Viewers of Color Choose ABC’s News

NBC Is First with Whites, Last with Blacks

NBC’s Brian Williams “Is First Among Anchors,” a New York Times headline reported Monday, citing new “sweeps month” Nielsen ratings — but the “first” ranking does not hold true among African Americans and Latinos.

At evening news time, those viewers continue to prefer ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson,” according to ratings breakouts made available to Journal-isms by Nielsen Media Research.

The overall ratings from Nov. 2 to Nov. 29 show “NBC Nightly News” in the lead with 9,566,000 viewers; followed by ABC’s “World News” with 8,920,000 and “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” with 7,782,000 viewers.

Among African Americans, ABC comes out on top, with 1,387,000 viewers, followed by CBS with 1,056,000 and NBC with 961,000.

Among Hispanics, ABC is even more dominant, although the Hispanic numbers are low for all the broadcast networks. The numbers do not include cable, where Spanish-speaking Latinos might be watching Spanish-language Univision.

The Hispanic figures show 509,000 watching ABC, 258,000 tuning in NBC, and 220,000, CBS.

“‘World News’ strives to reflect the diversity of this country, and we are thrilled that our audience has responded to that,” ABC News spokeswoman Natalie Raabe said.

Paul S. Mason, senior vice president of ABC News, the only African American to hold such a position at any of the three major broadcast networks, added for Journal-isms that ABC’s owned-and-operated stations, which are in major markets, tend to do very well. Those markets have higher concentrations of African Americans and Latinos. It’s also true that the “Oprah Winfrey Show” serves as a strong lead-in for those stations’ evening news shows in many cities.

Manuel De La Rosa, a reporter for KRGV-TV in Welasco, Texas, who is vice president/broadcast of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, said ABC might have a higher profile among some Latinos because of reporter Jim Avila, senior law and justice correspondent, and because ABC is the network of former “World News Tonight” co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas.

But, in general, De La Rosa said, “the networks are just missing the ball” and need “to try to reach out to the younger demographics and the more educated Hispanic Americans. The networks don’t incorporate very much diversity.”

Just last week, he said, the NAHJ board was discussing a CBS piece on race relations that was primarily about blacks and whites. “I just wish they would realize that we’re an important part of their demographic, and include everybody — there are Hispanics in corporate America, we’re mayors of big cities. . . there are better stories out there,” De La Rosa said.

NBC, which ranked last among African Americans, was praised in some quarters for anchor Williams’ coverage of Hurricane Katrina, but it stumbled last month when “NBC Nightly News” was the only network evening newscast not to report Michael Richards’ racial tirade. Last summer, the network was embarrassed when a photo of Williams with the “Nightly News” interns showed that none of the interns was of color. The network pledged to be more inclusive.

Coincidentally, NBC announced last week that Tom Brokaw would host an hour-long documentary Dec. 26 that “follows a booming economy attracting illegal workers willing to do unskilled labor, questioning what happens to American culture and America’s laws when hundreds of thousands of people enter the country illegally.

“Brokaw interviews police, teachers, doctors, residents, and illegal immigrants to help explain the impact of illegal immigration on America. He also sits down with Congressman Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado who has been out front in his opposition to illegal immigration,” a news release said.

The latest edition of NAHJ’s annual “Network Brownout Report” (PDF), released in October, said, “One dominant theme in immigration coverage for 2005 was the notion that immigrants, mostly undocumented, were changing communities across the United States. These stories were often told from the perspective of longtime community residents, and not from the perspective of immigrants.”

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“When It Comes to Color, CBS News Pales”

If there is a relationship between the diversity onscreen and the diversity of the audience, then the broadcast industry in general, and CBS particularly, have a way to go, according to Bill McLaughlin, a former “CBS Evening News” correspondent who teaches at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

“The bench is now attractive, fairly young white women,” McLaughlin told Eric Deggans, writing Monday in the St. Petersburg Times. “My specific quote to Newsweek on this was that they look like the front line of the Ziegfeld Follies. Maybe they figure the 18 to 35 audience they’re trying to reach is (obtained) by using good-looking young white women.”

Deggans’ piece, headlined, “When It Comes to Color, CBS News Pales,” was reported in online media columns on Monday that highlighted this quote from CBS anchor Russ Mitchell, named last week to be news anchor on “The Early Show”:

“I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and there comes a point in your career where you hope your credentials speak for themselves. I’m not some 25-year-old kid fresh from school . . . And I didn’t get this job because I’m some black guy.”

Deggans explained more of the context to Journal-isms: “That quote came from a two-pronged question: What do you make of the lack of a diverse bench at CBS and what would you say to people who might say CBS wanted a black guy in there so they chose you?”

His piece went on to list the names rumored as possible replacements for Rene Syler, who last week was dismissed from the show as a co-host, effective Dec. 22: “Weekend Today co-host Campbell Brown and Saturday Early Show co-host Tracy Smith, for instance —” saying they “wouldn’t have brought CBS what it sorely needs now: on-air diversity.

“The paucity of possible candidates of color for these high-profile jobs only highlights the network’s ongoing struggle to develop new talent.”

As reported last month, the 30-minute documentary “Color Bars: Rants, Race and Ratings” by Tom Jacobs features television insiders saying that not only has diversity become a casualty of the “new” television news landscape, but “the ‘dumbing down’ of news appears to be epidemic in television newsrooms.”

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“Overwhelmingly, Post Columnists Are White Guys”

“The Post needs more opinion writers and columnists who are of the female persuasion or are minorities. Overwhelmingly, Post columnists are white guys. Some are among the paper’s best columnists, but more diversity would make The Post a richer paper,” Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote on Sunday.

Howell then listed, by race and gender, the Post’s columnists, section by section.

“So how could The Post increase diversity as the staff and space for stories got smaller? It wouldn’t be easy, but here are some thoughts,” she wrote.

“On the op-ed pages, don’t run all the columnists all the time. Create some space for new voices. In Close to Home,” a space for short reader letters and essays, “make a point of seeking out more women and minorities.” Outlook, the Sunday opinion section, “can also bring in more such voices.

“The Metro section needs a female columnist, and it also needs a columnist attuned to the region’s burgeoning Latino communities. A Latino columnist could appear in the Extras since they are oriented toward counties and neighborhoods. Not all new voices have to be on the staff; they could be regular contributors. Metro’s new Page Three could be used to bring in more female and minority voices.

“The point is not to toss excellent white male columnists; the point is to add more and lively voices to The Post.”

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“Baghdad Bob” Could Have Been Right All Along

“Remember Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf? He was the former Iraqi information minister who became a folk hero in the West because of his unintentionally hilarious daily briefings even as coalition forces tightened the noose around the regime’s neck,” columnist Tony Norman wrote Friday in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“Nicknamed ‘Baghdad Bob’ by a credulous American press corps all too willing to parrot Bush administration propaganda, the Iraqi bureaucrat had a talent for lurid prose that hinted at a poetic sensibility beneath the nonsense.

“Among my favorites were: ‘God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of the Iraqis’; ‘The midget Bush and Rumsfeld deserve only to be beaten with shoes by freedom-loving people everywhere’; ‘Washington has thrown their soldiers on the fire’; and ‘I speak better English than this villain Bush.’

“Baghdad Bob made his final prophetic utterance on April 7, 2003, before disappearing into the obscurity of occupied Iraq: ‘This invasion will end in failure.’

“Three years into a war that has gone worse than expected for America and its coalition allies, it would be hard to find anyone in Washington — with the notable exception of Mr. Bush — who doesn’t agree with him now.”

• Rhonda Chriss Lokeman, Kansas City Star: Calling Iraq a civil war is telling it like it is
• Askia Muhammad, Washington Informer: Will George W. Ever Get What’s Coming to Him?

• Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Look up ‘denial’ in the dictionary and there’s Bush
• Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: Bush Listened, but Did He Hear?

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Is It Pin-o-SHAY or Pin-o-CHEHT?

“Mr. Crooks, I feel obliged to try to get the man’s name right, here in death,” Steve Inskeep, co-host of National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” said Monday to Nathan Crooks, editor of the English language Santiago Times in Chile.

“We’re saying Pin-o-CHEHT here in the United States. You’re there in Santiago, Chile, and saying Pin-o-SHAY. How did he say it?” asked Inskeep, speaking of the Chilean strongman Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who died Sunday at age 91.

“You know, I hear it both ways, and in Chile most people would say Pin-o-SHAY, but in English I hear Pin-o-CHEHT, Crooks said.

The pronunciation guide at the Voice of America renders the name “aw-GOO-stow pee-no-CHEHT.”

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Station Defends Anchor After N.Y. Post Story

The general manager of New York cable station NY1 is defending anchor Gary Anthony Ramsay, who is also president of the New York Association of Black Journalists, after the New York Post Monday ran a story about a lawsuit in which a former NY1 reporter claims Ramsay attacked her.

“Adele Sammarco, 39, said she was ‘attacked’ by Gary Anthony Ramsay, a NY1 weekend anchor and reporter, after he drove her home from a party,” the Post story by Stefanie Cohen said.

“In the alleged incident with Ramsay, Sammarco said the anchor drove her home from a party at Cafe Iguana in Manhattan in July 2000.

“As they said goodnight in the car, Ramsay ‘held me down with one hand around my neck, crisscrossed my wrists with one of his hands and put his tongue down my throat,’ Sammarco said during a recent interview.

“In his deposition, Ramsay denied the allegation. He described the kiss as a ‘peck on the cheek.’

“‘I may have leaned over and kissed her goodnight,’ he said,” according to the Post story.

Steve Paulus, the NY1 general manager, sent an e-mail to the staff Monday saying:

“While it is inappropriate to comment about pending litigation I would like to say that this case is old news and is totally without merit. In fact, this is the third law firm to take on the case. Her first lawyer was removed from the suit because he would have had to testify AGAINST her. Her second law firm ASKED the Court to let them out of the case because Adele would not follow their advice.

“Back in 2001, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission thoroughly investigated Adele’s claims and found no violation of law and no grounds to pursue the case any further.

“The Post’s publication of this story raises interesting journalistic issues. It should make us all painfully aware of the questions we should ask concerning stories of this nature. It’s easy for the accuser to make these allegations and it’s even easier for a newspaper like the Post to just echo those accusations. It’s not so easy for the target of these allegations to respond. We should always think about BOTH sides of a case when reporting on stories like this and we need to especially think about the credibility and motives of the accuser, as this case amply demonstrates.”

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Whites Responsible for Jefferson Win, Paper Says

The surprise re-election win Saturday of U.S. Rep. Bill Jefferson, D-La., thought by many in the media to be discredited after the FBI said it found $90,000 in his freezer as it pursued a corruption investigation, was partly due to stronger-than-expected support from white voters, reporter Michelle Krupa wrote in Monday’s New Orleans Times-Picayune.

“The incumbent also managed to mitigate the loss of his traditional base of black voters in Central City, the 9th Ward and eastern New Orleans, ” from Hurricane Katrina, “with newfound support among white voters,” she wrote.

“That was particularly true in Jefferson Parish, where despite a drop-off in participation among all voters, the incumbent ballooned a 7 percent showing in the primary into an impressive 57 percent take Saturday in precincts where at least three-quarters of voters are white, an analysis of the results shows.”

Referring to Jefferson’s opponent, state Rep. Karen Carter of New Orleans, who is African American, Krupa continued, “That result may well have owed to several factors, including the intervention of Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee, who launched an eleventh-hour barrage of criticism against Carter for her repudiation of law enforcement officers’ decision to stop people on the east bank of Orleans Parish from crossing the Crescent City Connection to flee Katrina’s floodwaters.

“Lee said he bought into the conventional wisdom that Carter was favored by white voters. On Sunday, he took credit for suppressing turnout among white voters in his parish.

“‘They could either vote for Jefferson or they could stay home,’ Lee said. ‘Did it work? Then pat me on the back.'”

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Danielle Allen, Dean at Chicago, Joins Pulitzer Board

Danielle Allen, a professor and the dean of the humanities division at the University of Chicago, has been elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board, the board announced last week.

“Allen is a scholar whose intellectual scope spans the fields of the classics, philosophy, and political theory. Her book ‘The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens’ examines the theory and practice of punishment in classical Athens as it affected both the intellectual elite and ordinary citizens,” the announcement said.

“Allen’s work contributes new perspectives to discussions of race and politics that go well beyond the confines of traditional and canonical scholarship. Her latest book, ‘Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown v. Board of Education,’ combines brief readings of philosophers and political theorists with personal reflections on race politics in Chicago.”

Other African Americans on the 19-member board include Jay T. Harris, Wallis Annenberg Chair at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California; and Gregory L. Moore, editor of the Denver Post.

Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr., the academic superstar who is W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Humanities at Harvard, stepped down as chair this year, having served the maximum three three-year terms as a board member.

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Ed Bradley Honored at Business Emmys

“In the midst of the fourth annual Business & Financial Emmys held yesterday, the awards ceremony took a break to honor one of the Emmys’ most-recognized journalists in recent years, the late Ed Bradley,” Diego Vasquez wrote Friday in Media Life magazine.

“Organizers showed a clip of one of Bradley’s final public appearances in September, when he attended the News & Documentary Awards in New York. Bradley, who won 19 Emmys during his 43 years with CBS News, had been a presenter at that ceremony.

“He also picked up his final award at that ceremony, for outstanding interview, for a piece entitled ‘First Man’ on ’60 Minutes,’ where he worked for the last 25 years.”

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Atlantic’s “Most Influential Americans of All Time”

“The December issue of the Atlantic Monthly hit newsstands last week, confronting readers with a cover story befitting of Time or Entertainment Weekly: ‘The 100 Most Influential Americans of All Time,'” Mark Boyer wrote Dec. 5 for the Columbia Journalism Review’s CJR Daily.

“The final 100 also suggests that men still rule, at least in many historians’ eyes — oh, and make that white men. Ten women are on the list (the highest-ranked is the feminist pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton, at No. 30), and eight African Americans, but the Top 100 is heavily WASPish. Martin Luther King Jr. (8) was among the top vote-getters, but there isn’t another African American on the list until Jackie Robinson (35). And there are no Hispanics, Asian Americans, or Native Americans.”

The list includes scholar-activist W.E.B. Du Bois at No. 41; abolitionist and editor Frederick Douglass at No. 47; white abolitionist John Brown, No. 78; Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, No. 84; slave revolt leader Nat Turner, No. 93; and educator and black icon Booker T. Washington, No. 98.

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Short Takes

• “After a humiliating plagiarism scandal that rocked the New York Times, Jayson Blair is quietly resurrecting his journalism career by writing about the very subject he says brought him down: Bipolar disorder,” Jessica Heslam reported Sunday in the Boston Herald. “Blair, 30, has been lending his expertise to 3-year-old bp (bipolar) magazine. He wrote a first-person piece about bipolar disorder and the role it played in his downfall that bp magazine ran last year.”
• “With today’s opening of ‘Blood Diamond’ — a fast-paced adventure flick set in the lawless West African countryside between Liberia and Sierra Leone — Hollywood adds its own, memorable chapter to African fiction, simultaneously delivering better-than-average entertainment and a wealth of information about how the global diamond trade fuels chaos and misery in places most of us have never heard of,” Errol Louis wrote Friday in his New York Daily News column. Writing about a Washington screening of the film on allAfrica.com, Tami Hultman said that “Princeton Lyman, a former U.S. ambassador to two resource-rich countries, South Africa and Nigeria, who now heads the Africa program at the Council on Foreign Relations, argued at the screening that dealing with diamonds — which, can’t, by themselves, kill anyone — is not enough. Noting that a central point of Blood Diamond is that Sierra Leone rebels traded gems for weapons, he announced that the Council is launching a study group on the thorny issue of the international arms trade.”
• A novelization of the upcoming “Dreamgirls” film “boasts best-selling author and in-demand writer Denene Millner as its author. A former political journalist for the ‘New York Daily News,’ the married mother of two is also the author of ‘The Sistahsâ?? Rules’ and co-author of several books, including the novel ‘A Love Story’ (with her husband, Nick Chiles), and ‘The Angry Black Womanâ??s Guide to Life,’ ” Karu F. Daniels wrote Friday in his AOL Black Voices column. Millner said she wrote the book in a month. “I took a crash course in Motown, The Supremes, Berry Gordy, the Civil Rights Movement in Detroit and beyond, and racism in the music industry during that era.”
• “After 13 years with NBC and Telemundo and three years as head of programming for Telemundo, Ramon Escobar is leaving the Spanish-language network at the end of the year and returning to his production roots,” Michele Greppi reported Friday in TV Week.
• Sylvia Franklin of TV Week offered a report card for those who want to write for television in her “Diversity Detail” column on Monday.
• “Queens City Councilman John Liu has sent a letter to Barbara Walters, co-owner, producer and host of ‘The View,’ blasting Rosie O’Donnell’s mimicking of the Chinese language last week on the popular daytime talk show,” Wil Cruz reported Monday in Newsday. The Asian American Journalists Association complained about O’Donnell’s comments last week.
• “The dominant image of today’s bride is that she is white, blonde, blue-eyed and thin,” according to a news release from Cynthia Frisby, an advertising professor in the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Katie Sarreshteh wrote Friday in the Maneater at the University of Missouri. “We would expect advertisements and images to reflect a multicultural value, but mainstream bridal magazines show predominantly white brides and a few black bridesmaids,” Frisby and Erika Engstrom, a professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said. They researched images in mainstream bridal magazines in recent years.
• “Thousands of black men and women languish in federal prisons across America because Congress refuses to reform the harsh federal law on crack cocaine that results in racially discriminatory enforcement and long prison sentences,” Linn Washington Jr. wrote from Philadelphia Friday for The Black World Today. “However, the same US Congress that consistently refuses to attack Drug War racism also ignored another justice-system-racism issue when it approved a flashy but flawed resolution on December 6, 2006. This resolution condemned a suburb of Paris, France for naming a small street in honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the internationally respected author/journalist on death row in Pennsylvania.”
• “Why has the portrayal of Jesus in art drifted far from the likelihood he was a brown-skinned Semitic Jew?” asks the headline on a Newsweek online story Monday by Matthew Philips.
• The Bay Area Black Journalists Association protested a cover story in the San Francisco Bay Area’s East Bay Express, writing, “it is disheartening to pick up the Express and see a full-page booking photograph of Cyrioco Robinson, an African-American teenager, above the headline: ‘Making of a Criminal’ for your series on ‘System Failure.’ We understand that African-American teenagers, like those of ALL other races, commit crimes. But the photograph feeds into the stereotype that young African-American men with braided hair or dreadlocks are criminals.”