Résumé Falsehood Trips Up Publisher

Marti Buscaglia Loses Job-to-Be at O.C. Register

Marti Buscaglia, the publisher of the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune who was about to assume that job at the bigger Orange County (Calif.) Register— making the Register one of the largest English-language dailies with a Hispanic publisher — is out of the job before she started.

“She misrepresented her educational qualifications on her resume, said N. Christian Anderson, current publisher and president and chief executive of Freedom Orange County Information,” the Register reported Wednesday on its Web site.

“Buscaglia’s resume listed graduation from Lima University in Peru. She has been publisher of the Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota for five years. She was slated to join the Register on July 9,” the story said. A news release was issued on the Web site of parent Freedom Communicatons.

“Anderson said the company had received Buscaglia’s resume from executive recruiters when she was considered for other jobs within Freedom Communications Inc. the Irvine-based nationwide media chain that includes the Register. Anderson and Buscaglia declined today to say how the misrepresentation came to light,” the story continued.

The Register has a daily circulation of 300,000; the News Tribune’s average is about 41,000 weekdays and 65,000 Sundays, the Duluth paper said.

In a story in Thursday’s editions of the Duluth paper, “Buscaglia declined to discuss the details of any inaccuracies in her resume, but she did say: ‘The problem goes back 30 years. You exaggerate a little bit when you are young so you can get a job, and then it just perpetuates itself,'” Peter Passi reported.

“‘I’m going to wait and see what my options and opportunities are,’ she said, adding that she will stay in the area as she evaluates her next move. Buscaglia said she still hopes to remain in the newspaper industry.

“Rob Karwath, executive editor of the News Tribune, said he was stunned by Wednesday’s revelations.

“‘It’s very surprising,’ he said. ‘I feel sad about it. I think a lot of people do.’

“Yet Karwath offered a prediction: ‘Marti will get through this, and she will be successful somewhere else. She has been a good publisher.'”

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Miss. Newspaper Pushes Hard on Jail Beatings

Since the fatal beating last year of Jessie Lee Williams Jr. in the Harrison County jail, the Sun Herald of Biloxi, Miss., has been all over the story. “We have stayed on it like glue,” Executive Editor Stan Tiner told Journal-isms on Wednesday.

The paper, which shared in a Pulitzer prize for its reporting on Hurricane Katrina, which devastated its circulation area, disclosed the autopsy report that implicated the jailers in Williams’ death, produced a three-part series on conditions at the jail and demanded that a videotape of the beating be made public.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. ruled that the trial be moved out of Harrison County.

Jim Davis, attorney for jailer Ryan Teel, “criticized the Sun Herald’s recent news stories and claimed Teel can’t get a fair trial because potential juries have the stories ‘branded’ in their heads,” reporter Robin Fitzgerald wrote on Wednesday.

“Federal trial attorney Lisa Krigsten disagreed, arguing that the stories were more informative in nature of problems at the Harrison County jail,” Fitzgerald’s story said. A seven-year veteran of the paper, Fitzgerald began there as a police reporter and has earned prizes for her coverage of the jail story.

“Guirola’s decision wasn’t based solely on media coverage of the criminal case.

“Guirola said the related civil case is generating attention and the upcoming sheriff’s race, with 10 candidates, includes public forums with the incumbent’s opponents claiming they plan to make changes at the jail. One candidate, the judge said, is advertising that voters will know what’s happening at the jail if he’s elected.”

In fact, Guirola said, “This is not a bad thing the media is doing . . . They need not be vilified,” the Wednesday story said.

Since Williams’ death in February 2006, five ex-jailers have pleaded guilty to criminal accusations of conspiring to deprive inmates of their civil rights; two of them admitted their role in Williams’ assault. Four others are set for trial on conspiracy charges on Aug. 6; one of them is accused in Williams’ beating, Fitzgerald has written.

Although Williams is African American, Fitzgerald told Journal-isms, “It appears it was not a racial issue but an abuse-of-power issue.” White, black and Hispanic inmates are all said to have been beaten, and the accused guards are both black and white. She said excessive force had been used at the jail against inmates for at least five years.

According to the lawsuit filed by Williams’ estate, this is some of what happened to Williams on Feb. 4, 2006:

“Jessie was standing up right when Teel took out his taser and shot Jessie in the back. Jessie went to the ground. Teel put the taser numerous times to Jessie’s back and back side burning holes in his flesh. Numerous guards started kicking and hitting Jessie. Jessie was screaming, ‘alright, I give.’ Teel dropped on Jessies’ neck and head with his knees, raised up and then dropped on his head again — repeatedly. Regina Rhodes,” a deputy, “got on his legs and continued to punch and beat Jessie. Teel started to punch and hammer slammed Jessie in the head repeatedly with his fists. They hog-tied Jessie, hands to feet. Blood was pouring from Jessie’s mouth and Regina Rhodes stated, “that is crack-head spit — so Teel put a sack on Jessie’s head. Regina Rhodes handed Teel a can of pepper spray. Teel sprayed the entire can into the sack. Jessie began thrashing and screaming that he gave up. Rhodes and Teel kicked Jessie more saying, ‘quit resisting.’

“Then, with one hand, Teel picked Jessie up, carried him like a suitcase, and dropped him to the floor, face first. He then picked him up again, and dropped him face first to the concrete floor again. The booking guards then rolled Jessie up into an elastic fabric (something like a straight jacket) and put him into the restraining chair. While in the chair, Teel choked and beat Jessie over a period of time. Eventually, when Jessie was unable to raise his head, he poured water on his face and said, ‘oops, don’t drown.'”

When Fitzgerald was asked whether the jailers’ behavior sounds like that of Southern sheriffs during the civil rights era, she replied, “Of course it does, but things like this go on in jails all across America.”

Tiner said, “There is a universal desire to make this right, to clean up the jail. We think it’s only by reporting the truth that we will be able to advance, to make a clean sweep at what needs to be done.”

• Lawyer’s Web site on Williams case

 

• Robin Fitzgerald, Biloxi Sun Herald:
  Timeline in Williams case

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Pitts on Threats: “Must Be Doing Something Right”

“I feel a little like Jimmy Stewart in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,'” Leonard Pitts Jr. wrote Wednesday in his Miami Herald column. “They say you can tell who a man is by looking at his friends. Which is true. But I believe you can also tell by looking at his enemies. Apparently, I have managed to make enemies of haters, bigots and other low, pathetic men.

“I must be doing something right.”

Pitts wrote after receiving “400 e-mails, dozens of phone calls, leaflets on my neighbor’s driveway” after a white supremacist published his address and home phone number in response to a column Pitts wrote rejecting claims in the blogosphere that the media were ignoring an alleged black-on-white crime in Knoxville.

A white Knoxville couple were carjacked, kidnapped, raped and murdered and three black men and a woman are charged. The FBI is investigating the threats to Pitts.

Meanwhile, journalist and broadcaster Rob Redding reported on his Web site Thursday that the supremacist, Bill White, leader of the American National Socialist Workers’ Party, is urging his followers to e-mail him if they wish to participate in a rally outside Pitts’ home in Bowie, Md. [Added June 28]

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Wilbert Tatum Calls Giuliani “Genuinely Evil”

Although New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has not entered the presidential race, his announcement last week that he was leaving the Republican Party was enough to hearten Wilbert Tatum, publisher emeritus and chairman of the board of the New York Amsterdam News.

“We fully expect Mr. Bloomberg to run and run well for the highest office in the world,” Tatum wrote in the paper last week. “If money can have its way with a little integrity thrown in for good measure and a desire to rule and all the extras that his wealth can afford then Mr. Bloomberg is the man for America.

“We say, even before his formal announcement, welcome to the fray Mr. Mayor. We hope you have a good time playing with your money and our lives. Your jumping into the race for President of the United States is not really a bad thing. It is a good thing. You will force one of the most crooked men that has ever served in public office in America to the wall. That man, of course, is Rudolph Giuliani, who currently runs some snake oil scheme while he tries to get rich. No matter what Mr. Giuliani does, here or elsewhere, he will never be able to match, dollar for dollar, Mr. Bloomberg’s wealth. He will never be able to match the man’s integrity and his desire to make America a better place.

“No one will be able to match Mr. Giuliani’s drive to be anointed as King of something, somewhere, somehow. He is genuinely evil. He is genuinely hateful.”

• Bob Herbert, New York Times: Mr. Mayor, the Nader of ’08?
• Roland S. Martin, Creators Syndicate: Bloomberg’s America is Different From Ross Perot’s
• Les Payne, Newsday: Bloomberg’s just short of the truth

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Univision Not Faring Well With Debate Plans

“Earlier this month, Univision sent a letter to all of the presidential candidates inviting them to come on down to the land of sandy beaches and palm trees and while soaking up the sun, soak up some stage lights too while participating in the network’s first Spanish-language debate,” Marisa Treviño wrote Monday on her Latina Lista blog.

“Of course, the only two who jumped at the chance to flex their linguistic advantage were New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd. Both . . . are fluent Spanish-speakers — Richardson by birth and Dodd by virtue of the Peace Corps.

“Everybody else has hung back trying to figure out how to say ‘I don’t want to embarrass myself’ in Spanish. (Hint: don’t use the word embarazada. Believe me, it doesn’t mean embarrassed.)

“Univision must have been getting worried that they were only going to be hosting two candidates from the same party. So, a couple of weeks later the network sent out a second letter to the candidates ‘clarifying’ the debate.

“Yes, it would be conducted in Spanish but all the candidates would have to answer in English so that everyone would be on a level playing field. The clarification seemed to work, a little. . . “

Meanwhile, the Hillary Clinton campaign announced Wednesday that Traci Otey Blunt has joined its communications team as director of African American media. Blunt was a vice president and deputy director for the multicultural practice, overseeing the African American portfolio, at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in Washington, a news release said.

• Vanessa Rozier, Black College Wire: Howard Gearing Up for Thursday’s Democratic Presidential Debate

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RTNDA, Unity Honor Brokaw Piece on Jackson, Miss.

“Separate and Unequal,” an NBC News “Tom Brokaw Reports” in which Brokaw went to Jackson, Miss., and followed “a few young African-Americans through most of the 2005-6 academic year to see how they will fare in this culture of near-hopelessness,” in the words of a New York Times review, won the Radio-Television News Directors Association/Unity Award in the network television category, RTNDA announced on Wednesday.

“RTNDA developed the award with UNITY: Journalists of Color as part of their shared commitment to achieving diversity in the newsroom through developing news content and editorial staffs that reflect the changing face of America,” the organization said.

KPIX-TV, San Francisco, won in the large-market televison category for a compliation of stories.

They included, “UC Affirmative Action”, “One Strike, You’re Out,”, “Survivor’ and Race,” “Jefferson Awards: Civil Rights Sojourn,” “Harvest of Dreams,” “Hindu Textbooks,” “Islam and the West,” “Not A Genuine Black Man,” and “The Man in White.”

The Times’ Anita Gates said of the Brokaw piece on Jackson, which aired July 23, 2006, “The results are largely distressing and sadly familiar.”

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NCAA Eases Rules on Blogging During Games

“The NCAA eased its restrictions on blogging and said live updates from its events are permitted as long as they are limited to scores and time remaining,” the Associated Press reported late last week.

“The issue arose earlier this month after a reporter for The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., was ejected from an NCAA baseball tournament game for submitting live Internet updates during play.

“Bennie Ivory, executive editor of The Courier-Journal, said the NCAA’s latest position was evidence that ‘they made a mistake.’

“‘It’s no clarification,’ Ivory said.”

The Courier-Journal wasn’t the only paper affected. Peter Bhatia, executive editor of the Oregonian in Portland, told readers on June 14:

“At the super-regional in Corvallis, reporters were told the same fate awaited them if they blogged the games between . . . Oregon State and Michigan. As the weekend progressed, the NCAA threatened to deny The Oregonian press credentials for the College World Series (which begins this weekend in Omaha) if the paper continued posting from our offices in downtown Portland during-the-game updates on OregonLive.com, the paper’s affiliated Web site. The press credentials for Omaha (since granted) include provisions banning blogging during games there — not only for the press, but anyone else.”

“I wouldn’t say the NCAA reversed itself as much as clarified its rules,” Bhatia told Journal-isms on Wednesday. “We did not blog from the press box in Omaha, but we did blog the final two games from our office back in Portland.”

• Editorial, Chicago Tribune: Bloggers get the boot
• Editorial, Louisville Courier-Journal: NCAA’s do-over
• Editorial, Washington Post: You’re Outta Here!

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Anderson Jones Leaves with an Ode to “Star Wars”

This is how the last piece began:

“I believe that movies have the power to alter our DNA.

“I feel that way because I know, at the very least, my life has been changed by sitting in the dark with strangers. And one movie in particular set my future in motion. I’m talking, of course, about ‘Star Wars’.”

The Film Stew Web site introduced the piece this way: “This essay was commissioned from Andy Jones but had yet to be published on FilmStew. We share it now with the belief that, through his own words, Andy — who passed away last Thursday, June 21st — offers the most joyous of all possible testaments to his tragically shortened life.”

As reported last weekend, Jones, a former critic for E online, CNN Headline News and TNT’s Roughcut, suffered a major coronary at a screening of “A Mighty Heart” and died shortly after. He was 38 and had also worked at the old New York Newsday and at the Detroit Free Press.

The MediaBistro Web side FishbowlLA published a cartoon showing Jones at the PG-rated Pearly Gates.

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Short Takes

• W. Leonard Evans Jr., a pioneering African-American advertising man, published Tuesday, a magazine aimed at black readers that came with many Sunday newspapers in the 1960s and 1970s. Evans, 92, died May 22, in Tucson, Ariz., after suffering a severe stroke, said his wife, Maudelle, according to Trevor Jensen, writing Tuesday in the Chicago Tribune.
• “Paris Hilton gets out of jail on Tuesday and she won’t be on the cover of US Weekly on Friday? How, short of the Apocalypse, is this possible?” asked John Rogers, writing on Tuesday for the Associated Press. “When it came down to it, the staff and I felt what I believe a lot of people in America are feeling. Which is just enormous Paris fatigue,” US Weekly Editor Janice Min told the AP.
• Gabriel Escobar, who spent six years as city editor at the Washington Post, is the Philadelphia Inquirer’s new metropolitan editor, Vernon Loeb, the paper’s new deputy managing editor, told the Inquirer staff on Tuesday. Escobar has worked for the past year as associate director for publications at the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.
• Clyde Hughes, an urban affairs reporter and former board member of the National Association of Black Journalists. is leaving the Toledo Blade after 17 1/2 years. “I’m moving to West Lafayette, Indiana, to become a communications and marketing specialist at the Purdue News Bureau at Purdue University. I hope to also pursue my master’s degree shortly afterwards as well and continue freelance writing. My starting date at Purdue is July 9,” Hughes told Journal-isms on Wednesday. He said he made contact with Purdue during the NABJ convention job fair in Indianapolis last year when the Blade began locking out union workers. “We stayed in contact over the next several months until I was offered this particular job,” he said.
• “Facing mounting pressure over its nuclear program and support for terror, Iran has decided to fight back Western style, through the media,” Tovah Lazaroff and Steve Linde reported Wednesday in the Jerusalem Post. Based in Tehran, a new 24-hour news channel “promises half-hour news bulletins, talk shows and documentaries on the Islamic world and the West — ‘but with a distinctly Iranian spin.’ It claims to have more than 400 staff and 26 reporters around the world.”
• A critique of Vanity Fair’s Bono-edited “Africa” issue, by Gal Beckerman in Columbia Journalism Review says, “It is shocking to what extent the actual people, the Africans, seem to get totally lost here. Maybe Vanity Fair is not the forum for Africans to present themselves on their own terms. But it is frustrating to think that what might be some people’s only exposure to Africa can’t come in a form that allows for some authentic voices to emerge, telling the real story of Africans themselves who are struggling to alter their realities, or even simply describing what those realities are, in their own words.”
• “Rwanda will officially have another school of journalism in the heart of Kigali city,” John Karekezi wrote Wednesday in the New Times in Kigali, the capital. “The birth of the institute, Great Lakes Media Centre, has come hardly four months since President Paul Kagame said, during the most recent government retreat that Rwanda needs a vibrant, enlightened, knowledgeable and critical media to translate and interpret issues of national interest.”
• “Five Malian journalists who covered a high school essay assignment — and the teacher who commissioned the lesson — were convicted today of insulting President Amadou Toumani Toure, according to news reports and local journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the verdicts, which stemmed from a classroom exercise about an imaginary presidential sex scandal, and called for the convictions to be reversed on appeal,” the Committee said on Tuesday.
• In Eritrea, Fathia Khaled, an anchor on state-owned Eri-TV’s Arabic-language service, “was arrested earlier this month and taken to one of the country’s detention centres, Reporters Without Borders has learned from several Eritrean sources,” the press freedom organization said on Tuesday. “How much longer will we have to continue adding names to the list of people imprisoned by President Issaias Afeworki’s government?”