Surgeons Work on Auto Journalist Frank Washington
Veteran automotive journalist Frank Washington underwent six hours of reconstructive surgery on his face on Friday after being mugged during an early-morning walk from his westside Detroit home, his brother, James Washington, publisher of the Dallas Weekly, told Journal-isms on Saturday.
“He was not just mugged, he was severely mugged,” James Washington said, “and every bone in his face was crushed.”
However, he added from Detroit’s Sinai-Grace Hospital, “one of the top-notch reconstructive surgeons is here. Frank looks a lot better today than he did yesterday.” His reference was to Dr. Lewis Clayman.
Washington, 60, is managing partner of Aboutthatcar.com, an automotive information Web site, and a freelance writer. He has covered the automotive industry since 1988, is a former Detroit bureau chief for Newsweek magazine, and is the founding chairman of the Automotive Task Force of the Detroit chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, created in 2005 to promote diversity in automotive communications. “Rather than complain about the lack of diversity within our ranks, we’ve decided to do something about it,” Washington said then.
Detectives working over the weekend would not make available information from the police report on the incident; neither would the hospital release details, citing privacy restrictions in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, known as HIPAA.
However, James Washington said the incident took place earlier in the week, most likely Tuesday, and that he had asked doctors if a fist could have caused such a beating. They said its severity could mean his brother was beaten by a bat or some other object. He said the motive did not appear to be robbery, since his wallet, credit cards and cell phone were with him.
[Feb. 4 update: Police said Monday that a witness who saw the assault from a distance told them the incident took place at 8:20 a.m. on Jan. 29. Washington was beaten by one man with his fists, the witness said, and then fled. There was no further description of the assailant.]
“In the best of all worlds, he can be home in a week to 10 days,” James Washington added.
As reported in this column in 2005, Frank Washington got a career boost in the late 1970s by working for legendary investigative columnist Jack Anderson as one of five journalists in a 12-week unpaid internship program.
Washington said then he didn’t realize the value of his work with Anderson until the NABJ convention in 1984 in Atlanta, where he worked the job fair. Joe Boyce, then Time’s Atlanta bureau chief, told him how rare it was that an applicant had his D.C. reporting experience. He leveraged that into a job as a stringer in the Time bureau, and then, in 1988, went to work for Newsweek in Detroit. There, he came to specialize in automobiles.
Fellow automotive journalist Greg Morrison, CEO of Bumper2Bumper TV, told Journal-isms on Saturday that their colleagues were attempting to create a trust fund in Washington’s behalf, since Washington is a freelancer without the health care benefits that would otherwise be available. Some in the automobile industry had asked how they could help.
“You’re spending six, seven, eight hours a day in a car with someone, you get to know them real well,” he said, speaking of those in the automobile industry who took test drives with Washington. “This is shocking and saddening. It’s enraging. He is the most low-key brother you ever want to meet. And he got mugged like this.”
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Simpson to Moderate Hillary Clinton Campaign Event
The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign announced Saturday that veteran journalist Carole Simpson will serve as moderator for the candidate’s “Voices Across America: A National Town Hall.”
“The three-time Emmy award winner will join Hillary at the anchor event in New York. The town hall will be broadcast live on Hallmark Channel and online on the eve of Super Tuesday, Monday, February 4, 2008 at 9 p.m. EST. Voters will be able to participate in this historic town hall by attending the New York event or one of the other 21 satellite simulcast events across the country, watching it live on television, and viewing a real-time stream of the event at hillaryclinton.com.”
The Boston Globe reported in November that the former ABC News anchor, who now teaches journalism at Emerson College, took heat after an unprompted, heartfelt speech at a New Hampshire rally in which she endorsed Clinton.
“News of Simpson’s endorsement has barreled across the blogosphere, seized on by conservatives as proof of liberal media bias. And Emerson students and faculty continue to debate the ethics of a journalism instructor and well-known former reporter making a public show of support for a political candidate,” Peter Schworm wrote.
“Simpson, 65, said she immediately regretted her actions and offered her resignation the next day, which university officials refused to accept. . . She and other university officials have agreed she will not teach political journalism courses if she campaigns for Clinton,” the story said.
Jerry Lanson, an Emerson journalism professor who co-teaches a course with Simpson, said he immediately told Simpson her actions were inappropriate.
“As faculty members if we’re teaching journalists, we need to model the behavior we’re teaching in the classroom,” he said in the story.
But “Janet Kolodzy, acting chairwoman of Emerson’s Department of Journalism, said she was startled by the endorsement, but felt it was within ethical bounds,” the story said.