NABJ Says Keep Imus Off the Air

Speculation Mounts That Shock Jock Will Return

As speculation mounts that Don Imus will return to the airwaves after his ouster in April for racist and sexist remarks, the National Association of Black Journalists, the first organization to call for his removal three months ago, says no way.

“NABJ and America applauded in April the decision of national broadcasters to remove his language from the national airwaves. We would hope that, just a few months later, they would not substitute a desire to cash in for the need to stand by their convictions,” NABJ President Bryan Monroe told Journal-isms on Wednesday.

The stance puts NABJ at odds with Imus’ most visible opponent during the controversy, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who told Radaronline.com, “My position is that we never called for him to be permanently barred from being on the air. We’ll see when he comes back, and if he comes back, what are the boundaries and what is the understanding. We’ll be monitoring the situation, but we wanted him to pay for being a repeat abuser, and he paid. We never said we didn’t want him to make a living,” according to Mike Boyle, writing on Wednesday in Radio & Records.

As reported on July 2, a spokeswoman for CBS Radio would not confirm or deny a report in the New York Post that Imus might return to CBS-owned WFAN Radio in New York.

Radio & Records reported on Wednesday: “Fueling the latest round of speculation is a report in the New York Post on July 16 from Imus confidant Bo Dietl, who said the deposed talk show host would be back on the air in September. Talking last weekend to the Post’s state editor Fred Dicker . . . Dietl said: “I’m not supposed to say, but . . . if he was to be coming back, I would look to September.”

“The Post also reported that another source claims that Imus has been scouting comedy clubs looking for a black sidekick ‘who will take the sting out of any future racial cracks like the one that got him booted off the air.”

As the Wall Street Journal noted in a lengthy front-page deconstruction of the events on April 13, Monroe was contacted by one of the NABJ board members a day after Imus called the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed ho’s.”

“He looked at the email. ‘My first reaction was: “Oh, no he didn’t”‘ he says. Then he watched the clip. ‘I heard the words come out of his mouth and thought, “Has he lost his mind?”‘ the Journal reported of the April 5 events.

On April 6, NABJ called “for the immediate removal of Imus and his WFAN producer, Bernard McGuirk — who referred to the players as ‘jigaboos and wannabees’ — by Monday morning.”

Sharpton joined in the call for Imus’ ouster the next day. On April 11, MSNBC announced it would no longer simulcast the ‘Imus in the Morning’ radio program,” and on April 12, CBS Radio said it was dropping the show.

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page wrote of the episode’s impact on Sunday.

“Imus’ incendiary words have sparked a resurgence of public outrage by clergy, civil rights activists and black-oriented media like Ebony and Essence magazines against the self-hatred for which “the N-word” has become a leading symbol,” Page wrote.

He also noted this about Imus for trivia buffs: “Back in 1974, he followed up Richard Pryor’s breakthrough comedy album ‘That Nigger’s Crazy’ with his own comedy album, ‘This Honky’s Nuts.’ It didn’t go far, mainly because it wasn’t all that funny.”

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Vick Indictment Prompts Can’t-Miss Headlines

If you were in Virginia or Atlanta on Tuesday or Wednesday, there was no doubt about the big news of the day.

You could judge it from the big front-page headlines.

“NFL star Michael Vick was indicted by a federal grand jury on Tuesday on charges of sponsoring a dogfighting operation so grisly the losers either died in the pit or sometimes were electrocuted, drowned, hanged or shot,” as Hank Kurz Jr. wrote for the Associated Press.

“The Atlanta Falcons quarterback and three others were charged with competitive dogfighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting and conducting the enterprise across state lines.

“They are scheduled to appear in federal court in Richmond on July 26. The indictment states that dogs fought to the death or close to it.

“If convicted, Vick and the others Purnell A. Peace, Quanis L. Phillips and Tony Taylor could face up to six years in prison, $350,000 in fines and restitution.”

Web sites featured the text of the indictment, and on some sites, the stories were followed by pages of comments from readers. Coverage in the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., included a box for those who hadn’t been paying attention: “WHY IS MICHAEL VICK IMPORTANT?”

In Atlanta, “VICK INDICTED” dominated the the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Michael Vick is not only a prominent member of the NFL, but the face of the Atlanta Falcons,” James Mallory, senior managing editor and vice president/news, told Journal-isms. “The level of cruelty alleged in the indictment and the alleged prominent involvement of Vick himself makes this a major story for us. This story is of interest to a lot of readers including fans and foes of Vick, who has been a lightning rod of controversy both on and off the field for several years.”

The Web page of Atlanta’s WSB-TV featured a host of stories, including one saying the Rev. Al Sharpton “teamed with PETA Wednesday to criticize dogfighting in a letter that went to all of Michael Vick’s corporate sponsors.”

“He’s arguably one of the most famous athletes in the country right now,” said Denis Finley, editor of the Virginian Pilot in Norfolk, Va., which featured Vick as the lead story with banner headlines. He noted that Vick was the highest-paid player in the NFL when he signed and that Vick grew up in the area.

“They indicted a very well-known, love him-hate him Virginian,” agreed Peggy Bellows, managing editor of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, which also led its front page with the indictment. “It’s a big story here. We covered him in high school, through college and keep up with him and his life in the NFL and beyond. The home where the dog fights allegedly took place is here in Virginia —outside our core area, but not outside our area of interest.”

The Roanoke Times, which claims Vick’s alma mater, Virginia Tech, as part of its circulation area, also bannered the news. “He’s a local hero here,” Michael Stowe , the managing editor, told Journal-isms. Columnist Shanna Flowers was planning a column for Thursday’s paper. All were planning follow-ups, including stories examining Vick’s endorsement prospects.

• Mark Bradley, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: What do we make of this Michael Vick?
• Bob Lipper, Richmond Times-Dispatch: Indictment irreparably damages Vick’s reputation

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With Mixed Results, Edwards Urges Focus on Poor

On the second day of an eight-state tour of impoverished communities in the South and Midwest, John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, urged reporters to “please stay focused on the stories we heard” from the workers, rather than the candidate.

Edwards succeeded with at least one outlet, the Associated Press. Samira Jafari filed a story from Whitesburg, Ky., in Appalachia, about politicians’ longstanding efforts to try to put poverty on the nation’s agenda.

“Nearly 25 percent of residents in both Letcher and Floyd counties live below the poverty level, according to U.S. Census figures,” she wrote.

“It’s an improvement from 40 years ago, when 40 percent of Letcher and 60 percent of Floyd were poor, but remains a major problem.”

The media watch group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting singled out the Washington Post’s coverage of the Edwards trip. After Perry Bacon Jr.’s story noted Edwards’ plea to “stay focused on the stories we heard,” it continued with references similar to those in other stories:

“Trailing his two main rivals, Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) in fundraising and in most polls, Edwards has been unable to make much headway in part because of a series of controversies that cast doubt on the image he has cultivated as a millionaire lawyer who as the son of a millworker understands the plight of those with less than he has.

“First there was publicity about the 28,000-square-foot mansion in North Carolina he was building, then the disclosure that he had charged a pair of $400 haircuts to his campaign, then the further disclosure that the hedge fund he worked for after the 2004 election employed the kind of overseas tax shelters he has deplored on the campaign trail.”

Said FAIR: “Yes, polling, fundraising tallies and manufactured controversies — that’s what readers need to hear about (for the 15th time), not boring old poor people.

“While the idea that building a mansion and buying services that ordinary people can’t afford ‘cast doubt’ on an image as a ‘millionaire lawyer who . . . understands the plight of those with less than he has’ is just silly, the last of the supposed controversies is rather bizarre: Is it really scandalous for Edwards to stake out a policy position contrary to the interests of a former employer? Should he instead promise to funnel government contracts to his old bosses, as Dick Cheney has? It’s as if the Washington Post has the Chicago definition of an honest politician: one who stays bought.”

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Cincinnati Post, Kentucky Post Folding Dec. 31

“The Cincinnati Post and The Kentucky Post — afternoon daily newspapers serving Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky for more than a century — will cease publication on Dec. 31, 2007, the newspaper’s owners announced today,” the Cincinnati Post reported on Tuesday.

Two journalists of color, Victoria Sun, a sports reporter who is Asian American, and Melvin Grier, a photographer who is African American, will be affected, editor Mike Philipps told Journal-isms on Wednesday.

“The last edition of the newspapers, owned by Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co., will be published on that Monday, New Year’s Eve,” the story by Kerry Duke continued.

“The decision by Scripps to cease publication comes three years after the company was notified by the Gannett Co., owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer, that the 30-year contractual agreement under which the Enquirer handles business operations for The Post would not be renewed when it expired at the end of this year. Under that agreement, advertising and subscription sales, production and distribution were handled for The Post newspapers by the Enquirer, but the news operations and the editorial pages were separate and competed with each other.”

The Post published a chart showing the paper with a 2006 circulation of 28,549, compared with Monday through Saturday circulation of 197,962 for the Enquirer. In 1976, the Post’s circulation was 198,694 to the Enquirer’s 188,092.

The Post also lost half its staff in recent years, Philipps told Journal-isms.

James Clingman Jr., 63, a Cincinnati-based columnist for the National Newspaper Publishers Association who delivered the Post as a boy, said African Americans wouldn’t miss the paper.

“Its impact has been diluted over the last several decades,” Clingman told Journal-isms. He said he read it online, but mostly as an afterthought. Not that the Enquirer, with its conservative editorial page, is viewed more favorably, he said. “It has a negative image. It hasn’t been very kind to black people.

“I look at things in terms of ownership,” Clingman continued. “Black people should always strive to have some of our own media outlets.”

• Kerry Duke, Cincinnati Post: Leaders lament demise of Post
• Editorial, Cincinnati Enquirer: Saying goodbye to a fond rival
• Kimball Perry and Cliff Peale, Cincinnati Enquirer: Post to stop publication
• Mike Philipps, Cincinnati Post: A turning point for all of us

FBI Aided Ebony, Jet in Early Movement Coverage

Simeon Booker, the 88-year-old retired correspondent for Ebony and Jet magazines, says he had help from the FBI in covering the early days of the civil rights movement in the 1950s,

according to Wil Haygood, who profiled Booker on Sunday in the Washington Post Magazine.

“Simeon Booker would cover the big stories below the Mason-Dixon line,” Haygood wrote. “It was a tricky and dangerous assignment. But, somehow, he stayed safe. At times, it seemed as if he had eyes in the back of his head. He didn’t, but he did have help from unexpected quarters: J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.

“This is the same FBI that — journalists and historians have shown — was then attempting to undermine the civil rights movement and violate the civil liberties of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders. Hoover had accused movement sympathizers of being communist supporters.

“But Booker had established what he regarded as a remarkable friendship with Cartha ‘Deke’ DeLoach, a top Hoover assistant. DeLoach introduced Booker to Hoover, took Booker’s phone calls, told him which cities were safe and which the bureau felt unsafe for a black reporter to be trolling around in the night.

“‘How do you think Jet and Ebony got all those stories down South?’ Booker says, his voice rising. ‘I know what all the civil rights people have said about Hoover and the FBI. But the FBI was of great help to me.’

“Booker goes on: ‘When I left for the South, I always told the FBI where I was going. I wanted to get back home! The FBI was really a kind of co-engineer with us. Jet and Ebony never would have been what we were without the FBI.'”

In an online chat on Monday, a questioner said: “Mr. Booker had a very interesting career and did some historic reporting. But he was also spy for the FBI. There is no other way to look at it. He was used.”

Haygood replied: “I think he imagined people would think of him being used. He dealt with that in his mind by a fierce desire, actually a double desire: To get his story and to stay alive. If the FBI could help him stay alive, in his mind, he obviously wasn’t opposed to that aid.”

[Booker denied he reported back to the FBI on anything. “I was out there on a story and get the hell out,” he told Journal-isms on Thursday. Instead, he said he pushed the FBI to hire black employees, with some success, and used his leverage to urge the agency to protect black people and events “so these things wouldn’t happen,” speaking of activities that put African Americans in danger.]

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Raspberry: Integration Theory Missed Something

Retired Washington Post columnist William Raspberry recalled the days when black reporters were called out by the likes of Malcolm X as spies for white America, opined on the recent Supreme Court decision invalidating school desegregation plans and answered the old question “are you black first or a journalist first” in an interview last week on Michel Martin’s “Tell Me More” show on National Public Radio.

“I’m me first. And it’s the only satisfactory way I could answer that,” Raspberry said to the last question.

And the former columnist, who teaches at Duke University and founded a parenting program in his native Okolona, Miss., linked the parenting program and the Supreme Court decision.

“I’m really so torn,” he said. “It’s clear to me that the conservative majority on that court does not care about outcomes for the poor minority children who are the subject of all our debates about these things.

“. . . We had what was — amounted to a hostage theory, that you can’t discriminate — you won’t be able to discriminate against our kids if you can get them in the same classroom as yours. But it turned out, in part, that that wasn’t quite true, but in part that discrimination against these kids by the time they were into public schools was not really the important problem that they faced. And we have never quite shed a view that somehow, if we can fully integrate them, everything else will work out.

“There’s another assumption we are making right now, that somehow what ails these children is an inadequate or incompetent school administration, and if we can get the administration mechanics right, education will happen. And we’re just as mistaken and misguided to believe that.

“. . . One piece of the answer is to recognize in our policies what we all know in practice and fact, which is that the public schools do reasonably well in educating children who come to school prepared for learning. They do very poorly with kids who don’t come to school prepared for learning. So what do we do? We try to fix the schools. We try to fix everything else except the preparation of the children who come to our schools.”

Of the days when Malcolm X and others were suspicious of black journalists in the white media, Raspberry said, “You’re a journalist doing a job by one set of lights. But by another light, you’re finding out information that will be conveyed in the man’s media. And it’s a hellacious kind of dilemma for a young person who’s not fully formed in his own head that you have to sort it through, with no models – there weren’t people you could go and talk to.

“I mean, it was great, good fun. I mean, I just took to journalism as like a duck to water. So, I mean, I don’t mean to make it sound worse than it was, but it was — this little piece of it was very, very anguishing.”

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Roy Johnson Brings Tiger Connection to New Gig

“This summer has brought two new sides to the golf megastar,” Tiger Woods: “(1) fatherhood, with the June 18 birth by wife Elin of daughter Sam Alexis; and (2) his impressive physique and exercise regimen, courtesy of Men’s Fitness and hired-this-spring editor-in-chief [Roy S.] Johnson,” according to the Web site Min (Media Industry News) Online.

“Connection came from Johnson’s lengthy writing career at Time Inc. and his being a Stanford University alumnus. ‘In 1993, {Tiger’s late father} Earl Woods did his Stanford due-diligence in asking me about the school,’ says Johnson. ‘I recommended it, and a few years later I wrote a ‘the sports world will never be the same’ Fortune cover story on Tiger just as he was turning professional. Proved prophetic, and we have been good friends since.’

“Result is this Johnson-authored MF (August) look at the Tiger Woods that few have seen. Ten years ago, he was a scrawny 152 pounds. Now, he is a muscular 185 (waistline has only increased from 29 to 31 inches), with a regimen that includes 34 to 40 minutes of extensive stretching and between 35 and 50 weight-lifting repetitions.

“Plus, Tiger may jog for seven miles or run hard for three, and his diet is ‘great on vegetables, good on protein. . . and [he doesn’t eat] junk food at all.’ As Woods told Johnson:

“‘[I] treat golf as a sport. I let other people treat it as a hobby. It would be asinine for someone not to work out and go play football. It doesn’t make sense for golf, either.”

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Short Takes

• Mariano Castillo has returned to the Laredo, Texas,. bureau of the San Antonio Express-News, which recalled him last week after Castillo was told by a source that a drug cartel was seeking to put out a hit on an American reporter operating in Laredo, “We sent Mariano back to Laredo Monday after concluding that he could return safely,” Editor Robert Rivard told Journal-isms.
• “The Fresno Bee will outsource some advertising production work to India, the newspaper said Tuesday. Seven of 31 workers in The Bee’s advertising design department will lose their jobs, said Ken Hatfield, The Bee’s vice president of communications and public affairs,” the Bee reported.
• “The St. Paul Pioneer Press is offering another round of buyouts to employees as advertising revenue continues to slide,” John Welbes reported Tuesday in the Pioneer Press. “The paper is seeking a total of 30 buyouts, with 15 of those expected to come from the newsroom. Editor Thom Fladung told newsroom employees of the plan in an afternoon meeting today.”
• “When it comes to rooting for Barry Bonds to become the home run champion, one factor stands out: race,” Ben Walker reported Monday for the Associated Press. “An AP-Ipsos poll released Monday showed 55 percent of minority baseball fans want Bonds to set the record, while only 34 percent of non-Hispanic white baseball fans hope he passes Hank Aaron’s record. The results mark a significant jump among minorities. Last October, just 34 percent in an AP-AOL poll were rooting for Bonds to make history.”

• Ketan N. Gandhi, president and publisher at the Home News Tribune in East Brunswick, N.J., is additionally becoming publisher of The Courier News in Bridgewater, N.J., the Gannett Co. announced on Tuesday. When Gandhi, an Indian immigrant, was named publisher of the Home News Tribune in 2005, he became the first South Asian publisher of a U.S. daily newspaper.
• Kami Boyd, meteorologist at WFIE-TV in Evansville, Ind., was found guilty in an attempted shoplifting case, Kate Braser reported on Tuesday in the Evansville Courier & Press. “Boyd was accused of trying to steal $419 worth of business suits from J.C. Penney . . . Days after the charges were filed, Boyd requested an investigation by the Evansville chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. WFIE General Manager Lucy Himstedt attended the trial. She would not comment on the case or Boyd’s employment status, saying the case was a personal issue for Boyd and a personnel issue for the station.”
• Aly Colon, who for 10 years has taught journalists at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., is leaving to become diversity program manager in Seattle at Safeco, an insurance company, Keith M. Woods wrote in his Poynter Institute column. “Aly became a voice for ethical journalism as well as diversity, leading Poynter’s ethics and diversity programs during some of the industry’s more infamous meltdowns,” Woods wrote last week.

• “Somebody better hose down Sukanya Krishnan,” according to the Wednesday Page Six feature in the New York Post. “The sexy TV newsgal got so tongue-tied when one of her favorite hunks, Blair Underwood, came on the CW11 ‘Morning News’ yesterday, she introduced him as ‘Blair Wonderwood.’ Krishnan went on to call the actor, who was on to promote his new book, ‘Casanegra,’ ‘my little fantasy man,’ before co-anchor John Muller urged her to ‘cool off.'”
• The Radio and Television News Directors Foundation has selected 12 people for a two-week, expenses-paid fellowship to Germany this fall for broadcast journalists: Cheryl Bacon, video editor, KTTV/KCOP TV in Los Angeles; Doris Bergman, producer, NY1 News in New York; Deb Brunswick, news assistant, CNN; Noel Cisneros, reporter, KGO-TV in San Francisco; Kathy-Ann Gobin, producer, WTNH-TV in New Haven, Conn.; Deanne Goodman, anchor/reporter, KTVZ-TV in Bend, Ore.; David Louie, business editor, KGO-TV; Paul Martella, associate producer, KTTV; Petra Mayer, associate producer, National Public Radio; Sandy Rathbun, reporter, KVOA-TV in Tucson, Ariz.; Marilyn Torres, reporter, RCN News; and Robert Wilson, reporter, KSFY-TV in Sioux Falls, S.D.
• In Haiti, “Police assisted by peacekeepers deployed by the United Nations Mission for the Stabilisation of Haiti (MINUSTAH) have arrested Remilien ‘Ti Nasson’ Emmanuel, a gang member suspected of participating in the 16 May murder of Radio-TeleProvinciale manager and presenter Alix Joseph in the northern city of Gonaives,” according to Reporters Without Borders.
• “South Africa’s public broadcaster will this week launch a rolling news network that aims to provide a uniquely African perspective in a market previously dominated by Western broadcasters,” Isaac Mangena reported Wednesday from Johannesburg for the Mail & Guardian. South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) News International will have bureaus in Washington, London and Brussels. “But for viewers who are fed up with the Western bias from English language broadcasters including BBC World and CNN, the new channel can also boast bureaux in less prominent capitals such as Nairobi, Kinshasa and Dakar,” the story said.
• “Ethiopia’s High Court today handed down harsh criminal penalties, including life prison sentences, against six journalists and three publishers on anti-state charges in connection with critical coverage of the government during the deadly unrest in the aftermath of disputed parliamentary elections in 2005, according to local journalists,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported on Monday.
• “A Sunday newspaper has enjoyed its biggest circulation since the death of Princess Diana thanks to a . . . deal to give away Prince’s new album,” Dominic White reported in the London Telegraph. “The Mail on Sunday’s controversial covermount of the pop star’s ‘Planet Earth’ album boosted its sales by almost a third at the weekend.” Would-be sellers began offering the CD on eBay, and some bought multiple copies of the paper simply to resell the CD, the Telegraph said.