Deadliest Year in a Decade

81 Journalists, Media Staffers Killed in 2006

“Eighty-one journalists and media staffers were killed worldwide in 2006, making it the deadliest year for reporters in more than a decade, Reporters Without Borders said Thursday,” as the Associated Press reported.

“Iraq was the most dangerous country for journalists last year, with 39 reporters and 26 other media workers killed, according to the Paris-based media advocacy group.

“It was the most dangerous year for journalists since 1994, which was marked by the Rwandan genocide, civil war in Algeria and conflict in the former Yugoslavia.

In running the story on its Web site, CBSNews.com linked to its stories about the May 29 car bombing in Iraq that wounded correspondent Kimberly Dozier and killed four other people, including her CBS camera crew. One of them, veteran cameraman Paul Douglas, 48, based in London, became the first black journalist killed in Iraq.

“Worldwide, 871 journalists spent time in jail in 2006, and China put more reporters behind bars than any other country, the report said. Thirty-two journalists were jailed in China last year. Cuba jailed 24 and Ethiopia 21.

“Reporters Without Borders raised concerns about democratic countries having ‘little ambition, and sometimes even giving up, in defending the values they are supposed to embody.’

“During the international uproar over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, the international community did little to help journalists who were threatened or arrested, the report said.

“‘It was as if, fearing a fight with Arab and Muslim regimes, Europe, for one, renounced all desire to make itself heard,'” said the organization.

“In Latin America, the murder of nearly a dozen journalists in Mexico with virtual impunity, the continued imprisonment of more than a score in Cuba and the deteriorating situation in Bolivia (nevertheless the best-ranked country of the South in the Reporters Without Borders annual press freedom index) are all signals to the international community to be very vigilant,” according to the report’s introduction.

“Many African governments, especially those in the Horn of Africa, distrust media workers. The killers of journalists are also not being punished and are still being protected by governments and all-powerful politicians in Gambia and Burkina Faso.

“Dictatorships also seem to be tightening their grip on the Internet and at least 60 people are in prison for posting criticism of the government online. China, the leading offender, is being copied by Vietnam, Syria, Tunisia, Libya and Iran and more and more bloggers and cyber-dissidents are in jail.”

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Williams Interview With Bush Took 6 Years to Get

Juan Williams‘ interview with President Bush for National Public Radio on Monday took six years to get, Williams said on Friday.

“It was my Don Quixote-like quest,” he told Journal-isms, one that started while he was host of NPR’s “Talk of the Nation.”

“There was a lot of mutual suspicion between NPR and the White House,” he said. “I’ve been through a number of officials who have come and gone at the White House.”

Williams, who is NPR’s senior correspondent and also a Fox News analyst, said White House concerns included whether Bush’s conservative base would be upset that the interview, Bush’s first on the air since his State of the Union address, did not go to a conservative talk-show host. Another was that Bush didn’t really favor radio as a medium.

“The pitch that we made to the White House was that this would be a great opportunity for the White House to talk about bipartisanship,” as NPR was in the midst of a series called “Crossing the Divide.” “That, plus the fact that Tony Snow is a friend I’ve known since ‘Fox News Sunday,'” he said, referring to the White House press secretary’s former life as a commentator. But then, Williams said, he’s known others in the White House as well over those six years and had not persuaded the White House to grant an interview.

Williams said he has been accepting congratulations for securing the one-on-one and that the reaction had been “overwhelmingly positive.” Several aspects of the conversation made news, even on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” he said. However, some in the blogosphere, as well as listeners whose letters were read on NPR, accused Williams of pitching softball questions.

Williams said he had not seen the blog posts, but said of the letter writers, “They’re not journalists. Go look at the questions. These are exactly the right questions” a journalist would ask.

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Writer Says Biden Was Undone by the Transcription

“Whoever ends up performing the autopsy for Joe Biden’s presidential ambitions — unless he wins, defying the very law of gravity — will have plenty of valid choices for ’cause of death.’ Among them: ‘comma deficiency’,” Chris Wilson wrote Thursday for U.S. News & World Report.

“It all started a few days ago when Biden met a reporter for the New York Observer, Jason Horowitz, at a diner in Delaware to discuss his presidential ambitions. The article quotes Biden as saying of Democratic phenom Barack Obama: ‘I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.’ . . .

“Biden told reporters yesterday that he was quoted accurately but out of context. This is wrong. Jason Horowitz crudely misquoted Joe Biden.

“At issue here is whether there should have been a comma after ‘African-American.’ In response to the firestorm, the Observer released the audio of Biden’s comment, transcribed here:

“BIDEN: I mean you got the first, sorta, mainstream African-American.

“HOROWITZ: Yeah.

“BIDEN: Who’s articulate and bright and—and clean and a nice-looking guy.

“HOROWITZ: Mm.

“It’s common practice to ‘clean up’ a source’s quotes, redacting the ‘ums’ and ‘sortas’ that just about everyone uses as mortar in their sentences. But Horowitz failed to insert a comma after ‘African-American,’ when there was clearly a pause in Biden’s sentence.

“This is not a trivial mistake. Removing the comma completely changes the meaning of the sentence . . .”

Meanwhile, in a commentary Wednesday by editor Jeffrey T. Kuhner, Insight magazine lashed out at the New York Times, which ran a story Monday, “Feeding Frenzy for a Big Story, Even if It’s False”:

“Insight never claimed — not once — that Obama had attended an Indonesian Madrassa as a young boy. What we did claim — and stand behind 100 percent — is that the Hillary Clinton camp had conducted an investigation into Obama’s Muslim background, and they had concluded he had been raised and educated as a Muslim,” Kuhner wrote.

The Biden comment and other issues in the nascent presidential race continued to generate discussion:

• Emil Guillermo, Asian Week: Diversity Politics: Mineta for President?
• Rick Horowitz, syndicated: Open Mouth, Insert Foot. Again.
• Errol Louis, New York Daily News: It’s a real coin toss
• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Doubt biggest hurdle for ’08 diversity trifecta
• Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Sen. Obama’s color plain as black and white
• Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: An Inarticulate Kickoff
• Barry Saunders, Raleigh News & Observer: Biden bumbled; move on
• Rachel L. Swarns, New York Times: So Far, Obama Can’t Take Black Vote for Granted
• Laura Washington, Chicago Sun-Times: Black pols see Obama as threat to their clout

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Gannett’s New Approach Cited in M.E.’s Job Loss

The Gannett Co.’s intended conversion of nearly all of its newsrooms to customer-friendly “local information centers” has been cited as the reason at least one Gannett managing editor lost her job.

Sherri Brown Jackson, who was managing editor of the Alexandria (La.) Town Talk, said her executive editor wrote her, “As part of the company’s restructuring from the traditional news department to the Local Information Center, your position as Managing Editor will be eliminated effective Dec. 4, 2006.”

“Now there are three assistant managing editors, with no ME,” Jackson told Journal-isms.

In explaining the change from “newsroom” to “information center” in December, the company said:

“Increasingly, we are realizing that our customers are interested in much more than news from our products. While news remains our preeminent mission, other information — especially local information — is increasingly in demand. Calendars, recommendations, lifestyle topics as well as neighborhood level stories are all new elements that will have ongoing coverage across platforms. We are also embracing community interactivity in our sites with increased involvement. Changing the name acknowledges this additional responsibility and emphasizes that we are gathering news and information for websites, mobile devices and other products as well as for our daily newspapers.”

Paul Carty, editor of the Alexandria paper, did not return telephone calls on Friday. Another Gannett editor told Journal-isms that the new approach by Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper company, is being implemented differently at each property. Sometimes it results in job additions, he said.

Meanwhile, Jackson has moved on. “Because I have not lost my passion for journalism, I’m launching a new niche publication, The Light, a bi-monthly community newspaper that will target blacks living in Central Louisiana. I’m excited,” she said.

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Texas Columnists Pay Tribute to Molly Ivins . . .

“One of the most succinct letters ever written to the Star-Telegram was meant as [a] put-down to me and one of my most beloved colleagues,” Bob Ray Sanders wrote Friday in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“The writer simply pointed out that his favorite thing to read in our newspaper was ‘Bob Ray Sanders and Molly Ivins have the day off.'”

“That letter’s author didn’t know what a compliment he paid me. . . .

“She was indeed my soul mate, and the news of her death Wednesday from breast cancer, although not unexpected, has left an emptiness in my heart as well as on the pages of newspapers across the country.”

In the Dallas Morning News on Friday, Macarena Hernández recalled conversations with Ivins. “She told me not to fear nasty e-mails, that North Texas had had a hard time warming up to her, too. Before she hung up, she shared her mantra: ‘Give them hell.’

“Some would argue that for the last 16 months, I’ve been doing just that with this column and as an editorial writer.”

. . . With Macarena Hernández Making Announcement

After her column’s tribute to Molly Ivins, Macarena Hernández delivered news of her own:

“Beginning next week, I’ll have an opportunity to do that more, but from a different vantage point. I’m moving to the News Department, and I’ll be working on a project that will allow me to write more deeply about the issue I’m most passionate about — education and the important role it can play in the lives of immigrants.

“I won’t be writing this column any longer. I thank all of you who took time to read my work and those who sent e-mails and letters, even when you disagreed with me. And I ask you all, regardless of your political persuasions, to continue to engage with these pages, make them your own, and keep us all in check.

“And to those of you who don’t write in, I encourage you to do so. In the words of Molly Ivins: ‘Give them hell.'”

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Douglass, John H. Johnson on Ebony Greeting Cards

Johnson Publishing Co. has partnered with American Greetings to create greeting cards with historic Ebony cover images dating to 1948.

The covers feature baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson, abolitionist and editor Frederick Douglass, entertainers Josephine Baker and Duke Ellington, and Ebony founder John H. Johnson.

The inside of the Douglass card reads, “All the truth and beauty, all the peace and strength you are seeking are right there in your heart . . . Be still and listen. Be brave and believe.”

The Johnson card says: “‘Failure is a word I don’t accept.’ John H. Johnson — You can do great things.”

The cards are to be available in select Wal-Mart stores, Jewel-Osco, CVS, Eckerd, Rite Aid and Kmart, the company said on Friday.

 

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Short Takes

• “The newspaper industry this week announced a $75 million marketing campaign to declare its relevance in the Internet age as advertising revenues were flat, buffeted by major mergers and a wounded domestic auto industry,” Ryan Nakashima reported Wednesday from the Newspaper Association of America’s annual marketing conference in Las Vegas,
• “When newspaper executives are preening about diversity — pretending it’s an accomplishment when more than 1 in 3 Americans are part of a racial or ethnic minority, and journalists of color don’t amount to even 14% of daily newsroom staffs — they never fail to say something like, ‘Diversity is good for business, and good for the bottom line,'” Editor & Publisher said in an editorial, “Discounting Diversity,” in its February print edition available only to subscribers. “That’s undoubtedly true. What’s increasingly clear, though, is that the bottom line ain’t necessarily good for diversity.”
• “‘Mint’, the new business newspaper published by India’s HT Media Ltd in association with The Wall Street Journal, debuts in New Delhi and Mumbai today,” Dow Jones announced on Thursday. The publication is designed by veteran newspaper designer Mario Garcia and edited by former Wall Street Journal deputy managing editor and European editor Raju Narisetti, who left the Journal last year to start the venture. National editor is S. Mitra Kalita, reporter for the Washington Post and former president of the South Asian Journalists Association, who last year took a leave of absence from the Post to write a book and help launch the new publication.
• In a forthcoming book, a researcher at the University of Dayton describes a scholarly study in which white students were asked to observe conversations happening around them that involved race and record them. The book identifies hundreds of what the author considers “to be racist conversations or events that are often tolerated when the white students are talking among themselves. ‘What strikes me is how common these antics are and how casually students say the “N-word”,’ said Leslie H. Picca, one of the book’s co-authors and an assistant professor of sociology at Dayton,” according to Elia Powers, writing Friday in Inside Higher Ed.
• On Thursday in Miami, site of the Super Bowl, James Harris, the first black quarterback to lead an NFL team into the playoffs with the Los Angeles Rams, “sat flanked by Warren Moon and Doug Williams, who benefited because of the path Harris helped clear and blazed a few new trails of their own. Next to them was [Marlin] Briscoe, who would go on to win two Super Bowls with the Miami Dolphins — but as a wide receiver,” Tim Dahlberg wrote Friday for the Associated Press. “They were there to tell stories, and talk about their lives. The purpose was to promote a new book, ‘Third And A Mile,’ by New York Times writer William C. Rhoden, an oral history of trailblazing black quarterbacks.”
• “Through rare access to the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien examines the personal determination and private concerns of the preacher and civil rights leader for a one-hour documentary, ‘CNN: Special Investigations Unit, MLK — Words That Changed a Nation,'” CNN announced on Friday. The documentary airs on Saturday, Feb. 17, and Sunday, Feb. 18, at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern time.
• In a “Public Eye” chat Thursday on cbsnews.com, CBS Correspondent Byron Pitts said he sees no conflict between being a person of faith and a journalist. Also, asked who should replace the late Ed Bradley on “60 Minutes,” Pitts said, “we all need to accept the fact that no one can fit Ed Bradley’s shoes. His were custom made. But I hope the decision will be made to hire someone who can follow in his footsteps. Someone who is a journalist who has shown range, who has shown compassion, and someone who’s real. One of the things that I think that people loved about Ed Bradley — as they do about all the people at ’60 Minutes’ — is you get a sense that they are real people, they are not people who just showed up on the scene, but they are people who have a body of work, and when they tell you something, because they have covered all the major stories in the course of their careers, that you can believe it.”
• The League of United Latin American Citizens was quick to criticize FCC Chairman Kevin Martin for his continued advocacy of cable a la carte, in this case during a Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing Thursday, John Eggerton reported Thursday for Broadcasting and Cable. LULAC Executive Director Brent Wilkes said, “Minority and niche programmers rely on the expanded basic cable bundle to attract viewers and advertising revenue . . . the policies Mr. Martin promotes would raise prices on consumers, including the middle-class and Hispanic consumers for which LULAC advocates.”
• Freelance videographer Joshua Wolf, 24, who has been imprisoned for five months for refusing to turn over his footage of a 2005 G-8 Summit protest, lost another bid for release, the Associated Press reported from San Francisco on Wednesday.
• Vanessa Williams, a senior editor on the Washington Post’s Continuous News desk, will become assistant metro editor with responsibility for overseeing the sectionâ??s coverage for washingtonpost.com, the Post said Friday. Williams was 1997-99 president of the National Association of Black Journalists.
• In Nepal, the Federation of Nepalese Journalists “has expressed its grave concern over the increasing attack against media in the past few days. Amid unrest in ten districts of Terai, a number of journalists have been targeted and media houses vandalized,” Nepal News reported on Tuesday.
• “The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the indefinite closure today of an independent Sudanese daily for publishing an article about the beheading of an editor last September,” the organization said on Thursday.
• In Liberia, Reporter Othello Guzean of the government-controlled radio network, the Liberia Broadcasting System, has been suspended indefinitely by the network’s director general, the Center For Media Studies and Peace Building reported Friday. Guzean indicated to the organization that he was suspended because he conducted and aired an interview of an opposition member of parliament who accused President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of manipulating some members of the House of Representatives to remove the speaker of the national legislature.
• “Threats to Zimbabwe’s independent press were ratcheted up this week with the delivery of a bullet and a warning to ‘watch his step’ to the acting editor of the Standard newspaper,” Itai Mushekwe reported Friday in the Zimbabwe Independent.