One Columnist Says Press Corps Acted as Enabler
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer said on Wednesday he would resign over the scandal in which he is said to have been a paying customer in an operation run by a high-priced prostitution ring. The action set the stage for the swearing-in Monday of the state’s first black governor, Lt. Gov. David Paterson.
While media commentary has been overwhelmingly negative toward Spitzer since Monday’s disclosure of the scandal, a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece accused the news media of being his enablers.
“From the start, the press corps acted as an adjunct of Spitzer power, rather than a skeptic of it,” Kimberley A. Strassel wrote in the Journal. “Many journalists get into this business because they want to see wrongs righted. Mr. Spitzer portrayed himself as the moral avenger. He was the slayer of the big guy, the fat cat, the Wall Street titan — all allegedly on behalf of the little guy. The press ate it up, and came back for more.”
“What the media never acknowledged is that somewhere along the line (say, his first day in public office) Mr. Spitzer became the big guy, the titan. He had the power to trample lives and bend the rules, while also burnishing his own political fortune. He was the one who deserved as much, if not more, scrutiny as onetime New York Stock Exchange chief Dick Grasso or former American International Group CEO Maurice ‘Hank’ Greenberg.”
If true, the media’s attitude has changed since the news broke on Monday. Howard Kurtz wrote on the Washington Post Web site, “What’s striking, in the avalanche of news coverage about Spitzer’s secret life as Client 9,” the prostitutes’ patron, “is how no one is cutting him the slightest bit of slack, including liberal outlets that might ordinarily be sympathetic to a Democrat,” Kurtz said.
In the New York Times, media writer Alessandra Stanley wrote that television shows dominated by men and those by women viewed the scandal differently.
“Many a man stared at Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s news conference on Monday and thought, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ So did a lot of women, only they were looking at the stricken face of his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer,” Stanley wrote.
“The news that the Democratic governor of New York was embroiled in a prostitution scandal broke around 2 p.m., and by then opinion shows were dominated by men. Accordingly, there was a lot of talk about a ‘victimless crime.’ On CNN James Carville suggested that Mr. Spitzer’s enemies might have set him up, and argued that Mr. Spitzer need not resign. Tucker Carlson of MSNBC said the whole thing was ‘nauseating,’ but he was referring to the high-handed moralizing at Mr. Spitzer’s expense, not the governor’s ethical lapse.
“It wasn’t until Tuesday morning, on shows like ‘Today’ and ‘The View,’ that female commentators could really unload, and they did, mostly on panels with titles like ‘Why Men Cheat’ and filled by psychologists, self-help coaches and anthropologists. The biggest issue was not whether the governor would resign or face criminal charges. It was whether Ms. Wall Spitzer was right to stand by him, and even more urgently, whether all husbands stray, and why. It got testy at times.”
Cable networks carried Spitzer’s news conference live at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time. “The mood of the room was one of disbelief that it could actually come to this,” Alan Chernoff said on CNN. “Here was a politician whose entire career was built upon ethics.”
Some turned their attention to Paterson, the governor-to-be who is legally blind.
“His impaired vision has helped make him a good listener. Aides brief him by leaving lengthy voice mail messages. He memorizes his speeches,” Sam Roberts wrote in the New York Times in a story headlined, “Lieutenant Governor Has a History of Defying the Public’s Expectations.”
Joye Brown, Newsday: Spitzer slips into the background
Roy Peter Clark, Poynter Institute: Framing Your Spitzer Coverage: Issues and Questions
Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News: As the state shook, David Paterson called former deputy mayor dad
Kelly McBride, Poynter Institute: Chasing Spitzer: Breaking News of Uncertain Sourcing
Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: How can a man do such a thing to his family?
Ken Rodriguez, San Antonio Express-News: A call-girl bombshell in New York; a call-girl mystery in S.A.
Fred Siegel, New York Post: Gov. Longshot? David Paterson’s Unusual Rise
Stan Simpson, Hartford Courant: Playing Eliot’s Hand
Elmer Smith, Philadelphia Daily News: Please explain $5,500 an hour to me
Omar Wasow, theRoot.com From Jack Johnson to Eliot Spitzer: The troubling history of the White-Slave Traffic Act
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Black Publishers Ask Clinton About Ferraro Remarks
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton took questions Wednesday night at a gathering of the nation’s black-press publishers, leaving some of her questioners grateful that she appeared but disappointed in her responses on such hot-button issues as Geraldine Ferraro’s comments about Sen. Barack Obama and Clinton’s suggestion that Obama might be considered as her running mate.
Clinton answered questions for about 40 minutes before about 100 people during Black Press Week activities of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, an organization of black-press publishers, in Washington. Obama is due to speak Thursday night. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, declined the group’s invitation, Dorothy Leavell, president of the NNPA Foundation, told Journal-isms.
Clinton spoke on a day when former congresswoman Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic vice presidential nominee, dominated much of the campaign news cycle with her recent remarks that Obama’s campaign was successful because he is black. By day’s end, she had resigned her fundraising position with Clinton’s campaign after accusing the news media of taking her remarks out of context.
In an interview with the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif., Ferraro had said, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color), he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” She had made similar comments during Jesse Jackson’s candidacy in 1988, as Ben Smith noted on Politico.com.
On CBS’ “The Early Show” Wednesday, Ferraro told Russ Mitchell, “I started off the response to the question with, ‘If you look at my campaign in 1984, if my name were Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine Ferraro, I would never have gotten the nomination.’ And the reason was Fritz Mondale wanted to break down doors, he wanted to create a historic candidacy. It had nothing to do with my competency. I thought I could do the job of vice president. I was sure I could do it.
“What it is, it’s a historic candidacy. I should think he would celebrate the fact that black voters in this country are so excited that this is a groundbreaking thing that he would not comment on it. It wasn’t a racist comment. It was a comment, a statement of fact. And for the campaign to take that and spin it and attack Hillary and me as being racist, I have to tell you, it is just appalling.”
Asked if she would repeat the same words if she had it to do over again, Ferraro said, “what happened was the press didn’t report it fully. It’s the same thing. No, I wouldn’t say them. I would ask that the press report the whole thing.”
NNPA columnist the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds asked Clinton about Ferraro’s remark at the NNPA event, and Reynolds told Journal-isms she did not think Clinton’s response —”I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn’t speak for the campaign” —was forceful enough. “I would have hoped she had said, ‘I called her up and she resigned.’ I think she didn’t get it.” Unlike her husband, former president Bill Clinton, “I don’t think she feels the pain,” Reynolds said.
Leavell said of Clinton’s answer, “she did repudiate, but she didn’t denounce,” a reference to Obama’s response in an exchange during a recent televised debate about Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam.
When it was her turn for a question, Hazel Trice Edney, editor of the NNPA News Service, held up a copy of the Richmond (Va.) Free Press featuring a banner headline about Clinton’s statement that Obama might become her running mate. She asked Clinton how she would feel if the roles were reversed — if she were ahead in delegates and Obama said Clinton might be Obama’s running mate.
“She was a little evasive. She still won’t face the fact that he is in the lead. She’s still in denial, by saying, it’s too far away to tell. It shows she’s not facing reality,” Edney said of Clinton.
Edney said she was surprised that Clinton apologized for any offense her husband had caused with his comments after the South Carolina primary, when he said that Jesse Jackson had won the state as well during his bid for the Democratic nomination in the 1980s.
Other questions concerned AIDS, incarceration and racial profiling.
“Facing the fact that the majority of the newspapers have already endorsed Obama,” Leavell said, the organization was glad Clinton did not “duck us. She is a smart, hard-working politician. She is in it to win it.”
Liz Cox Barrett, Columbia Journalism Review: TNR’s Press Corps Class War
BlackAmericaWeb.com and Associated Press: Nine Out of 10 Black Mississippians Voted for Obama; Fewer Whites There Supported Him
John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable: Poll: More Respondents Find Hillary Clinton Coverage Fair
Shanna Flowers, Roanoke (Va.) Times: Not as simple as black and white
Carlos Guerra, San Antonio Express-News: Spotlight on the border may help others see wall as a bad idea
Bob Herbert, New York Times: Confronting the Kitchen Sink
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Huffington Post: Don’t Fire Geraldine Ferraro, Pin a Merit Badge on Her for Having the Guts to Tell the Truth
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, New America Media: Black Voters Can’t Put Obama in the White House
Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe: Fuzzy plans for Iraq
Ayesha Ijaz Khan, ebonyjet.com: Hoping for a New Dawn in US-Pakistani Relations
Sheryl McCarthy, Newsday: Black columnists’ Obama praise not same as support
Ruben Navarrette, San Diego Union-Tribune: Do Latinos benefit from Democrats?
Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Clinton-Obama dream team? Oh, dream on!
David Roybal, Albuquerque Journal: It’s Time for Bill to Pick — and Stick — a Candidate
Mary Sanchez, Kansas City Star: Obama needs to show Latino voters that he’s for them
DeWayne Wickham, USA Today: Philly mayor, Obama share no brotherly love
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Aldape Leaving Tribune Co., Returning to Chicago
Javier J. Aldape, onetime officer of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists who joined Tribune co. three years ago as editor of three editions of its Hoy newspapers, is leaving Tribune Co. after a restructuring at the Los Angeles Times, the Tribune paper where Aldape was most recently based.
Aldape plans to relocate to Chicago.
The Los Angeles Times Media Group announced last week that Roaldo Morán will head Hoy L.A. as publisher and general manager.
“I just felt it was the right time for a change, and Roaldo will be a great leader for Hoy here in LA,” Aldape told Journal-isms on Wednesday. “I’ll be here through the end of the month to ensure a smooth transition.” He said he was not ready to announce his next move.
“Morán brings extensive Hispanic advertising, marketing and media experience to Hoy L.A., joining the Spanish-language publication from creADtiva Communications Inc., an integrated brand marketing agency he founded and has overseen as Chairman since August 2005,” an announcement said.
A year ago, Tribune sold the New York edition of the Spanish-language paper, keeping the Hoy publications in Los Angeles and Chicago. Aldape, who was based in Chicago, became general manager and editor of the Los Angeles edition, and oversaw shared editorial content in both editions.
In addition, Aldape was given the title of vice president, audience development of the L.A. Times, to “work closely with Editor Jim O’Shea, and colleagues in other departments across the Times, in helping to identify other opportunities to grow audience and readership among the richly diverse communities in Los Angeles,” the Times said then. He reported to then-Times Publisher and CEO David Hiller.
The Tribune Co. has since been sold to Sam Zell and its top management has changed. On Feb. 14, the newspaper announced that part of Aldape’s portfolio would be assumed by John O’Loughlin, who became president, Targeted Media, “responsible for leading the growing family of products and services targeted at specific audience segments, including Hoy, Times Community Newspapers, Tribune Direct Marketing (Los Angeles) and Metromix.”
No new editor of Hoy-Los Angeles was announced. “The editorial part is a work in progress,” Morán told Journal-isms, saying Aldape had left good people in place.
Aldape, a Texas native, came to Tribune Co. from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he was a vice president and edited its Spanish-language newspaper La Estrella. He was also treasurer of Unity: Journalists of Color and active in the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, serving as its financial officer and co-publisher of a stylebook for Spanish-language journalists working in the United States and Puerto Rico. He spearheaded the publication in 2001 of the NAHJ handbook Latinos in the U.S.: A Resource Guide for Journalists, and had been managing editor at El Telégrafo in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
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Lorraine Branham Named Dean of Newhouse School
Lorraine Branham, director of the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, has been named dean of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, effective July 1, the university announced on Wednesday.
Branham is one of a very few African Americans who head journalism schools at majority-white institutions. She was chosen from among 300 nominations and 60 applicants after a seven-month nationwide search, the university said. Branham will succeed David M. Rubin, who has served as Newhouse dean since 1990.
The school has about 60 faculty members, 1,800 undergraduates, more than 200 graduate students and an unspecified number of doctoral students, a spokeswoman said.
Branham “made a terrific impression on the search committee. She has established herself as a thoughtful, collaborative leader in a highly regarded journalism program at the University of Texas, Austin,” said David C. Smith, the university’s vice president for administrative planning in academic affairs and chair of the dean search committee, in the news release.
“Branham joined the UT faculty in 2002 after a 25-year career as a newspaper editor, editorial writer and reporter. She was previously the assistant to the publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and senior vice president and executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat, and held several positions at the Philadelphia Inquirer, including associate managing editor for features. She also worked as a reporter at the Philadelphia Tribune; the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J.; the Philadelphia Bulletin; and the Baltimore Sun,” the release noted.
A study last summer by Thomas Kunkel, dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, found “the people who run the nation’s journalism and mass communication schools are overwhelmingly white, and two-thirds of them are male — even though about two-thirds of JMC students today are female.”
African American leaders of majority-white journalism schools include Ernest James Wilson III, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, William T. Slater, professor and dean of the College of Communication of the Schieffer School of Journalism at Texas Christian University, and Branham. Neil Henry is interim dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.
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Asian Journalists Offer Help to Laid-Off Members
The Asian American Journalists Association is offering its members who have been laid off a reduced membership fee, complimentary registration for this summer’s Unity convention and career counseling.
Members must apply for the benefits, the organization said. Certain lapsed members are also eligible.
At the San Jose Mercury News last Friday, 10 journalists of color — half of whom are Asian American — were affected by buyouts, layoffs or voluntary departures.
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Andre Jackson Leaving St. Louis After 20 Years
Six months after seven black journalists left the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and five months after Larry Starks, the paper’s sports editor, joined them, Andre Jackson, assistant managing editor for business, is heading out the door.
Jackson, 46, who would have been at the paper for 21 years in May, is joining the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as an editorial writer specializing in business, he told Journal-isms.
“It seems like an exciting change,” Jackson said, adding that he has worked in most newsroom departments at the Post-Dispatch, with the exception of sports and the editorial page. He said he was recruited by Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor at the Atlanta paper and syndicated columnist.
Jackson is a board member of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and has overseen business news coverage at the Post-Dispatch since spring 2001, as the Web site Talking Biz News noted on Tuesday.
Of business journalism, Jackson said, “Certainly there are opportunities, even when the rest of the industry is retrenching. There are still jobs in business journalism. You can make a name for yourself. The biggest story out there is the economy.”
In September, home editor Jamila Robinson, who also left for the Atlanta paper, told Journal-isms, “It’s a very difficult time for people of color at this newspaper.” She contended that the newspaper articulates the right sentiments about diversity but they weren’t reflected in the people populating the executive suites or in promotions.
Editor Arnie Robbins disagreed, saying, “We’ve made a real commitment to diversity in our hiring and our content . . . I’m proud of the work we’ve done in terms of diversity,” though he said, “we want to do better.”
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Sherry Howard Leaves Philly Web Site to Go Solo
Sherry Howard, executive editor for special projects at Philadelphia Inquirer online, turned in her resignation Monday and said she wants to go out on her own.
“I’ve been doing this for over 30 years, and all of a sudden there’s a whole new world” on the Internet, Howard, 57, told Journal-isms.
Howard has been at the Inquirer since she was hired as a copy editor in 1984, holding various roles there including assistant managing editor for features, newsroom recruiter and new-media fellow of the Newspaper Association of America. She also was a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan and is a past president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists.
Howard started with the Inquirer’s online division in 2001, but as it emphasized more hard news, found herself pulled toward community news and user-generated content. Now she says she wants to work with community groups, particularly African American women, to help them take advantage of the Web. It can be profitable, she said. “I want to take the time to see how others have done it. I just want to see what I can do on my own with the training I have gotten at the Inquirer,” Howard said.
Her last day is Friday. “You give yourself a year and see what happens. I’m not afraid of hard work. I’m very focused,” Howard said.
Noam Cohen, New York Times: Journalism in the Hands of the Neighborhood
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NAMME Drops “Minority,” Names Award Winners
The National Association of Minority Media Executives has exchanged the “minority” in its name for “multicultural,” chairman Neil Foote told Journal-isms, and the organization announced on Tuesday its annual awards for industry trailblazers.
The winners are to be honored at its “Celebration of Diversity” Awards Dinner on April 15 in Washington, during the week of the Newspaper Association of America and American Society of Newspaper Editors annual conventions.
The Diversity Award winners are:
Robert C. Maynard Legend Award: Marvin Lake, retired public editor, the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.
Distinguished Diversity Award for Lifetime Achievement: John C. Quinn, founder, Freedom Forum’s Chips Quinn Scholars Program, former chief news executive, Gannett, Co., Inc.; former editor-in-chief, USA Today.
Catalyst Award — Print: Lewis Diuguid, vice president, community resources, Kansas City Star
Catalyst Award — New Media: Omar Hamoui, founder & CEO, AdMob
Catalyst Award — Broadcast: Robin Roberts, co-anchor, “Good Morning America,” ABC News
Lawrence Young Breakthrough Award: Arlene Notoro Morgan, associate dean, prizes and programs, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Award of Valor: Collective effort of 10 Time Inc. magazines for their group coverage of the two-year aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They are Larry Hackett, managing editor, People; Richard Stengel, managing editor, Time; Andy Serwer, managing editor, Fortune; Angela Burt-Murray, editor-in-chief, Essence; Dan Goodgame, managing editor, Fortune Small Business; Peter Castro, managing editor, People en Español; Eric Schurenberg, managing editor, Money; Rick Tetzeli, managing editor, Entertainment Weekly; Terry McDonell, managing editor, Sports Illustrated Group; Eleanor Griffin, editor-in-chief, Cottage Living; Michelle Ebanks, president, Essence.
Valor Award: Courageous Reporting — Aparism “Bobby” Ghosh, world editor, Time.
[Foote did not initially elaborate on the reasons for the name change, but explained on March 18: “After several months of discussion at the board level and then approval of the membership, we have chosen to change the name of this 18-year-old organization. We believe the new name better reflects the demographic changes in the country and better positions the organization for the 21st century. NAMME has always set itself apart as a distinctive organization that focuses on the needs of media executives across all racial ethnicities, all media platforms and all disciplines. With our new name, we are setting the stage for a series of strategic moves that will strengthen the organization to continue to help build future industry leaders.”]
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Short Takes
A homicide scene “took a bizarre twist Monday afternoon when three members of the deceased’s family were accused of attacking a local television reporter — and that reporter says the fight was racially motivated,” Jason Spencer reported Wednesday for the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal. The family of 73-year-old Tommy Howell “allegedly began assaulting WSPA News Channel 7’s Charmayne Brown with fists — and racial slurs — flying,” Spencer reported.
In a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters in Nashville, President Bush said he supported a Republican move to force an up-or-down vote on a bill that would prevent the reimposition of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to air both sides of controversial issues of public importance. The Federal Communications Commission threw out the doctrine in 1987. That’s according to the office of former talk-radio host and Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, John Eggerton reported Tuesday in Broadcasting & Cable.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick “lashed out at his opponents and the news media Tuesday night, accusing them of showing a ‘lynch mob mentality’ amid a scandal over his exchange of sexually explicit text messages with a former top aide,” Corey Williams reported for the Associated Press. “The criticism came as he finished reading the written text released before his State of the City address, which only briefly alluded to the text-message controversy.”
In Chicago, newscaster Mark Suppelsa‘s contract with Fox-owned WFLD-TV “doesn’t expire for another week or so. But Channel 32 management pulled him off the air, replacing him with 10 p.m. co-anchor David Novarro, who is pulling double duty at 9 p.m. while the station figures out what it wants to do,” Phil Rosenthal reported Tuesday for the Chicago Tribune.
Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star won the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award for commentary, the foundation announced Friday. Whitlock receives $10,000 and a trophy “for his ability to seamlessly integrate sports commentary with social commentary and to challenge widely held assumptions along the racial divide.”
Michael A. House, “whose newspaper, marketing and sales expertise spans over 40 years, will join the Chicago Defender effective March 31st. As President, Mr. House will be charged with overseeing the entire operations of the historic newspaper. The vision is to create an integrated platform that includes web, events marketing, and traditional print advertising,” the Defender’s parent company said in a news release. House’s newspaper experience includes the Call & Post Newspaper Group, where he served as president and chief operating officer.
The Magazine Publishers of America will host its second annual “Find Yourself in Magazines: Career Insight Conference” on March 20 in New York to introduce new audiences to magazines as well as showcase the wealth of diverse and multicultural talent within the industry, Shaunice Hawkins, vice president, diversity & multicultural initiatives, announced on Tuesday. Emil Wilbekin, editor-in-chief of Giant magazine, is to provide the keynote address.
Max Karson, author of an incendiary University of Colorado newspaper piece that declared “war” on Asians, said Tuesday he was trying to ridicule racism. And, he said, he’d write and publish the same column again, Ryan Morgan wrote Wednesday for the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colo.
The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kan., published an anonymous message left on its phone forum: “I hereby declare open season year round on c**ns (rhymes with moons), and I’m not talking about the furry four-legged kind,” WDAF-TV in Kansas City reported. Dan Hicks, Review publisher, said in the story, “This demonstrates that that kind of feeling is out there, I find it abhorrent, a lot of other people are going to find it abhorrent, but that’s really something you can only fight if you expose it.”
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Feedback: Ferraro a Hack Racist Pol
Ferraro was so out of sync with Mondale on race that I asked her about it when I was on the vice presidential debate panel in ’84. She opposed busing and affirmative action and was essentially a hack racist pol with a crocked husband from Queens. Pretty much sums up what she is today.
Jack E. White Richmond, Va.?March 13, 2008
