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Taking Tip on Death Threat Seriously

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Reporter Writing About Mexican Cartels Recalled

A potential threat of violence by Mexican drug cartels against American reporters operating along the border caused the San Antonio Express-News to temporarily recall its correspondent in Laredo, Texas, and the Dallas Morning News to take extra precautions with its Mexico reporting team.

“The credibility of the threat was unclear, but I am happy that the newspaper acted accordingly,” the Express-News reporter,

 

 

Mariano Castillo, told Journal-isms on Monday from the newsroom in San Antonio. “It was a very surreal feeling at times to take it all in, but at the same time, I don’t want a threat to intimidate me and the newspaper or for us to stop reporting or investigating along the border, including [about] drug cartels and such.”

“Express-News Editor Robert Rivard said Friday the paper was being extra careful in taking the action of recalling Castillo, who was told by his source that a drug cartel was seeking to put out a hit on an American reporter operating in Laredo,” Graeme Zielinski wrote Saturday in the Express-News.

“A Dallas Morning News reporter, who in recent weeks had been reporting on the Mexican drug cartels, received a similar tip from a different source.

“Also today, the Association of Foreign Correspondents issued a warning to reporters traveling to the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo to be ‘extremely cautious and security conscious,’ especially if they are working on drug trafficking stories,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Friday. “We have information from reliable sources that any U.S. or other foreign journalist in the area could become a target for assassination by killers hired by the local drug cartel,” an association statement said.

In the Washington Post, Manuel Roig-Franzia noted Saturday that, “Castillo wrote nearly 100 stories about cartels, crisscrossing the border from the newspaper’s bureau in Laredo, Tex., for the past 4 1/2 years as drug violence escalated. His first piece about cartels, in late 2003, was headlined ‘Mexico town erupts into a battle zone; Grenades, machine guns roar south of the border.’ In his last front-page article, which ran in May, Castillo exposed the existence of a ‘shadowy and violent group that calls itself the “Gente Nueva,” or New People — and authorities don’t want to talk about it.’

“More than 30 journalists have been killed in Mexico in the past six years, but only one — freelancer and activist Brad Will, who was shot to death during teacher protests last year in Oaxaca — was American. Most of the killings are believed to be related to coverage of an ongoing war between drug cartels. Last year, drug gangs were suspected of firing automatic weapons and throwing a grenade into the newsroom of Nuevo Laredo’s El Mañana newspaper, seriously injuring one reporter.”

“When something serious like this happens,” Castillo, 27, told Journal-isms, “you kind of go on autopilot and do what you need to do — in this case get out of town, alert my bosses — after that initial threat, there’s a time when you calm down and think about the possibilities. As you think it through, it’s enough to make one feel dizzy for a little bit. It’s just a second and then back to business.”

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Latino Columnist Blasts Villaraigosa Coverage

“For a brief moment, the media seemed to understand that, other than some ethnic symbolism and his ability to speak serviceable Spanish, a Mexican American mayor behaved pretty much like any other politician,” op-ed columnist Gregory Rodriguez wrote Monday in the Los Angeles Times, referring to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

“But that was before the revelation of the mayor’s extramarital affair with Telemundo anchorwoman Mirthala Salinas,

 

 

 

and the media gratuitously injected ethnicity into the scandal. Maybe, it would have been different if she worked for CBS, but I don’t think so. Reporters from a variety of newspapers, including The Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the LA Weekly made lame comparisons between the mayor’s affair and telenovelas, Spanish-language soap operas.

“Do you think they didn’t write ‘soap opera’ because the English-language versions lack sufficient sex and intrigue? Or maybe it was a cute way to ascribe this behavior . . . to his ethnicity.

“. . . The truth is that despite the integration of such Latino figures as Villaraigosa into mainstream American life, when push comes to shove, the media still fall back into old, condescending patterns of exoticization and marginalization. In this case, they treated Villaraigosa’s troubles as if they were Latino as opposed to American or male or politicians’ peccadilloes.”

Meanwhile, Rick Orlov reported Monday in the Los Angeles Daily News that “Villaraigosa, hoping to move beyond the controversy over his divorce and relationship with a TV anchorwoman, passed up his monthly appearance today on a local television news show.

“Villaraigosa had been scheduled to appear on KABC-TV’s ‘Eyewitness Newsmakers,’ but told producers he would not answer any personal questions, reporter Adrian Alpert said.

“‘More than two-thirds of the questions we received were about his relationship,’ Alpert said. ‘As a result, spokesman Gil Duran said the mayor would not be appearing this month.'”

Kevin Roderick reported Monday night on LA Observed, “NBC 4 led tonight’s late newscast with a five-minute piece by Ana Garcia reporting that Mirthala Salinas got the only one-on-one interview with Mayor Villaraigosa during a trip to New York in March 2006. She was there reporting for Telemundo 52, apparently after their affair had begun.”

Roderick also quoted from Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” monologue: “It was so hot today that Antonio Villaraigosa had an affair with Ann Coulter just to cool off.”

“L.A. Mayor Fills Potholes, But Can’t Dig Out from Scandal,” read the headline on a story by Eastern Group Publications picked up by New American Media.

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Industry Troubles Hurt Journalist-of-Color Groups

“Minority media associations face reduced membership and smaller contributions from financially troubled news organizations,” Don Williamson writes in the July issue of Presstime, a publication of the Newspaper Association of America.

“Remaining members also are less able to support organizational activities, such as annual conventions, say leaders of the four associations that are considered the leading minority media groups in the United States: the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Native American Journalists Association.”

A summary of the article says:

[In Tuesday’s major industry news, Rupert Murdoch’s “News Corp. reached a tentative agreement for the purchase of Dow Jones & Co. at its original $5 billion offer price. The deal will be put to the full Dow Jones board this evening for its approval, said people familiar with the situation,” Sarah Ellison reported in Tuesday’s editions of the Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones owns the Journal.]

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Newspapers Let Notre Dame “Buy” Internships

“In response to a declining journalism job market, the University’s Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics and Democracy is taking a new approach to help Notre Dame students nab coveted summer reporting internships: Buy them,” Tim Dougherty writes in the summer issue of Notre Dame magazine.

“Last fall the Gallivan program reached agreements with The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Concord (New Hampshire) Monitor and the Los Angeles Times to take on Notre Dame summer interns. The program’s endowment will fund the salaries of the news interns at the Inquirer and the Monitor, while the Times sports reporting internship will be funded by a private donor.

“The agreements with the Inquirer and the Monitor are similar to an internship the Gallivan program has supported at the South Bend Tribune since 2003.

“‘Given the financial situation in American journalism today, you see a number of cutbacks, and in particular we see it in the number of paid internships that are available to students,’ says Gallivan director Robert Schmuhl, ’70, who holds the Walter H. Annenberg-Edmund P. Joyce chair in American studies and journalism.”

Not answered are the ethical questions of putting internships up for sale.

But a note on the Inquirer Web site underscores the financial problems:

“We regret that The Inquirer’s paid summer internships in reporting, photography and graphics have been suspended for 2007. Our thanks to all those who applied. For information on paid internships at other U.S. newspapers, please see: http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?id=3749.”

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NAACP’s “N-Word” Burial Grabs Attention

Commentators responded to the NAACP’s symbolic burial of the “N-Word” last week at its convention in Detroit, and nearly all called the word a symptom of larger problems.

The Muskogee (Okla.) Phoenix, one of the few papers in which the editorial board weighed in, said:

“As offensive as some might take the N-word to be, the word is, at best, a symptom of what yet plagues a great deal of black America, not the cause of its ills: high incarceration rates, poor educational scores, drug use, homes without fathers.”

The editorial maintained, “The N-word funeral is a sign that the NAACP has lost sight of its bearings and purpose, and is desperately searching for an issue to inspire new life and leadership.”

 

 

Sports columnist Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star, who was vilified last April when he said that shock jock Don Imus’ racist and sexist remarks weren’t the real problem, that “we are our own worst enemies” because “we have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture,” felt vindicated.

“Monday was important because it put the conversation at the forefront,” Whitlock wrote last week. “It helps make it possible for people to raise an objection when black people use the N-word. I know teachers and coaches— both black and white — have struggled with this dilemma for years. The N-word is tossed around nonchalantly by black athletes (and some white athletes) in mix-raced locker rooms. Visit just about any college or high school weight room and you’re likely to hear rap music blaring that uses the N-word, ‘bitch’ and ‘ho’ liberally.

“Now you can object strongly, and you’re backed by the NAACP and every sane black person I know.”

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Sacramento Bee Changes Course for Barry Bonds

The prospect of Barry Bonds breaking baseball’s all-time home run record has prompted the Sacramento Bee to reverse its decision that it can no longer afford to cover the San Francisco Giants’ away games.

Public editor Armando Acuna wrote Sunday in the Bee that about a year ago, after advertising revenue dropped, “The paper stopped almost all travel to away games and, more significantly, also ceased sending reporters to cover home games, relying on the wires and Bay Area newspapers to report from Oakland and San Francisco.”

But for the time being, the Bee will be with Bonds. “The paper, said sports editor Bill Bradley, will be looking to write enterprise stories that set it apart from the crowd.”

With a smaller staff, however, Bee readers should not count on a return to the fully staffed coverage of yesteryear, Acuna wrote. He asked for readers’ opinions on the idea of having games covered by beat writers writing blogs.

The Bonds phenomenon prompted columns ranging from the New York Times’ William C. Rhoden’s reflections on the hopes once held for the Cincinnati Reds’ Ken Griffey Jr. to John Smallwood, in the Philadelphia Daily News, calling attention to sprinter Marion Jones. Although Jones was never found guilty of using steroids, she remains under an unfair cloud and reportedly is now broke, he said.

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An Ode to Writing on One’s Birthday

Elizabeth Atkins, a novelist, speaker, writer on biracial identity, former Detroit News staffer and onetime president of the Detroit chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, sent this note to friends last week:

 

 

“‘Elizabeth, your birthday is coming!’ my friend exclaimed. ‘How are you celebrating?’

“‘I’m writing a screenplay,’ I announced, smiling at the men and women around me.

“‘No, no!’ My friend shook her head. ‘How are you celebrating your birthday?’

“‘I’m writing a screenplay,’ I declared.

“But my exuberance drew only blank stares.

“Because I didn’t say, ‘I’m having a party’ or ‘I’m going to dinner at a fancy restaurant’ or ‘I’ll eat ice cream and cake.’

“Maybe what I did say sounded too much like work. So I explained that to me, writing feels as thrilling as a party . . . it tastes as rich and satisfying as a gourmet meal . . . and it delights my senses with the sweetness of cake and ice cream.

“Because I love it! Immersing in the sexy, outrageous opulence of my imagination is absolute bliss. . . . “

“What better way to celebrate the blessing of another amazing year of life — than by doing something that makes you feel that good!?!? That’s why I humbly ask you — please peer into these words as if they’re a mirror for your own life.

“What do you see?

“Reflections of yourself?

“Or a clog of question marks? A fog of frustration? Endless excuses?

“If so, what can you do, right now, to make sure that on your next birthday, you’ll celebrate by doing what you love?!”

With her biracial bona fides, Atkins will be among the panelists Saturday, Aug. 11, at an 11 a.m. session titled “What Is Race?” moderated by this columnist at the NABJ convention in Las Vegas.

“I am a living, breathing example of the question, ‘What is Race?’ While I have allegiance and membership on both sides of the racial divide, my Malibu Barbie appearance and my strong sense of belonging in the black community create quite a bizarre and provocative expression of racial identity,” Atkins told Journal-isms.

 

 

Other panelists are Sam Ford of WJLA-TV in Washington, a Cherokee Freedman; Pearl Duncan, New York-based cultural writer who has traced her roots to both the Akan Akuapim people in Ghana and the Scots; Dr. Yolanda T. Moses, professor of anthropology, University of California at Riverside, and chair of the National Advisory Board of The Race Project; and actor Isaiah Washington, formerly of “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Through DNA testing, Washington discovered his roots in the Mende people of Sierra Leone and has created a foundation to assist them.

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Short Takes

 

 
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