Photographer, Editor-Writer Among Those Laid Off
Johnson Publishing Co., which laid off three top-level executives just three months ago, is making further, companywide staff reductions, sources told Journal-isms on Friday. At least two employees on the news side— veteran photographer Vandell Cobb and editor-writer Lynette Holloway — were cut on Thursday.
Spokeswoman Wendy Parks would not say how many people were cut, calling not just their names, but their number a “confidential personnel matter.” After an afternoon staff meeting, she issued a statement acknowledging “the elimination of a few selected positions and some layoffs,” due to “a downtrend in advertising revenue” and rising costs.
Cobb, who had been at the company for 30 years, took photographs for everything from fashion spreads to news events. Sounding stunned by the turn of events, he told Journal-isms he did not want to comment.
In November 2006, Publisher Linda Johnson Rice told Ebony readers: “For this issue . . . photographer Vandell Cobb and writer Sylvester Monroe were assigned to travel throughout the Middle East with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had assembled a group of religious leaders for a twofold humanitarian mission —to secure the release of Israeli and Palestinian captives and to extend the Israeli-Hezbollah cease-fire agreement. For 10 days, they traveled to Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut, Jordan and Tel Aviv, capturing Jackson’s every move as he interacted with world leaders.”
Holloway, an associate editor, covered books and fitness for Ebony. She arrived at the publication from the New York Times, where she covered the music and radio industries, including hip-hop. She resigned in 2003 over the handling of a story that prompted a 2,175-word article that amounted to a correction.
She said, “I didn’t see it coming. Things were going well.”
Holloway added by e-mail: “I have had three great years at EBONY Magazine. I see this moment as an opportunity to pursue other creative endeavors. I’m already exploring a number of options. For now, I will be freelancing, covering the arts, literature, music and entertainment.” Correspondence can be directed to her at this e-mail address.
In November, Jason Fell reported in Folio magazine, Johnson laid off Jeff Burns, Ebony senior vice president and associate publisher; Dennis Boston, Ebony senior vice president and Midwest advertising director, and Barbara Rudd, Ebony vice president and Western advertising director.
“The company is restructuring and slimming down, and trying to run mean and lean,” Burns told Folio. “They’re trying to turn around the slide in advertising, which has of course affected the entire advertising industry.”
“Through September, Ebony was down 8.7 percent in ad revenue ($46.5 million) and 10.3 percent in ad pages, when compared to the same period last year, according to Publishers Information Bureau figures. Jet was down roughly six percent in both ad revenue and pages over the same period,” Fell reported.
“On the heels of the layoffs, Nijole S. Yutkowitz was named vice president and group advertising director for Ebony and Jet. Yutkowitz formerly served as national advertising director for Jet.”
Parks’ statement Friday said:
“Like most other publishers, we are experiencing a downtrend in advertising revenue, while production, printing and fulfillment costs have all increased. We have made some changes for greater efficiency of operations which resulted in the elimination of a few selected positions and some layoffs.
“Consequently, we have decided to redirect a segment of our human resources and capital to some of our newer operations such as EbonyJet.com, our licensing division, partnership with the Associated Press and the Ebony/Jet Entertainment Group, LLC which we expect to support future growth.”
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Does “Women” Have to Mean “White Women”?
Black women seem to be voting for Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic contest for the presidential nomination, but you couldn’t tell that from stories that talk only about “women” and “blacks.”
In this narrative, “women” are for Clinton and “blacks” are for Obama. “Women” means “white women.”
As an example, take this story by Adam Nagourney Thursday in the New York Times, “In Vote, Obama Fell Short of Fervor.”
“For all the passion Mr. Obama may be generating on the trail, Mrs. Clinton still has a bulwark in women at the polls (emphasis added). Mr. Obama tried to chip away at it— dispatching Oprah Winfrey and Caroline Kennedy to campaign for him, broadcasting television advertisements with women backing him — but to little if any avail,” the story goes.
“‘He had a really fantastic week last week. It’s hard to think of a candidate having a better news media week than he had,’ said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster who is not working for any candidate. ‘And her support among white women was really quite durable in the face of all that'” (emphasis added).
The Times story isn’t the only offender. Journalists of color have long observed that in the average news story, a person is assumed to be white if race isn’t mentioned. The phrase “women and minorities” really means “white women and minorities.” “Evangelicals” means “white evangelicals.” Even some African American columnists fail to be specific.
Some reports have been more careful to make distinctions. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted this week, “exit poll results indicate that Obama’s chief success in Missouri was in winning over African-American women. Clinton retained an edge among white women.”
And a Jan. 29 story in the Times by Sam Roberts said, “A statewide WNBC/Marist Poll released last week showed Mrs. Clinton leading among all likely voters, 48 percent to 32 percent. She was ahead among all women, 51 percent to 31 percent.
“Mr. Obama was leading among black likely voters, though, 67 percent to 26 percent, and among black women by a smaller but still commanding margin, 57 percent to 31 percent. And 12 percent of black women said they were still undecided, a higher proportion than among most other groups.”
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Paper Sorry for Pressman’s Column Smearing Obama
The Ottawa Herald of Franklin County, Kansas, has apologized for running a column by its own print-press operator that called Barack Obama a dangerous Muslim extremist, Wonkette reports.
“To elect Barack Obama to the highest office in the land would be nothing less than spitting on the graves of the victims of 9/11,” the pressman wrote.
Jeanny Sharp, the editor and publisher, wrote to readers:
“A Feb. 2 Community Viewpoint column by Gary Sillett was based on a number of false premises about Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama. Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
“An editor’s note included within the text of Sillett’s column also noted that other allegations that question Obama’s patriotism also have been shown to be false. Obama, for instance, regularly — and this has been captured on CSPAN — leads the Senate in the pledge of allegiance. An attempt to balance Sillett’s views — which do not represent the views of The Ottawa Herald — was made by including an adjacent column taking such rumors to task. This approach was taken because The Herald values an open community forum.
“At the same time, we have a duty to separate fact from opinion. That wasn’t done carefully enough in this case. We take our role as gatekeeper seriously and regret publishing the Sillett column that spread false information about a presidential candidate in the manner it was presented.”
Eric L. Hinton of DiversityInc. addressed the origin of some of the smears in a Feb. 1 piece, “Is Obama Unpatriotic? Debunking an Urban Legend.”
[On Saturday, the Native American Times published a letter making charges similar to the pressman’s.]
Meanwhile, a T-shirt company is selling shirts with the image of a minstrel and the legend, “Tap Dancers for Obama.”
Stanley Crouch, New York Daily News: GOP savoring a chance to take a shot at Hillary’s albatross
Editorial, La Opinión, Los Angeles: The Lesson of the Latino Vote
Eric Easter, ebonyjet.com: The Children Will Lead The Way
Lolis Eric Elie, New Orleans Times-Picayune: Candidates still missing big picture
Shanna Flowers, Roanoke Times: Virginia may get primary action
Patrice Gaines, Washington Informer: When Color Matters
Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News: You two — don’t fight, unite
Emil Guillermo, AsianWeek: Yellow/Brown: California’s Ethnic Coalition?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, syndicated: Democrats Pose Greater Peril to Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton Than the GOP
Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe: The Obama wave
Kenneth Kim, New America Media: Did Asian Americans Swing California for Clinton?
Dwight Lewis, Nashville Tennessean: Democrats need post-primary unity
Judge Greg Mathis, BlackAmericaWeb.com: On Issues That Really Matter, There’s More that Unites Blacks and Latinos Than Divides Us
Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: Can Obama, like Harold, get Latino lift?
Roland S. Martin, Creators Syndicate: Forget an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama Ticket
Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: Obama gives us a reason to cheer
Leonard Pitts Jr. , Miami Herald: The old GOP used to include moderates
Ishmael Reed, Counterpunch: Going Old South on Obama: Ma and Pa Clinton Flog Uppity Black Man
James Ragland, Dallas Morning News: Texans talk up tight campaign heading for March primary
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: The Baggage Hillary Bears
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: Damage That Must Be Undone
Bob Ray Sanders, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Who has been the greatest among them?
Elmer Smith, Philadelphia Daily News: He’s not the ‘n’ word (& it’s not what you think)
Marisa Treviño, Latina Lista blog: The Difference for Latinos Between Hillary and Barack is in the Music
Dawn Turner Trice, Chicago Tribune: What is this race teaching our girls?
Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Obama was courageous on Iraq; Clinton was not
Ron Walters, National Newspaper Publishers Association: Obama Landslide Smashes First Black President Myth
Adrienne T. Washington, Washington Times: 2008 Potomac Primary will show ‘we matter’
Jack White, TheRoot.com: The McCain Option? Pul-eeze.
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In N.Y., 400 Join Essence in Honoring Written Word
By Audrey Edwards
for Journal-isms
“It’s so nice to be in a room where everybody reads,” quipped best-selling author Terry McMillan, accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award at the first Essence Literary Awards given by Essence magazine in New York on Thursday. The standing-room-only crowd of more than 400 gathered in the penthouse of Le Parker Meridien Hotel not only read, but came out to honor some of its best in the field of arts and letters. Novelists and journalists, poets and photographers, children’s- book authors, essayists, inspirational writers, biographers. All were present in a program that bestowed awards in nine categories.
“We have 8 million readers who are looking for good poetry, fiction and biography,” Essence senior books editor Patrik Henry Bass told the crowd, explaining that the popularity of the Essence Book Club was one of the factors leading the magazine to do an awards show honoring writers. “They are just as passionate as we are about good work,” he said of book club members.
Good work brought out a few good folks to serve as presenters: actress Lynn Whitfield, actress Victoria Rowell, author of the best-selling book “The Women Who Raised Me,” and actor Jamie Hector, one of the ensemble stars of HBO’s “The Wire.”
Co-hosts Hoda Kotb, co-anchor of NBC’s “Today” show, and Dr. Ian Smith, creator of “The 50 Million Pound Challenge,” kept the program moving and the banter kickin’. “Look,” Smith cracked after one recipient carried on much too long, “Time magazine said that T.D Jakes was the best preacher in America, and he kept his thank-you remarks to less than a minute, so let’s keep it short.” The audience hooted in agreement.
Jakes won the President’s Award, given by Essence President Michelle Ebanks, who called Jakes’ 2007 best-selling book “Reposition Yourself: Living Life Without Limits,” “the sum total of all that I’ve learned.”
The event also launched the Essence Save Our Libraries campaign, naming the Countee Cullen Library, a Harlem branch of the New York Public Library, as the first recipient of a contribution from the magazine to library projects. “There is nothing like the written word,” said Angela Burt-Murray, Essence editor-in-chief, making the presentation, noting that words will always endure. So, too, does good leadership, Burt-Murray said in recognizing two former Essence editors-in-chief in the audience, Marcia Ann Gillespie and Monique Greenwood. Bass gave props to Essence founder Edward Lewis, also in the audience.
Lifetime Achievement winner McMillan recounted that her first job was in a library, where she discovered the writer James Baldwin. “Art is important in all its forms,” said the novelist, whose blockbusters “Disappearing Acts” and “Waiting to Exhale” revolutionized the publishing of black books. “I do believe pain can be transformed to goodness,” she said of the power of words to heal.
Here, in all of their art forms, are the categories, the winners and the winning works of the first Essence Literary Awards. With the exception of the Current Affairs and Inspiration categories, all winners were present to accept their honors.
Poetry: Tracy K. Smith, “Duende” (Smith/Graywolf Press)
Children’s Books: Troy Cle, “Marvelous World” (Simon & Schuster’s Children’s Publishing)
Memoir: Edwidge Danticat, “Brother, I’m Dying” (Knopf)
Nonfiction: Michael Fletcher and Kevin Merida, “Supreme Discomfort” (Doubleday)
Fiction: Margaret Cezair-Thompson, “The Pirate’s Daughter” (Unbridled Books)
Photography: Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, “Daufuskie Island” (University of South Carolina Press)
Current Affairs: Randall Robinson, “An Unbroken Agony” (Basic Civitas)
Inspiration: Tony Dungy, “Quiet Strength” (Tyndale)
Storyteller of the Year: L.A. Banks (a pseudonym for Leslie Esdaile), author of 12 novels in the popular Vampire Huntress Legend series (St. Martins/Griffin). This category is the only one in which Essence readers voted for the winner.
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Anchor Explains Answering Phone During Newscast
“Even a knucklehead like me, who only occasionally appears on TV, knows Rule Number One about going on air: always turn off your cellphone ringer,” television critic Eric Deggans wrote Friday on his St. Petersburg Times blog.
“So not only is it amazing that WXII news anchor Margaret Johnson let her cellphone go off during a newscast, the North Carolina journalist also answers it on air, asking her meterologist to take over the show for a bit. This clip is making the rounds a bit, but in case you haven’t seen it, I offer it now for your amusement as the weekend begins.”
The clip is indeed making the rounds, so much that Johnson’s own Winston-Salem, N.C., station, where she is noon anchor, has posted it on its own site.
Johnson told Journal-isms “I don’t usually have my cell phone on,” but that day, a week ago, she was also reporting on a deadly plane crash. Johnson said she was waiting for a telephone call from one of her contacts, so she left the phone on and took the call. It was not who she expected.
She said “management all knew I was working on it. They didn’t have an issue” with the cell phone. But the notoriety prompted by the YouTube video led a radio station in Charlotte, N.C., to interview her.
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“BROADCAST LEGENDS”: African American television journalists are featured on a poster/placemat to be distributed during Black History Month at 600 McDonalds restaurants in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. They include Randall Pinkston (CBS News); Pat Battle (WNBC), Byron Pitts (CBS News), Anthony Johnson (WABC), Soledad O’Brien (CNN) and Sheila Stainback , a former anchor now with the city of New York, and others. Included posthumously are broadcaster Mal Goode and commentator Carl T. Rowan.??Click image to enlarge.
Short Takes
XM Radio, the nation’s leading provider of satellite radio, announced that beginning Monday, the lineup for “The Power” (XM Channel 169) will be expanded to include new shows featuring Tavis Smiley, Kojo Nnamdi, Blanche Williams and the sports talk radio duo The 2 Live Stews, the network announced on Thursday. “The Power,” which says it is the only national 24-hour radio channel exclusively dedicated to African American talk programming, broadcasts shows featuring hosts Joe Madison, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Warren Ballantine.
” ‘Good Morning America’ co-host Robin Roberts ditched her wig and strutted along the catwalk Thursday in a long silver-beaded Isaac Mizrahi evening dress and brought the crowd to its feet,” Richard Huff reported Friday in the New York Daily News. “Roberts, who in July revealed she is battling breast cancer, appeared for the first time on live TV without the wig she’s worn since shaving her head during chemotherapy.”
This past fall, Alison Stewart, formerly at MSNBC, began hosting “the Bryant Park Project, “a quirky, newfangled morning news show from NPR aimed at a young audience, which is now carried by 18 stations around the country. The show is produced out of the NPR’s New York bureau on 42nd Street, across from— you guessed it!— Bryant Park,” Felix Gilette wrote in the New York Observer. Her husband, Bill Wolff, MSNBC’s vice president of prime time programming, says in the story, “I know sometimes she gets the question how can you go from television to radio when so many people want to go the other way. I think anytime you make a move there is risk. I would also add that there’s a lot of upside potential. It has never hurt anyone’s reputation to work for National Public Radio. It’s not like going to work for the circus.”
“After 90 years, Madison’s afternoon newspaper will stop daily printing and shift its focus to its Web site and a more widely distributed free weekly print edition, its top executives said Thursday,” the Wisconsin State Journal reported on Thursday. “The move at The Capital Times will end the era of two daily newspapers in Madison, one of the last U.S. cities of its size to retain what had once been a common practice. The broadsheet newspaper will stop publishing six days a week on April 26 and start publishing a tabloid-format news weekly on Wednesdays, starting April 30.” Employees must reapply for their jobs.
“Half the program directors at CBS-owned radio stations in New York were fired Thursday as part of a national restructuring the company said will allow CBS “to more effectively monetize the aggregate number of listeners who hear us on the radio and the Internet,” David Hinckley reported on Thursday in the New York Daily News.
“Alex Sanchez has been named publisher of Spanish-language daily Al Dia, the sister publication of The Dallas Morning News,” the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. “Sanchez joined Al Dia in August 2007 and served as the newspaper’s president and general manager before his promotion. He replaces Gilbert Bailon, who resigned his post as the paper’s publisher to become editorial page editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.”
Small as it is, theRoot.com, “is another step away from the 20th century’s fading model, where the news market was dominated by a few media flagships. Now, former newspaper companies, recast as media companies, are stocking their fleets with smaller news outlets that are more fit for tussling in a crowded sea. The challenge is to ‘own’ as many fragments of the news universe as possible by catering to more specific interests or demographics,” David Sarno writes for Sunday’s Los Angeles Times.
“When was the last time you saw a high-profile documentary film, never mind series, about black life that gave you that window into someone’s ordinary universe of thought, experience and feeling?” filmmaker Jacquie Jones, executive director of the National Black Programming Consortium, asked Thursday on ebonyjet.com. “As the public broadcaster in a nation renowned for its dynamic diversity, you would think PBS would be the natural place to find it. But, alas, it isn’t. With virtually no people of color in any decision-making positions there and without the political will to do anything about it, you will be hard-pressed to find anything that reaches this mark.”
Aiesha D. Little, an associate editor for Cincinnati Magazine and the adviser for the University of Cincinnati Association of Black Journalists, is one of 12 recipients of Images in Excellence Corp.’s 2008 Leaders for the Future Awards. Judges award the honor to emerging African American leaders in Greater Cincinnati based on their professional achievements, community service, and demonstrated leadership abilities, the program’s Sallie Elliott told Journal-isms.
The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN reported Thursday on how criminal defamation legislation is used in Africa to silence print journalists who criticize powerful individuals or bodies, particularly those connected with governments, or who investigate and report on state corruption and mismanagement. At least 90 percent of African countries retain such laws, which are employed on a regular basis, the group said, urging readers to join its campaign against such laws.
In Mexico, “Reporters Without Borders condemns the threats that forced José Joaquín Chávez, the manager of Acción Estéreo community radio and a reporter for the Voz del Tolima daily, to abandon his home in the western department of Tolima and suspend the station’s operations . . . The threats were allegedly made by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and they come amid an increase in attempts by the guerrillas to intimidate the news media.”
In Mexico, Reporters Without Borders said Thursday it was horrified “by the murder of Francisco Ortiz Monroy, correspondent for the national daily el Diario de México in Ciudad Camargo, Tamaulipas state in the north-east. The worldwide press freedom organisation said the exact circumstances of the 5 February killing remained unclear and appealed to the authorities to swiftly determine if it was linked to his work and to ensure his murder did not go unpunished.”
“The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to remove independent broadcaster Aaj TV from air for more than 12 hours,” the group said on Thursday. “Satellite transmissions of Aaj were shut down Wednesday after a prominent critic of the Musharraf government, Nusrat Javed, appeared on a late-night political talk show, according to The Associated Press.”
