A Tejano Filmmaker Says, “Give Me a Chance”
In the war over “The War,” Hector Galan may hold the key.
For months, Latino groups, supported by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, have demanded that documentary producer Ken Burns include the Latino experience in his forthcoming World War II documentary for PBS, “The War”.
On April 11, the groups seemed to have won. PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger reported that, ‘PBS, Ken Burns and his co-director/producer Lynn Novick have decided to create additional content that focuses on stories of Latino and Native American veterans of the Second World War.”
But then, after an April 17 meeting, the deal appeared to come apart. “Burns Won’t Reedit ‘War,’ PBS Clarifies,” a Washington Post story said on April 19.
On Monday, Alex Meneses Miyashita reported for the Hispanic Link News Service, “Negotiations between Latino leaders and the Public Broadcasting Service on Ken Burns’ World War II documentary reached an impasse following an April 17 meeting.
“Hispanic leaders are not accepting the changes the network and the filmmaker are proposing as to how they plan to include the Latino experience in the upcoming 14-hour project, scheduled to begin airing Sept. 23.
“They are pressing the network and Burns to re-edit the film itself and not add supplemental material to go along with it as they proposed during their meeting.”
Local public station executives, meanwhile, were backing PBS’ solution, the trade publication Communications Daily reported on April 19. It quoted Steve Bass, president of Oregon Public Broadcasting and a former chairman of the Association of Public TV Stations: “I would have been severely disappointed” had PBS agreed to reedit the film to mollify critics,” Bass said. He decried Congressional Hispanic Caucus suggestions that it might use federal funding as a leverage to get PBS to relent, saying, “To me that is the most outrageous part of this.”
Maggie Rivas-Rodríguez is a key figure in the Latino group. Since 1999, she has spearheaded the U.S. Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project, which has collected interviews with more than 450 men and women throughout the country. She told Journal-isms, “I need the assurance” that the additional footage of Latinos “it is going to be in the main documentary — that’s the main issue for me.”
Rivas-Rodríguez, a former reporter who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin, said she trusted Galan, the documentary filmmaker named to work with Burns to include Latino and some Native American material. Galan has been a full-time documentarian since 1980 and has produced 11 shows for PBS’ “Frontline.”
Galan told Journal-isms the problem is “all this semantics of re-editing and editing,” which he said was beside the point.
“Like John Lennon said, ‘Give peace a chance?’ Give me a chance,'” Galan said.
“All I can say is that I’m going to try to bring about the best stories that we can. I know the experience of World War II. My own father is a World War II veteran. I’m here to help Ken find his stories.”
PBS gave Journal-isms a statement that read, in part:
“The already completed film remains intact. The addition can be incorporated without re-cutting the existing film because there is room available to present the new content within the time that had been scheduled for the broadcast. . . . Now it is time to let the filmmakers put their plan into action. In September, the public will have the opportunity to see the entire scope of this unprecedented project — including the stories of Latino and Native-American veterans — in its entirety and judge for themselves.”
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Rush Limbaugh Video Demeans Obama, Sharpton
“Rush Limbaugh yesterday delivered a jaw-dropping video called ‘Barack, the Magic Negro.’ Will he follow in Don Imus‘ footsteps?” asked Aysha Hussain on the Web site Diversity.inc.
“The video, shown to subscribers on his web site, focuses on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s vocal discredit of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as an effective leader.
“The video . . . entitled ‘U Da Real Negro Al, Screw Obama,’ was a parody by Paul Shanklin, a well-known conservative political satirist famous for his voice impersonations, who tries to imitate Sharpton’s voice and includes a slideshow of images of Sharpton and Barack pointing out the differences in their ‘blackness.’ Toward the middle of the video, Shanklin harmonizes ‘Barack, the Magic Negro,’ a twist on the 1963 hit song, ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon’ performed by Peter, Paul and Mary, which seeks to suggest that Barack is somehow a manufactured black man.”
A link to the video is provided. The audio aired on Limbaugh’s radio show on March 17, according to columnist Monroe Anderson, whose “Obama Watch” column appears on the Ebony/Jet Web site.
- Jacques Steinberg, New York Times: CBS Radio Show Hosts Suspended After Prank Call
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Conglomerate Targets Blacks on the Internet
A conglomerate that took in $6.3 billion in revenue last year and is headed by Barry Diller, who once ran Paramount Pictures and Fox Inc., is preparing to launch an Internet presence targeting African Americans that will have “a decent-size editorial staff,” Johnny C. Taylor Jr., CEO of the initiative, told Journal-isms on Wednesday.
Taylor said he was interviewing candidates for managing editor and editor-in-chief and “a couple of people are NABJ members,” a reference to the National Association of Black Journalists. The site will also use freelance journalists, he said.
Taylor’s company, IAC, announced April 18 that it would launch “an online destination for the Black community featuring topical content, relevant services and a platform for community interaction.” It would begin in January 2008 and would be based in Charlotte, N.C.
Taylor, 38, an African American whose background is in human resources and as legal counsel, brought the idea to others at the company, who gave it the green light. For the past year, he has been the company’s senior vice president of human resources.
“There are 40 million African Americans in the U.S., and we estimate an additional 20 million Blacks from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. IAC — with its superior technology, operational expertise and more than 60 brands — is poised to provide exceptional content and services for this growing and underserved population,” Taylor said in the news release.
He told Journal-isms that the Internet offering would be unlike those of any other African American site, such as BET.com, AOL Black Voices, blackplanet.com or BlackAmericaWeb.com. “It is not a site. It is not a portal. There’s nothing out there that’s going to be like what we’re doing,” he said. “The only thing in common is that our medium is the Internet.”
For competitive reasons, Taylor said, the company is not yet releasing the name of the site or even what will distinguish its content. “The strategy is to put the information out in a very measured way,” he said, building buzz before the launch.
Unlike other start-ups, his project can pull in the resources of the specialties of the businesses that comprise IAC, such as Home Shopping Network, match.com and City Search. “This is a very, very safe startup. As safe as one is going to get” in cyberspace, Taylor said.
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Roy Johnson Joins Men’s Fitness at Editor-at-Large
Roy S. Johnson, who left Sports Illustrated as assistant managing editor in December 2005 after editing the old Savoy magazine, has joined Men’s Fitness magazine as its new editor-at-large, he told colleagues on Wednesday.
“In that capacity I will write features and provide editorial insight and direction to Editor-in-Chief Neal Boulton,” he said. “I will also work with American Media CEO David Pecker and his management team on broader strategic multi-platform initiatives and new project development.”
Johnson has written a column for AOL Black Voices and a sports blog, “Pass the Word,” among other activities, since he left Sports Illustrated.
“I began consulting with American Media a month ago, specifically on developing a strategy for the creation of television and digital properties with their fitness brands (Men’s Fitness, Shape, Muscle & Fitness, Flex Hers Muscle & Fitness, Fit Pregnancy and Natural Health),” Johnson told Journal-isms. “I also began working with MF Editor-in-Chief Neal Boulton on upcoming cover stories and it was decided that with my extensive sports background I could bring much to that specific brand editorially. Working with AMI CEO David Pecker, I will continue to focus on new platforms for the company’s extensive fitness brands while contributing to Men’s Fitness. It’s an exciting opportunity to work with a great company led by a dynamic and creative management team with a vision and a passion for new ideas.”
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Torres Leaves NAHJ for Media Reform Group
Joseph Torres, longtime spokesman for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists who has been active in the organization’s efforts to open access to the media, has left the organization to join the media reform group Free Press.
Torres, one of three NAHJ staffers who left in recent weeks, will be government relations manager in the organization’s Washington office, working on lobbying and ownership issues, the future of the Internet and issues “that I’m passionate about, full-time,” he told Journal-isms.
“We think the world of Joe and the work he did with NAHJ,” Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, told Journal-isms. “Arguably, more than any other individual in the journalism community recently, Joe has done the heavy lifting of bringing working journalists into the the debate over the policies that affect their work.
“He’ll be monitoring the policies that impact the journalism community and making the media system a more democratic — small d — place and making the job of journalists easier to do in the public context,” Scott said.
Torres came to NAHJ in 1998 from Hispanic Link News Service. He was communications manager and director, then became deputy director for policy and programs. Torres and Juan Gonzalez, the New York Daily News columnist who was NAHJ president from 2002 to 2004, produced a white paper, “How Long Must We Wait? The Fight for Racial and Ethnic Equality in the American News Media,” that they hope to expand into a book.
NAHJ will not be replacing Torres immediately, executive director Ivan Roman said. The organization ended 2006 with a $20,000 deficit that it covered with a surplus of about $140,000 that it posted for 2005.
Daniela Montalvo, NAHJ’s communications and research coordinator, left for a Web development company, and Marissa Silvera, professional development manager, went to AOL as a sports producer, Roman said.
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Campus Op-Ed Urges Violence in Duke Case
“The chancellor at N.C. Central University has taken the unusual step of publicly criticizing an opinion column in the student newspaper that advocates violence,” Eric Ferreri wrote Wednesday in the Raleigh News & Observer.
“The column in the April 18 issue of the Campus Echo bears the headline ‘Death to all rapists’ and rips into the resolution of the Duke lacrosse case, in which three white athletes accused of sexually assaulting a black dancer were recently declared innocent.
“Solomon Burnette, a Durham native, wrote that blacks cannot get a fair shake under the current American justice system and should thus stand up and fight, ‘whether intellectually, artistically or physically.’
“We are aware of the fact that Mr. Burnette has a right to express his opinion, but we also know that the freedom of speech comes with the responsibility to be fair and accountable,’ Chancellor James Ammons said Tuesday in a written statement, according to Ferreri’s story. “We also believe that the facts do matter in this case and every legal case and violence is not the answer.”
The N&O story continued, “Burnette, 27, is a senior history major and the son of former City Council member Brenda Burnette. In 2000 and 2001, he served a 13-month prison sentence after pleading no contest to charges of robbing two Duke students at gunpoint and then violating the terms of his probation.”
The Campus Echo ran Burnette’s piece with an editor’s note, “The opinions expressed below by Mr. Burnette in no way [express] the views of the Campus Echo, its editors, the adviser, or N.C. Central University. They are solely the opinions of the writer.”
Meanwhile, Daniel Okrent, who served as the first public editor of the New York Times from October 2003 to May 2005, called the Times’ coverage of the Duke case “heartbreaking,” according to the Duke University student paper, the Duke Chronicle. “I understand why they jumped on the story when they did, but it showed everything that’s wrong with American journalism,” Okrent wrote.
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Tom Joyner Could Sub for Imus on MSNBC
Syndicated “fly-jock” Tom Joyner could be one of the substitutes for deposed radio host Don Imus on MSNBC if negotiations pan out.
Joyner told the Rev. Al Sharpton on Joyner’s morning radio show on April 18, “You’ll never guess who I got a call from yesterday — MSNBC.” Sharpton replied, “your numbers were always higher than Imus'” and said Joyner should accept the invitation.
MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines would not confirm or deny that the network was in discussions with Joyner, saying, “We’re talking to a variety of people to fill in during the 6-9 am time slot over the next several weeks.”
Last week, NBC White House correspondent David Gregory filled in; this week, it was Philadelphia radio talk show host Michael Smerconish, and next Monday through Wednesday, nationally syndicated radio host Stephanie Miller is scheduled, he said.
Meanwhile, commentary continued. The Web site Counterpunch published an 8,800-word essay by poet and novelist Ishmael Reed on the Imus affair, “How Imus’ Media Collaborators Almost Rescued Their Chief,” subtitled, “Imus Said Publicly What Many Media Elites Say Privately.”
On Sunday in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Ruben Navarrette also blasted the “media elites” over their support of Imus.
“You don’t find Latino journalists on these Sunday talk shows. That’s too bad. They might come in handy given where the discussion has headed now,” he wrote. “The liberals have changed the subject again and seized on a word that shouldn’t be used in polite company, let alone in the public square.
“New York Times columnist Frank Rich tried to argue that the answer to offensive speech was more speech. Rich wrote that we should ‘let Bill O’Reilly talk about “wetbacks.”
“That word is as offensive to many Latinos as the N-word is to African-Americans. In fact, let’s start calling it the ‘W-word.'”
- Lawrence Aaron, the Record, Hackensack, N.J.: Why Imus’ words sting
- Elaine Ayala, San Antonio Express-News: Don Imus’ remark an example of ‘diversity fatigue,’ observers say
- Cecil Foster, Toronto Globe and Mail: Canada has its share of Don Imuses
- Bob Herbert, New York Times: Words as Weapons
- Rose Russell, Toledo Blade: Imus can spark improvements
- Ron Walters, National Newspaper Publishers Association: Don Imus: White Nationalist Soldier
- Byron Williams, ANG Newspapers: Black commentators, not black leaders
- Leroy Williams blog: The Real Source of Imus-Type Flaps? Management
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Ex-POW Tells Blogging Editor She Lost Book Deal
“To add insult to injury — literally — Kensington Publishing has canceled its book deal with Shoshana [Johnson], the country’s first African-American female prisoner of war,” Rhonda Swan, assistant metro editor at the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, reported Tuesday on her blog, the Literary Diva.
“Shoshana, who was held captive in Iraq for 22 days in 2003, contacted the Literary Diva and asked that I pass on the word. She said she’s been asked about the book, which was supposed to be available next month, for the past several weeks and wanted her supporters to know it had been axed.”
“. . . The real reason Kensington wants out, she says, is because she refused to compromise by sensationalizing the circumstances surrounding her capture, release, and the subsequent media attention given to fellow captured soldier Jessica Lynch, a young blonde whose story not only made headlines, but was turned into a movie and garnered a million-dollar book deal.”
Why was Swan the journalist Johnson contacted?
“I had posted an item on my blog about her upcoming book last summer and she actually responded on the blog to some of the comments left by readers. (I never knew whether it was actually her or not!) Then this weekend, she sent me an email asking me to notify people the deal had been axed since I had written about it on my blog. I asked her for an interview and she agreed,” Swan told Journal-isms.
Johnson, who was captured with other members of the U.S. Army’s 507th Maintenance Company, was seriously wounded before being taken prisoner. On Tuesday, Lynch, an Army private captured in Iraq soon after the 2003 invasion, testified in Congress about the early military and media accounts depicting her as a “girl Rambo from the hills of West Virginia” who had emptied her gun as enemy soldiers closed in. In fact, she was captured without firing a shot, as Aamer Madhani reported reported in the Chicago Tribune.
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Reporter Jumps from N.Y. News to N.Y. Post
Austin Fenner, the New York Daily News reporter who in February broke the story that the Rev. Al Sharpton’s ancestors were owned by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond’s forebears, is jumping ship to the rival tabloid New York Post, he told Journal-isms on Wednesday.
The Post approached him with “an incredible opportunity to do general assignment enterprise stories for them,” he said. The News made a counter-offer, but after weighing it against what the Post presented, “I decided that I would accept the New York Post’s offer,” he said.
Fenner, 43, who started on the business side of the News in 1987 and became a reporter in 1994, said “the last four months at the News have been fantastic. I’ve had an opportunity to walk through history.” He covered the funeral of James Brown, presidential candidates marking the anniversary of the 1965 walk for civil rights across the bridge in Selma, Ala., and went with Sharpton “to the grave of the slavemaster that owned his great-grandfather.”
He said he would not say how many African American reporters remain at the News, but said, “our ranks are shrinking.”