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Imus Stink Led Briefly to Cable Diversity

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Survey Shows Business as Usual After Controversy

“During the recent controversy over former radio and television host Don Imus‘ remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, some cable-news viewers may have noticed something unusual: the presence of significantly more African-Americans. The nature of the controversy led the cable networks to seek comment from a far more diverse group of people than they ordinarily do,” the group Media Matters for America said on Monday.

In a report, “Locked Out: The Lack of Gender and Ethnic Diversity on Cable News Continues,” the group said it counted the guests who appeared on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC during the weeknights before, during and after the Imus controversy.

“Whites dominated the guest lists on all three networks in the weeks we examined. All three brought on substantially more African-American guests during the week of the Imus controversy, but largely went back to their white-dominated guest lists following the controversy,” it concluded.

“Among the three networks, MSNBC performed the worst all three weeks — 93 percent of the guests on the network were white the week prior to the controversy, 70 percent were white during the controversy, and 82 percent were white in the post-controversy week.

“In none of the three weeks did Latinos, Asian-Americans, or any ethnicity other than African-Americans make up more than 5 percent of the guests on any network,” it continued, later emphasizing the particular absence of Latinos. “CNN had a slightly more racially/ethnically diverse guest lineup than the other networks, though its better performance the week prior to the Imus controversy can be partly attributed to ‘Paula Zahn Now,’ which ran several segments that week focused on racial issues in America and also included a slightly higher number of African-Americans than other programs during the post-Imus week.

“Both ‘Paula Zahn Now’ and ‘The Situation Room’ on CNN hosted more African-Americans than whites during the week of the Imus controversy, as did ‘Hardball’ on MSNBC.”

In his own column on Sunday, Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page said of the week the Imus controversy heightened: “That was the week when I, dear reader, was invited by my own count to more than three dozen radio and TV interviews, including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.”

“The cable networks and other news-talk shows seem to have little trouble finding a more diverse lineup of guests to respond to a five-alarm eruption of news that involves gender, race or ethnicity,” Page wrote.

“The real question, then, is why broadcasters seem to have so much trouble finding that same diversity of talking heads the rest of the time.”

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Heading for Court, CBS and Imus Each Cite Contract

While Don Imus, whose lawyer has said he plans to sue CBS for killing his radio show, has pointed to a contract clause that encouraged him to be controversial, “other contract language, obtained by The Washington Post, will be used by CBS lawyers to argue that the company had ‘just cause’ to dump the host, Howard Kurtz reported on Monday in the Post.

“These clauses cover ‘any distasteful or offensive words or phrases’ that CBS believes ‘would not be in the public interest’ or could jeopardize its broadcast license, as well as language that brings the company or its advertisers ‘into public disrepute, contempt, scandal or ridicule, or which provokes, insults or offends the community or any group or class thereof.'”

“Another piece of evidence for CBS, said those familiar with its strategy, is that the network gave Imus and other on-air talent a memo last fall, titled ‘Words Hurt and Harm,’ warning against the use of racial and ethnic stereotypes.”

Kurtz wrote that Imus’ attorney, Martin Garbus, a prominent First Amendment specialist, replied, “CBS’s interpretation of the contract, stringing together words from here and there,” would render meaningless the clause urging Imus to be controversial. “Contracts are not interpreted that way,” he said.

“The dueling arguments made clear that the Imus imbroglio, which created a media frenzy last month after he called the Rutgers women’s basketball team ‘nappy-headed hos,’ is about to erupt again,” Kurtz wrote.

While the Imus case was proceeding in the United States, the Australian Communications and Media Authority found that broadcaster Alan Jones breached the Commercial Radio Code of Practice during his breakfast program with comments “likely to encourage violence or brutality” and “likely to vilify people . . . of Middle Eastern background,” according to the Australian Associated Press. But unlike the reaction to Imus, Prime Minster John Howard defended the Australian broadcaster, saying he “articulates what a lot of people think.”

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NABJ’s Thumbs Down to BET Ends Years of Praise

 

 

Black Entertainment Television has been voted the “Thumbs Down” award from the National Association of Black Journalists “for its depiction of black images in the media, lack of news and public affairs and the network’s neglect to broadcast the funeral of civil rights icon Coretta Scott King in 2006,” the association announced on Monday.

The award comes less than two years after the organization praised BET on its 25th Anniversary for its “ground-breaking news and entertainment programming for and about African Americans.” In 1996, the organization partnered with BET for a telecast of its annual awards ceremony, and then-president Arthur Fennell gave founder Robert L. Johnson his President’s Award.

“It is sad that such a powerful platform as BET has not been used as forcefully to educate and enlighten as well as amuse and entertain,” said the current president, Bryan Monroe. “We hope that its new leadership now recognizes the responsibility that comes along with the power of a major cable network.”

“BET has a responsibility as a network for and about African Americans to highlight the best in us,” said NABJ Vice President for Broadcast Barbara Ciara. “Instead, we are inundated with more and more negative images such as those in music videos and the degradation of black women. With BETï¿œs reach, it would be great to see less fluff and more relevant news and information that could greatly benefit our community.”

BET spokeswoman Jeanine Liburd issued this statement Monday night:

 

 

“We are disappointed by the action of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). Not only did the NABJ conveniently ignore the announcement of the biggest investment and broadest array of black programming in television history, some of their accusations are factually inaccurate.

“BET covered the funeral and legacy of Coretta Scott King last year and has aggressively and significantly ramped up its news coverage on a range of issues affecting the black community.

“In addition to ‘Inside the Imus Controversy’ and the ‘DL Exposed’: other news specials this year included: ‘SOS: One Year Later,’ a month long look at the lack of progress in the Gulf Coast; ‘Bullets and Ballots,’ exploring gun violence; ‘Black is Beautiful,’ a critical look at the usage of N-Word; ‘Sex, Myths and the Real Deal,’ exploring the AIDS epidemic in the black community.”

Dean Baquet, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, was named Journalist of the Year. He resigned as editor of the Los Angeles Times in 2006 after refusing to lay off as many on his editorial staff as the paper’s owners and publisher wanted.

Bernard Shaw, former CNN correspondent and anchor, is to receive NABJ’s Lifetime Achievement Award. “In 1980, he joined CNN as one of the first anchors for the network and was a leading anchor until his retirement in 2000. Shaw is noted for his embedded news coverage as he reported live from Baghdad at the onset of the Gulf War,” the organization noted.

CNN is to receive the organization’s Best Practices Award.

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L.A. Police Chief Offers Strongest Apology

“Los Angeles Police Commissioner William J. Bratton on Sunday offered his strongest apology yet for the actions of an elite platoon of Metropolitan Division officers who swarmed a May Day immigration rally in MacArthur Park, and said that those officers are off the streets until he finds out what went wrong,” Richard Winton reported Monday in the Los Angeles Times.

On Friday, KTTV television camerawoman Patti Ballaz, 48, filed a claim against the city, alleging she was attacked and injured by Los Angeles police officers while covering the rally, according to wire reports in the North County (Calif.) Times.

“Ballaz was one of several journalists who were allegedly attacked by riot police who were dispersing crowds at the conclusion of the rally. Video images from the rally show police in riot gear swinging batons and firing foam bullets, knocking protesters and reporters to the ground and even throwing a television camera to the ground,” the story said.

The L.A. Times wrote that the chief acknowledged at a meeting organized by the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists that a 2002 agreement to protect journalists and the public, prompted by similar scenes at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, wasn’t followed last week. (The agreement included a so-called safety zone for reporters covering news events.)

“. . . Media representatives questioned why any police officer wouldn’t understand why it was wrong to hit reporters and camera people. ‘It seems to me you don’t have to be highly trained for that,’ said Pilar Marrero, a reporter and columnist for La Opinion.”

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Va. Sports Reporter Fired After 3 Plagiarism Cases

“A reporter who lifted passages from published stories and passed them off as his own work has been fired from the Virginia Gazette” in Williamsburg, Shawn Day reported on Thursday in the Daily Press of Newport News, Va.

“Bryan L. Fuell — the paper’s lone sports reporter — was fired after supervisors determined that he committed plagiarism, W.C. O’Donovan, the Gazette’s publisher, said Wednesday.” Fuell is a black journalist.

“The Gazette published a report Wednesday that said Fuell included passages from Jamestown High School’s student newspaper in a story with his byline published Feb. 10.

“Two other stories, both published April 25 under Fuell’s byline, included passages copied from ESPN.com and The Washington Post.”

Editor Rusty Carter did not return a telephone call from Journal-isms seeking comment.

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CBS’ Byron Pitts Was “Functionally Illiterate” at 12

When CBS correspondent Byron Pitts was 12, officials at Baltimore’s Archbishop Curley High School summoned his mother to report that tests had determined her son was “functionally illiterate.” She broke into tears, Howard Kurtz wrote on Monday in the Washington Post.

“‘It was humiliating. It was awful,’ Pitts says. ‘You sort of live your life in disguise. . . . When you live in the ‘hood, you have to wear a mask.’ Pitts didn’t even consider his inability to read his biggest problem; he was far more upset over his constant stuttering.

“How Pitts overcame that inauspicious start to excel in a profession built on writing and speaking is as good a story as any that he has covered. To this day, at a public event he will fight to get one of the first copies of a press release because he needs time to digest it. He says his wife can finish a book three or four times as fast as he can.” Pitts is now 46.

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Latino Groups to Pressure Ken Burns’ Sponsors

“Latino advocacy organizations upset about filmmaker Ken Burns‘s forthcoming PBS documentary on World War II have stepped up their campaign against the film, pressuring two corporate sponsors to remove their support,” Paul Farhi wrote on Thursday in the Washington Post.

“Leaders of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility, an umbrella organization of 14 groups, on Tuesday asked representatives of General Motors Corp. and Anheuser-Busch to disavow their sponsorship and remove their corporate logos from Burns’s ‘The War,’ a 14-hour documentary scheduled to be shown on PBS stations in September, coincidentally during Hispanic Heritage Month.

“The controversy began last fall when, after a screening of the film, Burns’s team acknowledged that Latinos were not represented in the documentary. . . .PBS and Burns have said that they will add additional material to address the issue and that they have hired a Latino filmmaker to assist in producing it.”

“. . . GM and Anheuser-Busch are the sole corporate sponsors of the documentary, providing about $5 million of the film’s $8 million budget. General Motors has provided funding for Burns’s Florentine Films for 20 years.

“Among the nonprofit and quasi-governmental organizations that provided funding are the Lilly Endowment, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Longaberger Foundation and the Park Foundation, according to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.”

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Judy Simmons, Editor and Writer, Dies at 62

Judy Dothard Simmons, 62, a poet, journalist, author and broadcaster, died May 6 in Anniston, Ala., from heart complications, her friend Fern Gillespie said.

Since the 1970s, Simmons’ writings and broadcasts won her acclaim. She had been a senior editor at Essence and Ms. magazines, managing editor of the NAACP’s Crisis magazine, a columnist for the old Africana.com and an editor at Black Enterprise. During the early 1980s, she had radio talk shows on New York’s first black commercial talk station, WLIB, and on Pacifica’s WBAI-FM. Her articles appeared in the Village Voice and American Legacy Woman, and she had been a guest on the Phil Donahue show.

During the 1990s, Simmons returned to Alabama and was a columnist for the Anniston (Ala.) Star. A celebrated poet, she was a Revson Fellow at Columbia University and did graduate work in poetry. Simmons was the author of several books of poetry and essays, including “Decent Intentions,” “Judith’s Blues,” and “A Light in the Dark.” She was also a contributor to “Wild Women Don’t Wear No Blues,” a 1993 collection edited by Marita Golden.

Funeral arrangements are pending. She wrote recently, “I’m listening to the fine classical jazz collection I’ve amassed over the years, putting my affairs in order, loving my dog and my friends, and generally having a good time for the first time in fifteen or twenty years. I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death and feeling damn good about it. I fear no evil, for I AM always and ever living.”

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