Sun-Times Lays Off 2 Journalists of Color, Saves 1
Two journalists of color were laid off at the Chicago Sun-Times and a third was promoted after the newspaper management locked horns with the Newspaper Guild of Chicago over the impact of its downsizing on diversity, Editor in Chief Michael Cooke told Journal-isms on Thursday.
Let go were reporters Leonard N. Fleming, who a year ago had been laid off at the Philadelphia Inquirer and is African American, and columnist Esther J. Cepeda, who is Latina. Norman Parish, a recent hire from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who is African American, was spared a layoff by being promoted to the night city desk, Cooke said. A black journalist in lower management was said to have accepted a buyout, but that person could not be reached.
“I feel terrible, terrible, especially for Leonard and Esther,” Cooke said. “It is an awful, awful thing. The truth is there are really no bad guys, as far as I can tell. We went into this reduction with the union contract in our hands, and we wanted to keep as many minorities as we could. They say the union contract is all about seniority and they would not budge. Their position did not change,” Cooke said of the guild.
Union leaders Misha Davenport and Bob Mizzone did not respond to requests for comment.
As reported two weeks ago, black journalists Avis Weathersbee, assistant managing editor, and editorial board member Michelle Stevens were among five Sun-Times newsroom employees in the first round of layoffs Jan. 10 as the parent Sun-Times Media Group attempts to slash $50 million in operating costs.
Dave Carpenter reported Thursday for the Associated Press that the tabloid “has laid off 17 reporters and editors and cut another 12 newsroom jobs through voluntary buyout packages as part of a push to drastically reduce costs.
“Fourteen full-time and three part-time newsroom staff members were notified of their layoffs in Wednesday night telephone calls from their bosses,” he wrote, although Fleming told Journal-isms he was working then and was told in person.
“Misha Davenport, the Newspaper Guild’s co-chairman at the Sun-Times . . . noted it was better than feared because of the buyout packages accepted voluntarily.
“Parent Sun-Times Media Group Inc. had said earlier this month that it planned to eliminate as many as 35 union-covered jobs in the newsroom of the city’s second-largest newspaper, or nearly 20 percent of what formerly was a total of 188 Guild-covered jobs. The final tally could now end up being 32, including three vacant positions.”
Fleming, 38, told Journal-isms he expected to be laid off because of the seniority rules, and had already removed many of his belongings from the building. “I’m not sure what direction I want to take,” he said, noting that the Sun-Times had been his fourth newspaper. He began his career at the Indianapolis Star and worked at the old Houston Post, and was lured to the Sun-Times partly because he grew up in Chicago’s western suburbs. “Even though I don’t want to leave the business that I love, I have to consider leaving the business,” Fleming said.
He added, “I remember the hurt and denial many folks had in Houston. While I was on the phone looking for a job the minute the paper closed, they were hoisting beer and whiskey hidden in their desks. . . . I’ve learned that as a black man in this business, you can never get too comfortable.”
Cepeda, 34, said she wants to keep writing her column. She wrote a news column and a sports column simultaneously, she said. “I was in the paper three times a week” until the newspaper started getting smaller. She had been at the Sun-Times only a year and a half. Born and raised in Chicago, Cepeda said the Sun-Times taught her to read. “I didn’t speak English until my first day of kindergarten,” she said. Cepeda worked as a schoolteacher before coming to the newspaper, and said she now wants to work for a publication with an even larger circulation.
Noting the nation’s changing demographics, she said of Hispanic journalists, “There aren’t that many of us. I’d love to keep bringing that voice.”
The National Association of Black Journalists and its Chicago chapter both urged union and management to consider diversity when the cutbacks were made, Fleming said. A year ago, when the parent company of the Philadelphia Inquirer laid off up to 71 newsroom employees, or about 17 percent of the editorial staff. NABJ, the Asian American Journalists Association and Unity: Journalists of Color protested the disproportionate numbers of journalists of color on the list. Management and the Newspaper Guild each blamed the other for that outcome, then negotiated a small number of reinstatements.
Because so many white journalists were laid off at the Sun-Times, the diversity numbers might actually increase, Cooke said. But he said that editors who find themselves in his situation should know that “You’ve got to jump through hoops to save the minorities, and if you’ve got a union contract, you’ve got to push it as far as you can.”
The Sun-Times readership is about 30 percent African American and 15 percent Hispanic, he said.
Fleming said, “The time has come where unions have to be asked and have to be cajoled by the NABJs of the world to start taking diversity into consideration, because we’re the first fired and last hired in an oftentimes punitive seniority system.”
Journalists left standing had mixed emotions.
“It was a relief, but I feel for the other folks,” Parish, a Chicago native, said of his promotion. “I feel blessed. I’ve been there before.” In 1997, Parish was among 60 reporters laid off when the Arizona Republic closed its afternoon sister paper, the Phoenix Gazette.
Reporter Monifa Thomas, a black journalist who said she would have been next in line to be laid off, said, “I feel relieved, but also very sad. I’m watching people that I care about pick up their stuff. It’s not as if there are any winners in this.”
Deborah Yao, Associated Press: Inquirer Publisher Seeks More Cost Cuts
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Race Continues as Subtext in Democratic Campaign
Race seems to be increasing as a factor in commentary about the Democratic presidential race, with former Bill Clinton political adviser Dick Morris predicting in print that Sen. Hillary Clinton “will power her drive to the nomination” by emphasizing the African American vote in this Saturday’s South Carolina primary, making Sen. Barack Obama “the black candidate.”
On Slate.com, in a piece called “How Obama Can Escape His Ghetto,” Mickey Kaus proposed a way out of this dilemma:
“The more obvious move is to find a Sister Souljah— after Saturday —to stiff arm. The most promising candidate is not a person, but an idea: race-based affirmative action. Obama has already made noises about shifting to a class-based, race-blind system of preferences. What if he made that explicit? Wouldn’t that shock hostile white voters into taking a second look at his candidacy?
In another development, after protests, a weekly newspaper on the East End of Long Island, N.Y., the Independent, apologized for a “humor” column “that was supposed to satirically address the increasing hostility” between Clinton and Obama.
It began, “My name is YoMama Bin Barack . . . I hope someday people will call me President Doctor YoMama (but please don’t call me Luther, I hate that name).
“. . . I was telling this very thing to my wife AliBama the other night while we were in bed, umm, praying.”
Meanwhile, Eric Easter of ebonyjet.com Wednesday linked the campaign in South Carolina to the fight over media consolidation.
“Not to be all self-serving, but an article I did back in August about how media consolidation would begin to impact politics is bearing out, according to our crack reporter, Adrienne Samuels, who’s down in South Carolina looking for some red meat for us,” he wrote on his blog.
“As she noticed, Black talk radio, which would normally be blowing up the airwaves as part of the Get Out The Vote effort, is non-existent in this particular South Carolina race.
“Why? It’s all Clear Channel-owned stations in the major markets. Steve Harvey, Tom Joyner and a host of other syndicated content in the morning and throughout the dayparts. That means little to no local radio mobilization, no on the spot reports of violations or obstructions at precincts come election day, no chance for Obama or Edwards or Clinton to call in to radio stations and talk for 20 minutes directly to someone who can force them to contextualize their arguments for a specific audience with specific issues. . . .
“Not that Joyner et al have no power to organize, of course. But in the trenches the local angle works much better. The ability of a voter to call in immediately and say he or she had trouble at the polls puts an immense amount of power at the hands of the guy in the street. A huge tool in black political organizing is gradually being lost.”
Todd Gitlin, Nieman Watchdog: Eight questions reporters should ask Obama
Uzodinma Iweala, Los Angeles Times: Racism in ‘post-racial’ America
Gregory Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com: Who’s the Real Threat — A ‘Muslim’ Obama or the Fools Who Believe and Spread Untrue Claims?
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: What’s Gotten Into Bill?
Ahmed Soliman, the Record, Hackensack, N.J.: Language, terror and healing
Ira Teinowitz, TV Week: FCC Rejects Kucinich Complaint About CNN Debate
Maeley Tom, AsianWeek: Asians Choosing Sides in the Democratic Presidential Race
Dorreen Yellow Bird, Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald: Race, gender cards enliven ’08 deck
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Jena Six Reflection Revives Talk of a “Race Beat”
The story of the Jena Six — a racial conflict at the high school in Jena, La., that led last fall to a massive demonstration in the town — “was the property of black bloggers and radio hosts, two local papers and activists,” Raquel Christie writes in the February/March issue of American Journalism Review. “Only after they had interpreted it, only after they had dissected it, only after they had decided the right and the wrong of it —and dedicated a movement, the Afrospear, to it— only after big names like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson stepped into the fray last summer did the news media give it to us.
“And when the media got it, they often took it as it was told to them. They let the citizens do much of the journalism, instead of piecing it together for themselves. They took Jena as a handout, not as an opportunity. They ignored the shades of gray, and kept what could have been the most complex, most challenging racial story, the one that would drive thousands to march and thousands to question the media and thousands to question the American justice system, black and white.
“Why? What happened to the race beat?”
“Race is still an issue in society, but it’s difficult for newspapers to get handles on it,” Eugene Roberts, the veteran editor and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on journalism in the early civil rights era, “The Race Beat,” said in the story. “These usually aren’t the kinds of events that lead to sort of inverted-pyramid, hard news kinds of stories. They’re more ooze-and-seep racial stories. And it requires a lot of time and attention to do them with the nuance they deserve. And a lot of papers, in an era of cutbacks and short staffs, are shortchanging the race story.”
“Keith Woods, dean of faculty at the Poynter Institute, says that the problem wasn’t that journalists didn’t know about Jena, but that they failed to see the deep implications of the case in terms of race relations and the black community, which has doubted the fairness of the criminal justice system for years. At last, a flesh-and-blood example, and nobody caught it,” the story continued.
“I think that we do need a race beat,” said University of Maryland journalism professor and former Washington Post journalist Alice Bonner . . . We get caught up in episode and event coverage because we fail to take them up routinely. We need to cover race because it’s a live, active, dynamic part of society. If we covered it routinely we wouldn’t have to be so frenzied when something like this happens.”
“A race beat won’t solve anything, Bonner said, if hiring patterns don’t change,” the story went on. “‘The biggest problem with journalism,’ Bonner continued, ‘is journalism is still too white . . . It’s too white for a society that is increasingly brown . . . It is too white for its own good.'”
The piece credits Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune with breaking the Jena Six story nationally last year, but as noted in “Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2007,” Mike McQueen, Associated Press bureau chief for Louisiana and Mississippi, said AP moved a story on its national wire on Sept. 7, 2006.
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Golfweek Says It Is Studying Diversity, Sensitivity
The new editor of Golfweek magazine, which has no people of color on its editorial staff, “said management was studying the issue of diversity and sensitivity training for his staff,” Jerry Potter reported on Monday in USA Today.
The story did not elaborate, and the editor, Jeff Babineau, did not return a telephone call from Journal-isms.
As Potter explained, “Babineau, a veteran writer and Golfweek staff member, replaced Dave Seanor, who was fired because the magazine used a picture of a noose on its cover to illustrate a package of stories about Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman.
“She used the term ‘lynched’ in an on-air comment about Tiger Woods during the Mercedes Benz Championship on January 4.”
“Tilghman issued a 21-second apology at the start of the Buick Invitational telecast on Thursday, her first public appearance after a network-imposed two-week suspension,” Bob Harig reported for ESPN.com.
The publishers of the African American Golf Digest issued a statement saying it was “extremely offensive to walk past the GolfWeek booth” at the 55th PGA Merchandise Show and Convention “and see a symbol of hatred and pain displayed on the cover.” Publisher Debert Cook “announced that Callaway Golf has signed a one-year advertising commitment with the quarterly publication, becoming the first equipment manufacturer to ever do so in the five-year publishing history of the 40-page lifestyle magazine,” a statement said.
“‘We invite GolfWeek magazine along with other major media outlets, golf equipment suppliers, manufacturers and distributors to open the lines of communication and engage in positive dialogue about ways of preventing incidents like this from happening in the future,’ said Senior Editor, Edward S. Wanambwa.”
Cary Clack, San Antonio Express-News: Discuss lynching properly
Editorial, the State, Columbia, S.C.: Lessons learned in Tilghman controversy
Rob Parker, Detroit News: Woods has obligation to weigh in
Monte Poole, Oakland Tribune: Noose makes Golfweek guilty of felony stupidity
Michael Wilbon, Washington Post: Language Was Hurtful, But Actions Were Profane
Short Takes
“Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about the continuing detention of Rashid Majid Al-Sari, the editor of the biweekly newspaper Al-Fatah, who was arrested by US troops at his Baghdad home on 18 January,” the organization said on Wednesday. “‘Five days have gone by and we still do not know why Sari was arrested,’ the press freedom organisation said. ‘Unfortunately there has been no letup in arbitrary arrests and searches by US soldiers. Several journalists detained in the past ended up being freed without ever being tried or convicted of anything. One who is still in detention, Bilal Hussein, was recently taken before the Iraqi judicial authorities after being held by the Americans for 19 months. We call on the US authorities to either produce evidence against Sari or free him at once.'”
In Afghanistan, an Afghan journalist who was sentenced to death for distributing an article about Islam and women’s rights is actually being punished for his brother’s reporting on abuses by warlords, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting said Wednesday. Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, 23, was sentenced to death Tuesday by a three-judge panel in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for distributing a report he printed off the Internet to fellow journalism students at Balkh University.
“Two groups filed a lawsuit today against the Newark Police Department on behalf of a newspaper editor arrested when he refused to surrender photos of a body in a vacant lot,” the Continuous News Desk of the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger wrote on Wednesday. “The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and the Seton Hall Center for Social Justice, contends police violated the civil rights of Brazilian Voice editor Roberto Lima by detaining him until he relinquished the photos taken by a member of his staff.”
Sports commentator Stephen A. Smith has started a blog, A.J. Daulario of Philadelphia Magazine reported. “As he noted in his blog yesterday, the topics of choice will be broader than just sports. SAS was blog fodder recently after a number of appearances on Hardball to talk about the presidential race — a development Smith says he was ‘shocked’ by . . . He’s excited about receiving 10,000 unique visitors in the first 36 hours, but is seemingly oblivious to the fact that most of those visits came from other sports blogs making fun of him.”
Rosetta Rolan has been promoted to director of diversity at LIN TV Corp., a new position, the company announced on Wednesday. “As Director of Diversity, Rolan will ensure that a rich variety of cultures, ethnicities, and lifestyles are represented and supported in a way that produces better journalism and better service to our diverse communities. One of Rolan’s main focuses will be to enhance and strengthen LIN TV’s Minority Scholarship Program, developed more than a decade ago for minority students who are pursuing a career in broadcast television and digital media. This program awards minority students scholarships and paid internships at one of LIN TV’s 29 television stations.”
Rebecca J. Tallent, assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Idaho, has agreed to become part-time ombudsman at the Spokane (Wash.) Spokesman-Review, effective the first Sunday in February, editor Steven A. Smith told readers of his blog on Tuesday. “She has been active in journalism diversity programs and is a member of the Native American Journalists Association,” he wrote.
The Magazine Publishers of America has created a new award, “Magazine Mentor of the Year,” “recognizing a member of the community who has aided a fellow magazine professional’s career and promoted inclusion in the industry,” Shaunice Hawkins, vice president of diversity and multicultural initiatives, announced. The winning candidate will be honored at a special awards breakfast on June 5 in New York.