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ABC Radio Says Imus Lures Advertisers

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On Cable, Rural Channel Reported Closing Deal

Don Imus’ new employer says the New York talk-show hosts he is replacing were dumped because it was believed Imus could bring in more advertising dollars. Phil Boyce, vice president for programming at the ABC News-Talk stations, also said of Imus, “I don’t think he’s going to repeat” the kind of incident that got him fired from CBS Radio and MSNBC in April.

 

 

“Really, the opportunity here is from an advertising side,” Boyce said Friday on Michel Martin’s “Tell Me More” show on National Public Radio. “Imus’s advertisers are big and we think that we could bring some of them over here.” He said, “We weren’t unhappy with Curtis and Kuby,” a reference to Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby, who were bumped from New York’s WABC-AM to make room for Imus, who starts on the station on Dec. 3.

Meanwhile, the Nashville Tennessean reported Monday that officials of “RFD-TV, the seemingly sleepy Nashville-based cable channel focusing on rural America,” are expected to announce they will simulcast the new Imus show, “a move that should boost their current reach of 30 million homes to more than 50 million by the end of 2008.

“Patrick Gottsch, RFD-TV founder and president, would only confirm that the network, home to farm-related programs and country and polka music shows, was in talks with Imus,” Beverly Keel wrote, but said Gottsch added, “The biggest obstacle we’ve had in the last three years is convincing urban-based program directors in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, and so on that they need to be carrying this ‘rural’ network. Imus helps us cross those borders.”

Citadel Broadcasting Corp. announced Thursday that Imus will return to the airwaves on WABC, only nine months after the radio host’s on-air statement calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed ho’s” created an uproar. The show will be syndicated nationally by the ABC Radio Network, the announcement said.

Until Martin’s show, neither Citadel nor ABC News-Talk officials had elaborated on that announcement. Citadel has steadfastly refused to meet with the National Association of Black Journalists, which had called for “dialogue” with Citadel before Imus’ return, or with other groups that had expressed concern, such as the National Organization for Women.

Boyce disagreed that Imus lost his show in April because advertisers pulled out.

“Well, I don’t know if that’s true that his advertisers abandoned the show,” he said. “I know that when the initial controversy occurred, a lot of advertisers said, ‘pull my spots for a while.’ CBS didn’t really give him a chance to ride that out. They suspended him for two weeks and then several days into the suspension decided to pull the plug. So I don’t think we ever really knew for sure what the long-term negative effect would have been. My feeling is a lot of those advertisers would have come back. He apologized 100 times for what he said. He was forgiven by the Rutgers basketball team. They didn’t say that he should be fired. So I just think they would have been back, and I think we’ll find out here in about a month.”

“What are you hearing so far?” Martin asked.

“So far, I’m hearing good things,” Boyce said. “Obviously, there’s some good and there’s some bad, but I think for the most part, a lot of people are excited to hear him back. I think he’ll have a lot to say. He hasn’t said anything publicly since this thing occurred. I think that first show on December 3rd here on WABC in New York will be huge. And I think everybody will be listening and want to know what this guy has to say and we just all have to listen.”

In a discussion that followed, E.R. Shipp, a journalism professor at Hofstra University and former columnist at the New York Daily News, agreed that, “in a capitalist society . . . it’s the money that counts. So his corporate bosses have decided that they can make money off of Imus. What we need to decide is whether the advertisers come back to Imus, and I think that’s where we have power to exert.”

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, said of the larger media discussion of Imus, “Who’s missing from this dialogue? Black women, of course. It’s ironic that the very people who were disrespected continue to get no respect. They don’t even have a voice in a debate that centers on their image and their morals. Nothing seems to have changed from a little more than six months ago when Imus-gate broke.

“Maybe things have gotten worse. Imus has more fans than ever, standing up for his First Amendment right, not only to spew bile but to do so with the high profile megaphone. For him, it’s redemption without penance, or even a promise to do better. The scandal may be the best thing that happened to his career.”

Meanwhile, onetime television talk show host Dick Cavett defended Imus and denounced NABJ in a blog on the New York Times Web site, one of several commentaries in the last few days.

“A program enjoyed (and missed) by millions was trashed for the sake of the few. No one who contributed to the denouement of the Imus show and the mindless abuse heaped on him has anything to be proud of,” Cavett wrote.

Of the “nappy headed ho’s” comment, Cavett said, “He threw in a bit of slang as he might have about laundry if it had been a Chinese team, or garlic or Mafia if Italian, or the turistas if they had been from south of the border, or Nazis if from Argentina. Not everybodyâ??s favorite kind of humor, but easily tolerated — although clearly not by some — for all the good stuff in the other 239 minutes of the show.”

He continued, “A particularly painful sight has been the performance of members of the National Association of Black Journalists, clubbing and pounding the radio/television host as if he were a Grand Kleagle. They, too, want him to remain exiled to Elba,” Cavett wrote.

The blog item, written Friday, had generated 277 comments by noon on Monday. The breadth of the comments demonstrated that the Imus topic defies simplistic analysis, though one respondent told Cavett, who turns 71 in two weeks, “Youâ??re in danger of becoming a nasty Andy Rooney.”

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Cockfield Named Press Secretary to N.Y. Governor

Errol A. Cockfield Jr., who left Newsday this year to take a job as press secretary for New York’s Empire State Development Corp., the state’s development authority, is changing jobs again: Gov. Eliot Spitzer has hired him as his press secretary, James M. Odato reported Friday in the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union.

 

 

Cockfield was Newsday’s Albany bureau chief, board member of the National Association of Black Journalists, and a former president of the New York Association of Black Journalists when he left Newsday in February. Spitzer is hiring Cockfield and, as a senior adviser, veteran Albany lobbyist Bruce Gyory at a time when the Spitzer administration has been “taking a public relations beating since midsummer,” Odato wrote.

Cockfield, 34, gets a raise — from $130,000 to $150,000.

“Both come in at a turbulent time for the administration, with lawmakers in both houses, particularly Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno and Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, expressing frustration with Spitzer’s driver licensing policies and complaining of his autocratic style,” Odato said.

Spitzer has come under fire for a proposal to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, which became an issue in the Democratic presidential debate last week when Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., was criticized for what her opponents called contradictory answers on whether she supported Spitzer’s plan.

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Parsons Out as Time Warner CEO, Remains Chair

“Time Warner Inc., under pressure from investors to wring more profit from its AOL division and cable unit, named Jeffrey Bewkes chief executive officer, succeeding Richard Parsons as the head of the world’s largest media company,” Gillian Wee reported on Monday for Bloomberg News.

“Bewkes, 55, has been Time Warner’s president and chief operating officer since January 2006. Parsons, 59, will remain chairman, the New York-based company said today in a statement. The changes are effective Jan. 1.

“Time Warner’s new chief is the architect of efforts to revive the AOL Internet business. Sales at the Web unit have tumbled since the company stopped charging subscribers for services and instead focused on attracting advertisers. Shares of Time Warner have lagged behind those of News Corp. and Walt Disney Co. this year.

“Parsons, the former president of Dime Bancorp, a New York savings and loan, joined Time Warner’s board in 1991 and impressed then-CEO Gerald Levin, who made him his No. 2 in 1995. Parsons is also on the board of Citigroup Inc. and yesterday was appointed to head a group that will find the bank’s next CEO following the resignation of Charles O. Prince.

 

 

 

“A lawyer by training, Parsons got his start working as an aide in New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s office. He became CEO in 2002 after Levin quit amid record losses tied to the combination of Time Warner and America Online, and added the role of chairman a year later when AOL founder Steve Case left.

“As CEO, Parsons cut costs and jobs at Time Inc. in response to shrinking ad sales at the publishing division. He fended off pressure last year from billionaire Carl Icahn to break up the company by agreeing to buy back shares, and he sparked growth at the cable unit, the company’s fastest-growing division for 14 quarters, with the acquisition of Adelphia territories.”

The replacement of Parsons, the highest-ranking African American in a publicly traded media company, follows by a week the ouster of Stanley O’Neal at Merrill Lynch. Some black columnists who commented on O’Neal’s ouster noted a January 2002 Newsweek cover featuring Parsons, O’Neal and Ken Chenault of American Express that carried the legend, “The New Black Power.”

But the columnists differed over the significance of the latest developments to black power or to race in general.

“There are still only five total African-American CEOs in the Fortune 500, according to Black Enterprise magazine,” Clarence Page noted last Wednesday in the Chicago Tribune. “That’s a setback, but the success of these pioneers is a sign that history is moving in the right direction.”

“The emergence of these black Fortune 100 executives was indeed historic, but the real watershed moment is now — and whether corporate leadership opportunities for other African Americans and ethnic minorities continue,” Stan Simpson wrote Saturday in the Hartford Courant. “Here’s the deal when it comes to folks of color who ascend to lead roles in the workplace: Their success is overly magnified, but so too are their shortcomings. When they fail it can result in white managers’ being less inclined to hire and promote outside their race.”

In the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson related the men’s rise to the purpose of affirmative action:

“What’s really significant is that there is a Stan O’Neal. And a Dick Parsons,” he wrote a week ago. “And a Ken Chenault, the African American CEO of American Express, who is staying put, far as I know. And a Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, widely acknowledged as the first African American billionaire.

“Just two or three generations removed from slavery, they rose to control big chunks of the American economy. They attained Master of the Universe status by being smarter and tougher than their peers — and now a much bigger cohort of black corporate executives is coming up behind them.

“It just goes to show what happens when you open a door.”

Syndicated columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson agreed, but with a caveat.

“Fifty companies appear on Fortune Magazineâ??s list of corporations with the best track record for diversity. Minorities made up almost 21 percent of their boardrooms in 2003, compared with 11 percent two years earlier. The figures almost certainly have edged up even more since then,” he wrote.

“But for every one of the 50 corporations that makes diversity more than a buzz word, there are dozens more that pat themselves on the back for having one Latino, Asian or African American on their board, or for hiring a handful in lower-level management positions.”

In February, Parsons said on CNN’s “In the Money” that Time Warner was “redoubling” its diversity efforts but that “the place where we have the most difficulty is among our journalists.”

Paula Zahn asked Parsons, “Are you satisfied when you look around at your own company? Basically our newsroom, when you look behind me?”

Parsons replied: “The answer is no, I’m not satisfied. So we’re sort of redoubling our efforts. Although we’ve done . . . probably as much as any major diversified media company in America . . . the pace of change has still been slow. Interestingly enough, the place where we have the most difficulty is among our journalists.”

“Why do you think that is?” Zahn asked.

“I think because to a real extent, journalism is like priesthood, and certain experiences and schoolings and schools that you have to go to become a member of the club. And so, again, you have that pipeline problem. We have a number of people who are sort of moving up, who went to the right schools and had the right experiences. But it is breaking down those barriers that existed that aren’t even necessarily intentionally constructed, but it is the way things were.

“When you’re looking for new journalists, people that are looking go out and find, replicate themselves. They try to find folks that went to the same schools, same orientation, the same sort of prior experiences. And if — if you don’t have enough, in this case, minorities who had those experiences, they simply come back and say, I can’t find qualified candidates. What we’ve done, we put a big focus on hiring people who can put the lie to that myth.”

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Pakistan Escalates Efforts to Silence Press

“Pakistan’s government has escalated its efforts since the weekend to silence the press by harassing journalists, attempting to shut down printing presses, and ordering that articles critical of the government be altered, Pakistani journalists told CPJ,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday.

“According to news editors at the Urdu-language Daily Ausaf in Islamabad and at the Express in Lahore, the papers were given written orders from officials to alter articles critical of the government that were to appear today. In Quetta, police tried to stop staff and video photographers of the independent station ARY One World TV. In Karachi, police were unable to stop the printing of a special supplement of the daily Awam, owned by the English-language Daily Jang, part of the larger Jang Group of media companies, after they had entered the paper’s press room. There was no violence, and police apparently backed down after meeting with resistance from the paper’s employees, according to newsroom staff.

“Opposition groups claim that 3,500 lawyers, members of the political opposition, and human rights groups have been detained since Saturday, but the government has said the number is about half that. There have been no reports of widespread journalist detentions despite rumors of an imminent crackdown.”

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“Dog the Bounty Hunter” Pulled Indefinitely

“Two days after a tape surfaced with network star Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman repeatedly using the n-word, A&E said Friday afternoon that it was pulling all episodes of ‘Dog The Bounty Hunter’ from the air,” Steve Donohue reported Friday for Multichannel News.

“In evaluating the circumstances of the last few days, A&E has decided to take ‘Dog The Bounty Hunter’ off the network’s schedule for the foreseeable future,” A&E said in prepared statement. “We hope that Mr. Chapman continues the healing process that he has begun.”

“A&E suspended Chapman last Wednesday, after the National Enquirer posted an audio clip of Chapman on his Web site using the n-word. ‘Dog,’ which debuted on A&E in 2004, was one of the first reality shows A&E added to its schedule.

“On the audiotape, Chapman is heard using the n-word several times in a telephone conversation with his son Tucker. Chapman expresses his displeasure that Tucker is dating an African American, warning that she could jeopardize the show if she overhears Chapman and his team using the n-word.

“‘I don’t care if she’s a Mexican, a whore, whatever. It’s not because she’s black. It’s because we use the word n—– sometimes here,’ Chapman tells his son. “I’m not going to take a chance ever in life of losing everything I’ve worked for 30 years because some fuâ??ing n—- heard us saying n—–.”

“The Associated Press reported on Friday that Tucker Chapman taped the phone call with his father, and sold it to the Enquirer.”

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Editor Apologizes, Seeks Better Community Ties

The Indianapolis Star, after making a public apology at a community news conference over racial remarks made by an ousted black editorial writer, will look for diversity in filling three vacancies at the paper and work to improve its damaged community ties, Editor Dennis Ryerson told Journal-isms.

 

 

“Newspapers in most communities are referred to by readers with these words: ‘Our newspaper,'” Ryerson wrote to the Star staff on Thursday. “You don’t hear that reference to The Star in Indy’s black communities. We must do better.”

As reported on Wednesday, the Star ousted editorial writer RiShawn Biddle five days after he wrote a racially charged blog posting blasting the city and county council president. Both Biddle and the politician are African American.

Riddle’s blog entry was titled, “The Indianapolis Black Democrat minstrel show,” and originally made references to “coons.” The editorial writer sent e-mails alerting readers to the posting.

It read in part, according to blogger Ruth Holladay, “Then there’s the embarrassing spectacle that is Monroe Gray, whose tenure as city-county council president is being marked by a lack of decorum during council sessions, the videos of himself on YouTube and responses to allegations of corruption that wouldn’t be acceptable to a child who claimed his dog ate the homework. His act, more Zip Coon than honorable statesman, epitomizes the lack of seriousness some Black politicians show in their work; it’s just inexcusable.”

Ryerson acknowledged that the Star was at fault for allowing Biddle to post directly to the Internet. “They’re supposed to have things reviewed by an editor. It was not applied in this case. But it was clearly communicated” that “We don’t use that language,” Ryerson told Journal-isms.

Riddle himself changed the wording a number of times, but the damage was done.

“Black politicians got together yesterday,” Amos Brown, WTLC-AM radio host and Indianapolis Recorder columnist, told Journal-isms after Thursday’s news conference. “They considered what RaShawn posted to be the last straw” regarding “the Star’s negative portrayals of African Americans.” He said Biddle’s posting would have been considered fair comment had he not used the word “coon.”

 

 

Brown said the politicians scheduled a news conference Thursday morning in Martin Luther King Park, where they and other community leaders demanded an apology from the newspaper.

“‘Words clearly can be as violent as a pistol blow. It hurts people,’ said Dennis Hayes, interim NAACP national president,” Sandra Chapman reported for WTHR-TV. Hayes, who is from Indianapolis, was in the city as the NAACP joined a racial discrimination case against Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co., as the Associated Press reported.

“Star editor and vice president Dennis Ryerson stood in agreement with [the] NAACP and with regret,” Chapman’s report continued. “‘I apologize for the remarks that are posted on our Web site,’ he said. ‘That remark has been removed. All of that individual’s postings have been removed. We disassociate ourselves from those comments. We do so vigorously. . . . our standards were communicated. The person is no longer with the newspaper.'”

State Rep. Bill Crawford, D-Indianapolis, “challenged the Star, urging leadership to hold additional staffers accountable and not make Biddle what he called the sacrificial lamb.”

When Ryerson returned to the newspaper, he sent a note to the staff stating that he had apologized at the rally and that Biddle’s comments “were hugely detrimental to our efforts to promote a civil and constructive community conversation. The Star is a community leader, and we surely must live by what we expect of others,” the note said.

 

“We must redouble our efforts to ensure fair and balanced coverage,” he continued. “We must be an advocate for those who don’t have advocates. We must ensure that when we write stories and profile leading contributors to community successes, we include all of our communities. We must be a leader in promoting thoughtful, smart, sensitive and civil discussions of critical issues, including issues of racism and bigotry.”

Ryerson told Journal-isms he would seek diversity in filling the editorial writing vacancy and two others: that of metro editor and news editor in charge of the night operation.

Brown, who is also director of strategic research for Radio One/Indianapolis, said on his radio show that the Star should apologize for the racial remarks just as radio host Don Imus and comedian Michael Richards had elsewhere. He told Journal-isms the newspaper “has always had a problem hiring and retaining qualified African Americans.” Moreover, “we know the Star is there, but the Star under Gannett really hasn’t bonded with the community.”

Describing Indianapolis as “a big small town,” Brown said it was important for the newspaper to sponsor community events and for its editors to get out into the city. Some Star journalists who did so, such as James Patterson, Courteney Edelhart and the late Lynn Ford, are no longer at the paper, he said.

Moreover, a Star policy that forbids reporters from accepting awards from community groups creates another barrier, Brown said. He said Star reporters could not even receive an award named after Ford, who died in 2002, that is presented by Indiana Black Expo and the Indianapolis Association of Black Journalists.

That might be a misunderstanding.

“I wasn’t even aware of this,” Ryerson told Journal-isms. “IABJ is a journalism organization and of course this isn’t even an issue! I’m pleased that they are recognizing him! Amos, and I like him, has consistently misconstrued our rule. We’ve always said that awards from journalism [groups] are welcome and appreciated.”

However, he said, “We don’t as a rule accept ‘journalism’ awards from community organizations. It’s my view that organizations give these awards to promote more coverage or ‘favorable’ coverage of their special interest. I don’t want to send the message that we need awards to cover the news fairly.”

An exception: “We certainly want to encourage community involvement, and if a staffer is engaged in some community project and therefore gets an award, that is fine with us.”

Meanwhile, the Indianapolis blogosphere continued to discuss Biddle and the Star, with some bloggers saying it was inappropriate for Ryerson to attend the rally, as it was originally a Democratic Party political event.

Nationally, Roger Ailes, which also happens to be the name of the chairman of Fox News, said on his blog that Biddle had been a “failed blogger.” “Return to the wingnutosphere, Mr. Biddle,” this Ailes wrote on his site, which notes that it is “Not affiliated with Fox News Channel or any other houses of ill-repute.”

“You’ll soon be rolling in . . . thousands of comments about how unfair it is that white folks — and conservatives— just can’t use some perfectly good words.” This Roger Ailes appears not to be the same one who runs Fox News.

Steve Jefferson, a crime reporter at WTHR-TV who is president of the Indianapolis Association of Black Journalists, said he expected to return to Brown’s radio show, where he regularly appears, “hopefully to start a dialogue so it will be a learning time.

“We don’t want any more Mr. Biddles to think they can say anything about someone of the same race because they are of the same race,” Jefferson said.

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Detroit TV Reporter Writes About His “Turning White”

“For a while, Lee Thomas admits, he was an ‘angry spotted guy,'” Julie Hinds wrote Wednesday in the Detroit Free Press.

“The Fox 2 (WJBK-TV) reporter, who’s known for his upbeat entertainment coverage, is usually a happy-go-lucky presence on the air.

“But a few years ago, Thomas was hit hard by the progression of a disorder called vitiligo, which destroys some or all of the pigmentation that gives skin its color.

“A low point came while he was doing a story where preschool kids tested out a new playscape. When a little girl stared at his hands, which had turned about half white but were dotted with splotches of his natural brown color, she burst into tears.

“The moment stuck with him. After he finished work, ‘I went home, I washed my face and I just sat there for thirty minutes, just trying to get it together,’ says Thomas. He thought to himself, ‘Wow, you scare small children.’

“These days, Thomas, who’s 40, talks about that incident like someone who’s arrived at a good place but who doesn’t want to forget the road he’s traveled to get there.

“His new book, ‘Turning White: A Memoir of Change’ ($14.95, Momentum Books), is an intimate look at his journey since his diagnosis during the mid-1990s.

“. . . Thomas wears makeup at work so his skin won’t distract interview subjects and viewers. ‘If they’re wondering what’s up with this guy’s face, that means they didn’t hear 30 seconds of what I’m saying,’ he explains.

“Off the clock, he goes without makeup, which suits his active gym-going lifestyle and his personality. . . . He describes it as a tough choice at first. People would stop in their tracks and stare or exclaim things like, ‘Oh my God.’ He avoided going to parties, because alcohol made people more talkative about his skin. ‘I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a party when a guy will come over and go, “Hey man, you’re almost as white as me.” OK, that was funny the first 20 times.'”

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Racists Flock to Online Stories About Race

In the online comments section below any newspaper commentary by an African American staff columnist, one can usually find racist or clueless remarks, even if only of the “there you go again, writing about race” variety. But that’s not the only place those comments thrive, Tim Post reported Wednesday for Minnesota Public Radio.

“It’s the hot-button issues like politics, abortion and crime, that really fire people up in Story Chat on the St. Cloud Times Web site,” Post wrote.

“But when the site carries a story that has anything to do with race, the comments pour in even faster, resulting in hundreds of postings in a few hours. Visitors, who aren’t required to offer their real names on screen, often trade messages littered with racial stereotypes.

“Some worry those comments make the community look bad. In fact, it’s an issue that St. Cloud State University professor [Malcolm] Nazareth brought up at a recent public hearing on racial profiling in St. Cloud.

“When the story about that racial profiling hearing hit the St. Cloud Times Web site just a few hours later, the response was no surprise. Within 24 hours, there were nearly 800 postings, many with their usual fervor.”

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Coalition Prods FCC on Minority Ownership

A coalition of organizations of color Thursday asked the Federal Communications Commission to create “an independent task force to conduct a specific inquiry into the impact of market concentration on female and minority ownership before moving forward with issuing any new ownership rules for broadcast media.

“On its face, the Commission’s movement toward eliminating media ownership limits appears to severely undercut its statutory and moral obligation to promote minority ownership of broadcast stations,” the groups said. “The failure of the FCC to even acknowledge this contradiction is deeply troubling, and this letter is intended to highlight the problem and propose a course of action.We appreciate that you are open to the idea of creating a task force to thoroughly study the policy goal of promoting minority ownership of broadcast stations. But we are alarmed by recent reports indicating that you will not wait until the work of such a task force is completed before issuing new rules that may permit further media consolidation. This is not acceptable. An uninformed rush to eliminate ownership limits may set back the expansion of minority ownership by a generation and leave us little recourse.”

According to StopBigMedia.com, racial and ethnic minorities make up 33 percent of the U.S. population, yet own only 7.7 percent of full-power radio stations and 3.26 percent of television stations.

Signing the letter are Rainbow PUSH, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the National Council of La Raza, the Asian American Justice Center, the Hip Hop Caucus, the National Congress of Black Women, Native Public Media, National Institute for Latino Policy, Urban League, Industry Ears, League of United Latin American Citizens, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Independent Spanish Broadcasters Association, Black Leadership Forum, Cuban American National Council, Latino Literacy Now, National Association of Hispanic Publications, National Association of Latino Independent Producers, Latino Gerontological Center and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

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Bailey Killing Looks Like Hundreds of Others

“The brazen daylight murder of Chauncey Bailey may seem like an aberration because it happened in the United States,” Frank Smyth, journalist security coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, wrote Wednesday for the committee. “But his case looks a lot like the hundreds of other journalist slayings that have occurred around the world in the past 15 years. Much like Bailey, most journalists killed on the job are local reporters digging into corruption and crime. Bailey was by all accounts fearless in pursuing such stories.

“‘Chauncey didn’t believe in alluding to anything,’ his publisher, Paul Cobb, told CPJ in an interview at the offices of the Oakland Post. ‘He went right to it.’

“Moreover, the murder of a journalist in the United States, though rare over the past decade, is not as unusual as one might think. (Two U.S. journalists were among those who died while on duty in 2001: one in the World Trade Center attacks and the other in an anthrax attack.) Between 1976 and 1993, 12 journalists were assassinated in the United States. Ten out of the 12 were immigrant journalists reporting in their first language (Vietnamese, French, Chinese, or Spanish) to immigrant communities, and all but a few of those murders remain unsolved.”

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Amy Goodman Presses On Despite Bell’s Palsy

“Bell’s palsy. It hit suddenly a month ago,” Amy Goodman, host of Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy, Now!” wrote in her column Wednesday for King Features Syndicate.

“I had just stepped off a plane in New York, and my friend noticed the telltale sagging lip. It felt like Novocain. I raced to the emergency room. The doctors prescribed a weeklong course of steroids and antivirals. The following day it got worse. I had to make a decision: Do I host ‘Democracy Now!,’ our daily news broadcast, on Monday? I could speak perfectly well, and I’m tired of seeing women (and men) on TV who look like they just stepped off the set of ‘Dynasty.’ Maybe if they see a person they trust to deliver the news, still there, but just looking a little lopsided, it might change their view of friends and family —or strangers, for that matter — who are struggling with some health issue.

“Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia anyone can edit, stated that I had suffered a stroke. So on Tuesday I decided to tell viewers and listeners that I was suffering from a temporary bout of Bell’s palsy, that it wasn’t painful and that “the doctors tell me I will be back to my usual self in the next few weeks. In the meantime, it just makes it a little harder to smile. But so does the world.”

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Graves Says Blacks Should Stop Defaming Selves

Black Enterprise magazine founder Earl G. Graves Sr. didn’t have much to say publicly after he pulled the plug on foul-mouthed comedian Eddie Griffin over the Labor Day weekend at the 14th Annual Black Enterprise/Pepsi Golf & Tennis Challenge.

But Graves devoted his column to the incident Monday on blackenterprise.com.

“Today, we live in a society happy to watch black people denigrate themselves, a culture that sees such self-denigration as a form of entertainment—and a lucrative one at that,” Graves wrote. “The worst, most profane and self-destructive of the black community are celebrated in comedy, music, television, and film in the name of ‘keeping it real.’ Worse, not only do too few of us stand up against the public defamation of black people, too many of us defend such defamation and engage in it ourselves. It has been noted, and is worth repeating, that this is true of no other race or ethnic group in America.

“I say: Enough is enough! So long as we permit the celebration of ignorance over intelligence and profit from the desecration of our time-honored values and traditions—allowing a culture of gold teeth, sagging pants, disdain for education, disrespect for women, glorification of criminality, low ambition, and irresponsible sexual behavior to be regarded as authentically black—we are destined to march back into the margins of society, into the shadows that so many heroes and heroines of our history fought so hard to escape.”

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