-Sentinel Publisher Bob Gremillion, ‘not only for his reporters, but for all reporters,'” the story says.

Others of color honored include Julio Saenz, general manager and editor of “ConXion” at the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y.; Dominique Shwe, advertising director of the Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif.; Oneil Chambers, chief technology officer at the Daily Press in Newport News, Va.; Rajiv Pant, chief technology officer at COXnet/Cox Newspapers Inc. in Atlanta; and Sharon Prill, vice president of interactive media & marketing at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

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