Clinton Asks, “Why Is Anybody Concerned . . .?”
A photo of Barack Obama in garb suggestive of Islam showed up on the Drudge Report Web site Monday morning with a note that it came from “Clinton staffers” who said, according to Drudge, “Wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?” a reference to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Depending on who did the interpreting, the development and the resulting fallout reflected the power of Matt Drudge, the pro-Obama bias of the news media or a new low in campaign tactics.
In 2006, the Illinois senator visited Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya, near the borders with Somalia and Ethiopia. Obama was dressed as a Somali elder by Sheik Mahmed Hassan during the trip, as the Associated Press reported.
“So was it a Clinton plant?” Paul Bedard asked Monday on the U.S. News & World Report Web site.
“We attended a bacon and eggs breakfast with two Clinton staffers during which the just-released idea was raised. In one breath, a campaign spokesman denied knowing about the photo then followed the theme of Drudge’s source and blamed the press for giving Obama a free ride. The proof: ‘Saturday Night Live’ says so.
” ‘First,’ said Phil Singer, ‘I find it interesting that in a room of such esteemed journalists that Mr. Drudge has become your respective assignment editor. But be that as it may, I mean look, I don’t know about this photo. I don’t think, I hope, that anybody on our staff is responsible for this. I have no reason to suspect that they are. So I will say for myself that I know that I knew nothing about it, and I assume our campaign knows absolutely nothing about it, and that it’s outrageous and ridiculous.
” ‘Having said that, I find it to be a reflection of one of the problems that has gone on in the overall coverage of this campaign.’ He went on to describe a Politico story of Obama’s ties to 1960s radicals then said, ‘As far as I can tell there was absolutely no follow-up on the part of the Obama traveling press corps.’ ” Then he told the press to keep digging because even ‘Saturday Night Live’ thinks the press has been too easy on Obama.”
Ewen MacAskill, writing from Washington for England’s Guardian newspaper, said of the photo, “Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, described it as ‘the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.’ Obama has had to spend much of the campaign stressing he is a Christian not a Muslim and did not study at a madrassa.
“Aides for Mrs Clinton, who is fighting a last-ditch battle to keep her hopes of the White House alive, initially tried to brush off the furore, but later denied having anything to do with the distribution of the picture. ‘I just want to make it very clear that we were not aware of it, the campaign didn’t sanction it and don’t know anything about it,’ Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson told reporters. ‘None of us have seen the email in question.'”
During a Monday interview with ABC’s Dallas affiliate, Clinton herself commented. She did not flatly deny the Drudge Report’s charge that her campaign leaked the photo.
“She then turned the tables on her Democratic rival and accused him of using the controversy surrounding the alleged leaking of the photo to distract the public’s attention from deficiencies in his platform and experience,” ABC’s Teddy Davis and Jacqueline Klingebiel reported.
“I know nothing about it,” Clinton told ABC affiliate WFAA. “This is in the public domain. But let’s just stop and ask yourself: ‘Why are you — why is anybody concerned about this?'”
Chris Cillizza blogged on washingtonpost.com: “The next 24 hours will be crucial in determining the story’s staying power. It could well dissipate into the ether as tomorrow’s debate in Cleveland between Obama and Clinton takes over the coverage. Or it could blow up as a major issue in that debate. Time will tell, but what we do know is that — yet again — Matt Drudge has affirmed his place as a major factor in presidential politics.”
Monroe Anderson blog: Hillary’s Hail Mary, punt and possible foul play
Carrie Budoff Brown, Politico.com: Obama stiffs, stifles national press
Cary Clack, San Antonio Express-News: Remember this name when you go to vote
Desiree Cooper, Detroit Free Press: This election electrifies young voters
Stanley Crouch, New York Daily News: Out of one, many rise to the challenge of believing again
EURWeb.com: A POSSIBLE (BIG) PROBLEM FOR OBAMA: Louis Farrakhan sings the Senator’s praises
Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe: Why Obama is beating Hillary
C.B. Hanif, Palm Beach (Fla.) Post: New week, new election issue
Bob Herbert, New York Times: Hillary on the High Road?
Ari Kagan and Jehangir Khattak, New America Media: Immigrants Doubt Obama’s Diplomacy
Eugene Kane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Attacks on Obamas will only intensify
Roland S. Martin, Creators Syndicate: For Clinton To Win, She Must Focus, Focus, Focus
Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: Debates more about voter manipulation
Phillip Morris, Cleveland Plain Dealer: Tubbs Jones’ loyalty may face severe test
Askia Muhammad, Washington Informer: Obama and the ‘Garvey Question’
Ruben Navarrette, San Diego Union-Tribune: Winning the unlikablilty contest
Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Hypocrites posing as patriots
Rupal Parekh, AdAge.com: Bookmarks Creatives Have a Crush on Obama
Christi Parsons and John McCormick, Chicago Tribune: Barack Obama: Analyzing his stump speeches
Les Payne, Newsday: Obama makes better commander than McCain, Clinton
Pam Platt, Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal: Clinton’s role could well be Oscar worthy
James Ragland, Dallas Morning News: Clinton backers chill out during outdoor rally
Jeffrey Ressner, Politico.com: Michelle Obama thesis was on racial divide
Frank Rich, New York Times: The Audacity of Hopelessness
David Roybal, Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal: Richardson’s Back, and N.M.’s Less Than Enchanted
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: If Obama Went 0-for-10
Barry Saunders, Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer: Earning Edwards’ blessing
Dawn Turner Trice, Chicago Tribune: Let’s fight the enemy within U.S.
DeWayne Wickham, USA Today: McCain can set precedent by picking Rice for Veep
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Smiley Denies Gossip Site’s Claim of Bill Clinton Tie
In some circles, the black celebrity gossip site MediaTakeOut.com is as influential as Matt Drudge is in his world. AOL announced in December that the site ranked seventh among all gossip blogs sought by those using the AOL search engine. MediaTakeOut.com claims to be “the most visited black web site in the world.”
On Saturday, the site bannered, “CONFLICT OF INTEREST: IS BILL CLINTON ONE OF TAVIS SMILEY‘S PAID ADVERTISERS???”
“There may be a huge scandal brewing for African American activist Tavis Smiley,” the copy read. “As MediaTakeOut.com reported to you last week, Tavis ignited a firestorm when he publicly criticized Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama for refusing to stop campaigning and attend his State Of The Black Union conference which is taking place this weekend in New Orleans.
“Tavis’ uncharacteristic attack on the extraordinarily popular Obama had many African American’s scrambling for answers. Some believed Tavis was jealous of Obama’s success, other’s believed he was angered that Obama didn’t ask for his endorsement. But now MediaTakeOut.com has uncovered another possible reason.
“MediaTakeOut.com has exclusively learned that Bill Clinton and Tavis Smiley may have a financial relationship. On Tavis’ official website, Bill Clinton’s book Giving is prominently featured in what appears to be an advertisement.
“As you can see below, a link to the controversial former president’s book is on the front page of Tavis’ site. And when a user clicks the link, they are given instructions on how to purchase Giving from Amazon.com.
“Tavis, please say you didn’t just do what we think you did . . . “
Joel Brokaw, Smiley’s publicist, replied swiftly when Journal-isms asked for comment on Monday.
“First and foremost, the highlighting of Bill Clinton’s book on The Covenant with Black America website is not an advertisement, nor was there any financial remuneration between Mr. Clinton and Mr. Smiley,” Brokaw wrote.
“The Covenant website is calling attention to Mr. Clinton’s book because it singled out the Covenant movement as one of the most important tools for social activism and community engagement in the country today.
“Furthermore, for the record, Mr. Smiley receives no financial compensation for sales of The Covenant with Black America or any revenues from its website. Proceeds from Mr. Clinton’s book apparently are donated to his charitable foundation.
“Lastly, the site that reported this story was the same that had spread a falsehood that Mr. Smiley was engaged to a CNN anchor whom he’s never met and who happens to be married with children.”
Over the weekend, Sen. Hillary Clinton appeared at the end of this year’s ninth annual State of the Black Union symposium, hosted and presented by Smiley, Jackie Jones reported Sunday for blackamericaweb.com.
“Those of us who have fought together for decades to right wrongs and break barriers cannot allow differences in our choice over who should be elected undermine our fundamental unity to change the course of this country,” Clinton told an estimated audience of 5,000 at the Ernest E. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Jones wrote.
Smiley had been lambasted for turning down Michelle Obama after her husband, the Democratic presidential candidate, said he could not appear.
The next day, Smiley and author and academic Cornel West were keynote speakers at a symposium hosted by North Carolina A&T State University reflecting on the Kerner Commission Report of 1968, issued after racial uprisings in the 1960s.
“The commission’s key finding — that the United States was heading toward two separate and unequal societies — was nothing new to African Americans, West told the packed house at Harrison Auditorium,” J. Brian Ewing reported Monday in the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record.
Beni Dakar blog: Tavis Smiley unfairly “catching hell”
Michael K. Fauntroy, TheRoot.com: Stand Strong, Tavis
Barry Saunders, Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer: A big frown to Smiley’s attitude on Obama
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Copy Editing Cut from This Year’s Metpro Program
The Tribune Co.’s Metpro program, which has trained more than 240 reporters and copy editors of color over the last two decades, has stopped training copy editors, at least for the time being.
The switch is the result of a decentralization in which the participating Tribune Co. newspapers play the predominant role in shaping the program, Gerry Kern, Tribune Co. vice president for editorial, told Journal-isms.
Metpro formerly consisted of a reporting program that took place for 10 months at the Los Angeles Times and 14 months at a second Tribune Co. newspaper, and a copy editing portion in which the trainees spent their first 10 months at Newsday and then 18 months at a second Tribune Co. outlet.
In 2006, the program decentralized. As a result, four reporting trainees are being taught at the Los Angeles Times and one each at all but one of the other Tribune papers: the Chicago Tribune, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel, the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call and the Hartford (Conn.) Courant.
The Daily Press in Newport News, Va., decided to train a reporter outside of the Tribune Co. program, Editor Ernest C. Gates told Journal-isms, pairing a trainee with a “first-class” investigative reporter who provides hands-on mentoring.
Given newspapers’ economic circumstances, Newsday found there was no market at the other Tribune papers for copy editors it might teach, so it did not train any this year, Kern said.
“With the financial pressure we’re under, people are going to have to make these draconian choices that we wish they didn’t have to,” Susan Denley, director of editorial hiring and staff development at the L.A. Times, told Journal-isms.
She said there was “quite a possibility” the copy editing program would return, but “it’s just not going to happen this year.”
Randy Hagihara, the Times’ senior editor for recruitment, has added Metpro to his portfolio, she said.
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Choice of Black Woman for Editorial Page Defended
“This week’s mail brought . . . mixed reactions to an announcement that a black woman has become a member of the Times-Union’s editorial board,” Wayne Ezell, public editor at the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, wrote over the weekend.
“Words of warm praise came for Tonyaa Weathersbee, a 48-year-old columnist who joined the newspaper more than 20 years ago, and now will have a voice in shaping its editorial opinions.” But there were dissenters, he said.
“This is for sure: Appointing Tonyaa Weathersbee to the board will give it an extremely pro-black, extremely liberal voice,” reader Bill Cassity said. “Do we really need that?”
Ezell replied, “That voice will be strident at times, harsh and passionate. That is Tonyaa Weathersbee. She ruffles feathers and causes angst in some corners, as a good opinion writer should, especially when she writes about the ills that plague Jacksonville’s African-American community.
“She endures a lot of unpleasant mail and telephone messages, some of it racist, in part because of her unvarnished views about the plight of minorities and the failure of power centers to grapple with important issues.
“In the newsroom, she has felt somewhat ignored in the past as she wrote column after column about race-related issues but didn’t feel she was really being listened to . . .
“One of the good news stories in Jacksonville is the progress being made toward racial harmony and moving beyond a past marked by racism. Elevating an African-American woman to the newspaper’s editorial board is another meaningful step.”
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Confront This Canard About Black History Month
As Black History Month draws to a close, it is sad to note how misinformed many are about its origins. “They gave us the shortest month,” has been heard all too often from the mouths of African Americans who don’t know that “they” didn’t “give” anyone the original Negro History Week, which in fact was invented by the African American historian Carter G. Woodson.
“He and the organization he founded, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), conceived and announced Negro History Week in 1925. The event was first celebrated during a week in February 1926 that encompassed the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, as the Library of Congress notes.
As a reader wrote in 1988 to the Syracuse (N.Y.) Post-Standard, “According to Karen Robinson, executive director of ASALH, ‘In 1975 the ASALH,’ which is based in Washington, D.C., ‘decided that it was time for National Black History Week to expand into National Black History Month. So the ASALH formed a committee to approach the president with the idea. The committee did approach the president, and in 1976 President Gerald R. Ford, in conjunction with American’s Bicentennial celebration, proclaimed Black History Week as Black History Month’.”
Kudos to those media outlets that have included Woodson and the origin of the commemoration in their coverage.
Brian Gilmore, Progressive Media Project: Black History Month still valuable
Denise Walter McConduit, New Orleans Times-Picayune: Black History Month provides inspiration
Rochelle Williams, Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer: Black History Year
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Grammatically Challenged, but ESPN Has Confidence
“Emmitt Smith is the man. I’m serious — the last thing I’m being right now is facetious,” writes a columnist on the walterfootball.com Web site, speaking of the National Football League’s all-time leading rusher who is now doing pregame commentary on ESPN.
“Despite his inability to speak English, Emmitt sits in front of the camera, broadcasting to millions of homes in the U.S., and speaks incorrectly and incoherently every single week. He’s a hero — and a very entertaining one at that. I made sure I was up at 11 every Sunday morning this fall just to hear Emmitt speak. Sure, I was writing down all of his grammatically incorrect sentences and phrases, but that’s why he was so fun to watch.”
The author then provides a list of Smith faux pas, such as:
“I’m concerned about a guy who fall down before get hits,” or, “Let’s see if he step up big today and play great for the Chargers.”
ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz told Journal-isms, We “haven’t really gotten that much viewer response about his speaking skills over the season. . . As I think you’ve heard us say, it’s his first year as tv analyst . . . we think he will continue to get more comfortable in his new role.”
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New Politics Site Promises Multicultural Views
PoliticsInColor.com, “a broadband video network and internet portal that focuses on the political issues affecting this nation’s racial and ethnic groups — Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Arab Americans and Native Americans,” is online, promising interactivity and originally produced news, interview and discussion style-video programs.
“We are inviting writers, bloggers, photographers and videographers to consider PoliticsInColor.com their home,” one of the contributors, Neil A. Foote Jr., told Journal-isms. “This election year and far beyond is a critical time. We’ve got to make sure the issues most important to our nation’s increasingly diverse population are fully vetted — and constantly placed in the forefront of this nation’s political agenda.”
For the moment, the site is paying only with bylines and photo credits.
Contributors are Jonathan Clarke, president and chief consultant of the Clarke Groupe, a media and communications company; Kai Beasley, a 2007 graduate of Emory University who majored in film studies; Lonnie Soury, president of Soury Communications, Inc., “a full service, issue oriented communications firm”; Marisa Treviño, a Dallas-based freelance opinion journalist; Michael H. Cottman, senior correspondent for BlackAmericaWeb.com; Foote, who has worked in newspapers and Internet-based companies and chairs the National Association of Minority Media Executives; well-connected Washington attorney Weldon H. Latham; Atlanta lawyer William A. Murrain and Ingrid Sturgis, formerly with AOL Black Voices and essence.com.
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Short Takes
“Alycia Lane, the former Philadelphia television news anchor who was arrested in December for punching a police officer in Manhattan, walked out of Criminal Court in Manhattan a free woman on Monday,” Anemona Hartocollis reported for Tuesday’s editions of the New York Times. “Prosecutors promised to drop the charges, Judge Dena E. Douglas told her, if she stayed out of trouble for six months and performed one day of community service.”
“The 2008 presidential campaign, which has fueled an unprecedented level of ad spending in the general media, now appears likely to do the same in the Spanish-language market as the Democratic candidates compete for the crucial Hispanic vote in Texas,” Ira Teinowitz reported Monday in TV Week. “Ahead of the state’s March 4 primary, Hispanic broadcasters are reporting that both Sen. Barack Obama‘s and Sen. Hillary Clinton‘s campaigns are devoting far more of their ad budgets to Spanish-language media in Texas than any previous presidential contenders.”
KPIX-TV in the San Francisco Bay area will launch a nightly 10 p.m. newscast on its sister station, KBCW-TV, beginning March 3, the stations announced on Friday. Monday-through-Friday anchors will include KPIX-TV’s 11 p.m. anchors Dana King and Ken Bastida; Dennis O’Donnell, sports director; and Roberta Gonzales, lead weather anchor. Saturday and Sunday nights include anchor Ann Notarangelo and Lawrence Karnow, weather anchor. Rick Quan will be sports anchor on Saturday and Dennis O’Donnell on Sunday.
John Solomon, the former Washington Post investigative reporter who took over the Washington Times as executive editor on Jan. 28, told the staff on Monday, “We will use illegal immigrants, not illegal aliens,” and that “Gay is approved for copy and preferred over homosexual, except in clinical references or references to sexual activity,” among other style changes, Erik Wemple wrote on the Washington City Paper Web site.
Univision 65 (WUVP-TV), owned and operated by Los Angeles-based Univision Communications Inc., will begin two daily local-news broadcasts in the Philadelphia market on March 10, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported on Friday.
“New York 1 News reporter Dean Meminger and NY1 Noticias’ reporter Luz Plasencia will be honored by Speaker Christine Quinn and Council Member Miguel Martinez during the Independence of the Dominican Republic celebration at City Hall,” Richard Huff reported Monday in the New York Daily News. “The correspondents will be cited for their coverage of Tropical Storm Noel’s aftermath in the Dominican Republic.”
“Longtime WPLG-ABC 10 anchor Dwight Lauderdale, a fixture on South Florida TV since 1974, is expected to announce his retirement Monday on the 11 p.m. news. His contract expires June 1, and talk is he’ll leave in late May,” Joan Fleischman reported Sunday in the Miami Herald.
Regina Medina, staff writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, has been named a 2007 Employee of the Year
for Philadelphia Media Holdings, which includes the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and philly.com. Medina, a board member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, was cited for her stories about Jocelyn Kirsch and Edward Anderton, who are charged with conspiracy, identity theft, burglary, terroristic threats, unlawful use of a computer and other crimes. The stories drove up page views on philly.com.
In San Antonio, David Cruz has been pulled off the 5 p.m. WOAI anchor desk. As of a few weeks ago, Randy Beamer was back to handling all three evening newscasts, Jeanne Jakle reported Thursday in the San Antonio Express-News. “Reached by e-mail, Cruz responded that he was ‘surprised with the news that I was being taken off the program.'”
New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin denounced WWL-TV on its own airwaves for publicizing his schedule from last year. “That schedule has formal stuff on it. It has patterns on it, and now you have these Aryan race people focused on me, and you got some mental cases out in this community, and you’re getting ready to put my schedule out there. Where are the other elected officials’ schedule? Are you going to do a follow up on that? This has gone beyond the point of reasonableness,” Nagin said. TV columnist Dave Walker reported Friday on the Times-Picayune Web site that the exchange was a hit with viewers. “The overnight rating for the 10 p.m. newscast in which the schedule story ran: 23.6, with each rating point representing about 6,000 households.”
Barry Cooper, online managing editor at the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, has been named vice president, Interactive for REACH Media Inc., a Dallas-based company primarily owned by Radio One that includes the Web site BlackAmericaWeb.com. In Dallas, Cooper will direct and develop interactive products for urban audiences, Tina Gill, the paper’s general manager, told staff members. A founder of BlackVoices.com, now part of AOL Black Voices, Cooper played a key role in helping the Virginian-Pilot integrate its print and online operations, directed the formation of a Continuous News Desk, and directed the staffs of the paper’s PilotOnline.com and HamptonRoads.com.
CNN’s Alina Cho is among a group of reporters in North Korea to report on the New York Philharmonic concert in Pyongyang. “Cho will add a distinctive note to CNN’s coverage: her mother and father were born in Seoul and lived through the Korean War. Two of her father’s uncles disappeared during the conflict, and now Cho is hoping to find evidence of their existence in North Korea,” Chris Ariens reported on the TV Newser Web site.
“Joe ‘The Black Eagle’ Madison, whose morning drive-time talk radio show is the main watering hole for anybody thirsting to know what’s going on in Black America, has carved out a spot in a savanna teeming with White, conservative shock jocks,” according to BET.com. “In fact, Madison — best described as a ‘radio activist’ — is the only African American among the top 20 of the ‘100 most important radio talk show hosts in America.'” That’s according to the latest edition of Talkers’ Magazine, the self-described “Bible of Talk Radio.” Madison broadcasts on WOL-AM in Washington and is heard nationally on XM satellite radio.
“TV news junkies in Jackson will have more options this spring when the local Fox affiliate begins producing local newscasts for the first time and an established news station adds an afternoon broadcast,” Gary Pettus wrote Saturday in the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger. “‘I would say this is overdue,’ said Mike Ingalls, news director for WDBD-Channel 40, in announcing the debut of his station’s first-ever newscasts, set for sometime around May.”
James Michael Brodie, who spent a few years teaching in the Baltimore City Public Schools, started work Monday as policy and education research writer for Education Daily in Washington. Brodie worked for newspapers in Maryland and at Black Issues in Higher Education and is author of “Created Equal: The Lives and Ideas of Black American Innovators,” and “Sweet Words So Brave: The Story of African American Literature.”
Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the 23-year-old student whose death sentence in Afghanistan for downloading a report on women’s rights from the Internet has become an international cause célèbre, spoke to Britain’s the Independent at his jail in Mazar-i-Sharif — “the first time the outside world has heard his own account of his shattering experience. In a voice soft, somewhat hesitant, he said: ‘The judges had made up their mind about the case without me. The way they talked to me, looked at me, was the way they look at a condemned man. I wanted to say “this is wrong, please listen to me,” but I was given no chance to explain,'” the newspaper reported on Monday.
Carlos Navarrete Castillo, an Ecuadorean journalist who formerly edited the country’s oldest newspaper, was found stabbed to death in his home, police said Monday, the Associated Press reported.
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Feedback: Photo Doesn’t Deserve a Big Deal
This photo is no big deal, and the Clinton people got a nerve to think it deserves media attention. Politicians dress up in all kinds of garb, usually just hats, all the time when they are visiting different places, even within the US. It’s not like Al Qaeda members dressed him up that way. Or does the Clinton campaign —and Drudge for that matter —think there is something wrong with being or dressing like a Muslim?
I see no reason for media to republish this photo, or write/air much at all about it, unless Clinton or one of the remaining Republican candidates wants to make an issue of it.
Ken Cooper Freelance writer?Feb. 26, 2008?Cooper, of Boston, is on a Fulbright grant at Cairo University in Egypt.
