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As L.A. Tops Magic, Front Pages Tell Story

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Orlando Fans Badly Wanted What Lakers Wrapped Up

The front pages told the story.

At the Los Angeles Times, a three-column story down the center of the front page showed L.A. Lakers forward Pau Gasol and guard Kobe Bryant embracing at center court in the final moments of Game 5, under the headline, "Lakers finally get their taste of redemption."

It ran over a column by Bill Plaschke datelined Orlando that began, "Kobe Bryant scratched at it until it bled. Derek Fisher clawed at it until it hurt. The rest of them dug and dug until it finally, willfully, wonderfully disappeared.

"The Lakers’ seven-year itch is gone.

"For the 15th time in franchise history, the fourth time this decade and the first time since 2002, the Lakers celebrated Sunday night with a title that was a tribute to reinvention and resilience.

"Not to mention calisthenics, with Kobe Bryant leaping and pumping his right arm four times – one for each ring – before being mobbed by teammates after his team’s clinching 99-86 victory over the Orlando Magic in the NBA Finals."

Still, the disputed Iranian election – not the playoffs – was the paper’s lead story.

Not so in Orlando.

The Orlando Sentinel front page was dominated by the headline, "WE’LL BE BACK" and a striking photograph of a seated 6-foot-11 star center Dwight Howard, barefoot, legs outstretched, looking dejected as he worked his cell phone in the Magic locker room. The team’s logo and the words "NBA Finals" were prominently placed above the paper’s nameplate.

It was consistent with a view expressed during the playoffs: Fans in Orlando wanted the championship more badly than Angelenos.

On Friday, Sentinel columnist George Diaz explained it this way, in a column from L.A.:

"They are Big Fish. We are Little Pond.

"They are the Playboy Mansion. We are Hooters.

"They are the Golden Globes. We are the Golden Corral.

"They are Robin Williams. We are Pat Williams.

"Bottom line: Orlando can’t come up short in this series, unless it wants to perpetuate the ‘small-town boys can’t roll with the big boys’ theme that’s going to be splattered all over the national media today.

"Orlando wants what you have, L.A."

Mark Russell, Sentinel managing editor, told Journal-isms the paper sent five people to Los Angeles: two columnists, two reporters and a photographer. "Also, we had a 56-page tabloid special NBA Finals preview section that published the Thursday the Finals started."

"The Magic broke a lot of hearts Sunday night," Diaz wrote on Monday, "hearts that had come to believe in their grit and greatness. Fans who had come to embrace the zaniness of their frenetic coach and the playful giant who brought the thunder every night. Fans who whimsically danced so many nights away, partying like it was 1995."

As reported previously, the Orlando television stations also went all out, according to the Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker.

All stations except the Fox affiliate, which was relying on content from its L.A. sister station, sent reporters to the West Coast, and the Orlando stations planned to use multiple anchors and to air specials.

But to what end?

A headline on the Sentinel’s Web site over the locker-room photo of Howard said, "They don’t show this kind of Orlando Magic hurt on TV."

After Election, Iran Cracks Down on Foreign Media

"Iranian authorities criticized international media reports and took steps to control the flow of information from independent news sources as anti-government protests raged in the country for a second day Sunday," Sally Buzbee reported for the Associated Press.

"The British Broadcasting Co. said that electronic jamming of its news report, which it said began on election day Friday, had worsened by Sunday, causing service disruptions for BBC viewers and listeners in Iran, the Middle East and Europe. It said it had traced the jamming of the satellite signal broadcasting its Farsi-language service to a spot inside Iran."

The Committee to Protect Journalists added on Monday, "The Dubai-based pan-Arab Al-Arabiya news channel reported on Sunday that Iranian authorities had shut down its Tehran bureau for a week without explanation. Al-Arabiya’s correspondent in Tehran ‘was asked by the Ministry of Information to change a report and then notified that the offices would be closed for a week,’ the channel reported.

"James Longley, an American documentary filmmaker, and his translator were briefly detained by police on Sunday in Tehran while interviewing people near the Ministry of Interior. ‘They dragged me and my translator off to the Ministry of Interior building,’ Longley wrote in an e-mail. ‘They punched and kicked [the translator] in the groin. They ripped off his ID and snatched away both our cameras. A passing police officer sprayed my translator in the face with pepper spray.’"

The Houston Chronicle’s Tracey Eaton was among editors who attended an Institute for Journalism and Justice conference of Border Justice fellows and traveled with the group to Mexico. In video, he talks with migrants in Altar, Mexico.

Justice and Journalism Institute Going Independent

The Institute for Justice and Journalism, which offers journalists the chance to immerse themselves in social justice issues in service of stories or commentary, this summer is leaving the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication, based in Los Angeles, for the Bay Area and the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in Oakland.

Steve Montiel, a former Maynard Institute president who founded the institute at Annenberg in 2000, told Journal-isms that the Ford Foundation money that had sustained the operation for nine years is ending. The institute has become an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

The institute’s activities ‚Äî which include a dozen fellowship programs involving more than 200 journalists and direct support to journalists ‚Äî have included stories and commentary for newspapers, the Web, magazines, television and radio; a social justice reporting blog (www.WitnessLA.com), books and documentary films, Monteil said.

“Social justice journalism is at risk — Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism said it last fall as we planned for this transition — and the threat is clearer now than ever,” said Montiel. —There are stories that would go untold without the Institute for Justice and Journalism.—

Founding board members for the reinvented institute are Montiel, executive director and board president; Sharon Rosenhause, retired managing editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel; Conrad Freund, chief operating officer of the LA84 Foundation, created with surplus funds from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games; John Dotson, former publisher of the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal; and Edna Negron, a Ramapo College of New Jersey journalism professor who teaches digital journalism.

Frank Sotomayor, the former Los Angeles Times journalist who is associate director, is remaining in Los Angeles as a senior fellow who continues to work on institute programs.

Columbia College Chicago’s journalism department is collaborating with the institute on its McCormick Foundation-funded environmental justice fellowship program, and the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication has agreed to partner with IJJ on an “Immigration in the Heartland” program proposed to the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.

Knight, AP Announce Investigative Reporting Initiatives

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Saturday announced a $15 million initiative to help develop new economic models for investigative reporting on digital platforms.

"The grants, some on-going, some new and some yet-to-be announced, will promote both local and national investigative reporting in order to help provide the vital stories that citizens need to run their communities and their lives," the foundation said at the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors conference, held this year in Baltimore.

"Communities are harmed by what they do not know. A community can’t clean up a toxic dump, or remove a corrupt official or right any other wrong if its citizens do not know about it," said Eric Newton, the Knight Foundation’s vice president for journalism, in the release. "We’re awash in information, yet it seems to be getting harder to find good investigative reporting."

The foundation announced three grants: $1.32 million to the Center for Investigative Reporting to launch a new multimedia investigative reporting project in California that encourages print, digital and student journalists to collaborate on stories; $565,000 to the Sunlight Foundation to develop Web tools so the public can easily access information on congressional lawmakers from their campaign contributions and votes; and $1.01 million to ProPublica to help the investigative reporting organization create a sustainable business model.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press announced at the same conference that is launching a pilot project to distribute watchdog and investigative journalism from nonprofit organizations to its 1,500 member newspapers.

Starting July 1, the six-month project will put content from four leading nonprofit journalism organizations within reach of editors at nearly every U.S. daily, the AP said.

The organizations are the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop and ProPublica, which headlined its story on the development, "Associated Press Joins Steal Our Stories Movement."

"The goal of the project is to provide the nonprofit journalism organizations an additional distribution channel for their work while making it easy for newspapers to find and use the content they produce," the AP said.

President Obama has been moving so fast that it’s easy to forget that his trip to Cairo, the Middle East and Europe took place only two weeks ago. On Monday he was in Chicago, speaking to the American Medical Association. (Credit: Pete Souza/White House)

Press Corps Watches Major Obama Speech From D.C.

"President Obama traveled to Chicago Monday for a major speech on health care, but most of the reporters who cover him every day stayed in Washington and watched it all on TV," Patrick Gavin reported Monday for Politico.com.

"For media observers, it felt like a milestone moment: While reporters sometimes skip short fundraising-only trips or journeys in the waning days of a presidency, it’s hard to remember a time when a president, in the prime of his presidency, traveled outside Washington for a major policy address just to have the press stay home.

"The reason for the change is simple: money.

"With news organizations pinching pennies and shuttering bureaus, it’s no longer an easy to call to send reporters on a trip they might be able to cover as well from Washington."

Meanwhile, Obama’s recent trip to the Middle East and Europe is still fresh in the memory, though it happened two weeks ago, and an interview of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor, prompts commentary:¬†

NABJ Says TV One Went "Extra Mile" on Obama

The cable channel TV One has been awarded the "Best Practices" award from the National Association of Black Journalists "for its resourcefulness in covering the Democratic National Convention and election night from an African-American perspective."

"With minimal budget and without a news department, TV One rose to the challenge to provide in-depth reporting from a black perspective on these historic events," said NABJ President Barbara Ciara in a release. "TV One is going the extra mile when it counts the most."

The network, which says it is geared toward African American adults, provided 16 hours of live coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Denver and six hours on election night, conflating entertainment and journalism.

During the convention, for example, its "DNC After Party" on Aug. 26 featured "TV One commentator Roland Martin, Rev. Al Sharpton, actor and author Hill Harper, comedienne Sheryl Underwood, Sister2Sister magazine publisher Jamie Foster Brown, TV One chef and culinary expert G. Garvin, style and fashion expert Paul Wharton; and Huggy Lowdown, The Celebrity Snitch from the Tom Joyner Morning Show," according to a release.

For Barack Obama’s inauguration, the anchor team of journalist Art Fennell and talk-show host Joe Madison was joined by Joyner, Sharpton, Martin, Jacque Reid, the Joyner show news correspondent; April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks; Ed Gordon, host of "Our World with Black Enterprise," pollster Shawnta Wolcott and Alfredas, a personality on radio’s syndicated "Russ Parr Morning Show."

Neo-Nazis, Supremacists Gain More Media Attention

"On a muggy Florida evening in 2008, I meet Iraq War veteran Forrest Fogarty in the Winghouse, a little bar-restaurant on the outskirts of Tampa, his favorite hangout. He told me on the phone I would recognize him by his skinhead. Sure enough, when I spot a white guy at a table by the door with a shaved head, white tank top and bulging muscles, I know it can only be him," Matt Kennard wrote Monday for Salon.com.

"Over a plate of chicken wings, he tells me about his path into the white-power movement. ‘I was 14 when I decided I wanted to be a Nazi,’ he says.

". . . Army regulations prohibit soldiers from participating in racist groups, and recruiters are instructed to keep an eye out for suspicious tattoos. Before signing on the dotted line, enlistees are required to explain any tattoos. At a Tampa recruitment office, though, Fogarty sailed right through the signup process. ‘They just told me to write an explanation of each tattoo, and I made up some stuff, and that was that," he says. Soon he was posted to Fort Stewart in Georgia, where he became part of the 3rd Infantry Division.’"

Research support for Kennard’s article, "Neo-Nazis are in the Army now: Why the U.S. military is ignoring its own regulations and permitting white supremacists to join its ranks," was provided by the Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times: "When a Fox News anchor, reacting to his own network‚Äôs surging e-mail traffic, warns urgently on-camera of a rise in hate-filled, ‘amped up’ Americans who are ‘taking the extra step and getting the gun out,’ maybe we should listen. He has better sources in that underground than most.

"The anchor was Shepard Smith, speaking after Wednesday‚Äôs mayhem at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Unlike the bloviators at his network and elsewhere on cable, Smith is famous for his highly caffeinated news-reading, not any political agenda. But very occasionally ‚Äî notably during Hurricane Katrina ‚Äî he hits the Howard Beale mad-as-hell wall. Joining those at Fox who routinely disregard the network‚Äôs ‘We report, you decide’ mantra, he both reported and decided, loudly.

"What he reported was this: his e-mail from viewers had ‘become more and more frightening’ in recent months, dating back to the election season. From Wednesday alone, he ‘could read a hundred’ messages spewing ‘hate that‚Äôs not based in fact,’ much of it about Barack Obama and some of it sharing the museum gunman‚Äôs canard that the president was not a naturally born citizen. These are Americans ‘out there in a scary place,’ Smith said."

In the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen reported Thursday on Smith’s words, but added, "here’s the kicker: soon after Smith had signed off for the day, his Fox News colleague, Glenn Beck told his national television audience ‘the Germans’ during Hitler’s rise ‘were an awful lot like we are now.’"

Black Caucus Members Note Paleness of Talk Shows

"Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) say there is a lack of diversity on the Sunday political talk shows," Mike Soraghan wrote Monday for the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill.

"The CBC is more powerful than ever. Its members are chairmen of four congressional committees, and a former CBC member is now the White House. It contends that more minorities should be invited to appear on the influential shows.

"’I’m not pleased at all with the diversity issue as it relates to talk shows,’ CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said in an interview with The Hill. ‘We have, what, 17 subcommittee chairs and four full-committee chairmen? These members are brilliant; they know their stuff. They’re powerful and they should be part of the Sunday morning talk shows.’

". . . The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call tracks lawmakers’ appearances. The CBC member with the most appearances this year is Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), with two. The only other CBC member on the list is House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who appeared once on ‘Fox News Sunday.’ No Hispanic members are on the list.

"This past weekend, not one minority lawmaker was invited to appear on the Sunday shows. All seven of those who appeared are white and six are male. A majority of the Congress is composed of white males."

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