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Talk Shows Question “White” Comment

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Clinton Claim Even Parodied on “Saturday Night Live”

When NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” portrayed the press as fawning over Sen. Barack Obama, rival Sen. Hillary Clinton liked it so much she referenced it in their Cleveland Democratic presidential debate, then went on the show herself.

“And if anybody saw ‘Saturday Night Live,’ you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow,” Clinton, D-N.Y., told the debate audience in February.

On Saturday, Clinton impersonator Amy Poehler opened “SNL” with a sketch the candidate is unlikely to crow about. Her character explained to superdelegates why they should choose her. “First, I am a sore loser,” she said. Also, “my supporters are racists. They’re racially biased and would never vote for an African American candidate.”

The faux Clinton also said she would be “happy to play the gender card” as well as the “race card.”

The references were to Clinton’s statement Wednesday to USA Today that, “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.” As evidence, the story said, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me,” referring to the Indiana and North Carolina primaries.

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” Clinton said.

Stories in the mainstream media downplayed the statement last week, but the networks’ Sunday talk shows raised it, most vigorously when Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s campaign manager and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, appeared on both NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“Charlie Rangel, a Harlem Democratic congressman, supporter of Hillary Clinton, said this,” host Tim Russert told McAuliffe: “‘I can’t believe Senator Clinton would say anything that dumb.’ Bob Herbert, columnist for the New York Times, wrote this:

“‘He can’t win. Don’t you understand? He’s black! He’s black!

” ‘The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. It’s a grotesque insult to African Americans who had given so much support to both Bill and Hillary Clinton over the years.

” ‘. . . I don’t know if Senator Obama can win the White House; no one knows. But to deliberately convey the idea that most white people, or most working class white people, are unwilling to give an African-American candidate a fair hearing in a presidential election is a slur against whites.'”

McAuliffe said he disagreed with Herbert, protested that Clinton was merely quoting an AP story, and tried to steer the conversation in a different direction.

But neither Russert nor Bob Schieffer, who hosts “Face the Nation,” was prepared to drop the matter.

“But do you think she actually meant to say it that way?” Schieffer said. “Because it seemed to be saying that, well, she said ‘hard-working white people.’ That wasn’t the phrase — ‘hard-working white people’ wasn’t in the Associated Press story. Was she somehow saying that black people are not hard-working?

MCAULIFFE: “No, no.”

SCHIEFFER: “Or that white people are not going to vote for Barack Obama?”

MCAULIFFE: “No, absolutely not. And if Barack Obama happens to be the nominee, we will work — everybody will work very hard. We will be a unified party.”

On ABC, “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos played a clip of Clinton’s statement for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate majority leader, and said, “Senator Obama’s supporters say that’s a blatant playing of the race card that will hurt him in the fall election.

Reid replied, “I’m confident that she meant nothing about — anyways, I think it was taken wrong. I’m — the Clintons have a really good record with all ethnic groups. I think we should just pass by that very quickly.”

Stephanopoulos at first moved on, but returned to the question. “We’ve seen the trouble he’s had with working-class voters. Will he face those same vulnerabilities?”

REID: “George, I don’t want to harp on Nevada at this point, but let’s look at Nevada again. Obama and Clinton ran there. We had — on Jan. 19. Clinton got more of a popular vote; Obama got more of the delegates. Why? Because he ran so well in rural Nevada, counties where there are no ethnic minorities at all. He swept those counties, and as a result of that he got more delegates than Clinton in the state of Nevada.”

On “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace played an audio clip of Clinton’s statement, then asked Obama campaign manager David Axelrod, “What do you think of a Democratic presidential candidate describing the race in such stark racial terms?

AXELROD: “Well, I have to assume that Senator Clinton didn’t say that the way she wanted to say it. I don’t imagine that she chose the words as she would if you asked her that question again.

“And the truth is that that isn’t even the fact. In Indiana, we split voters who make $50,000 a year or less evenly. We did better among non-college-educated voters there. And the same is true in North Carolina than in some of the immediately — immediate preceding states.

“And we’ve done well across the country in various states with these voters.

WALLACE: “Well, let me just ask you, though, Mr. Axelrod . . .

AXELROD: “So the thesis itself is — was wrong. The words weren’t well chosen, but the thesis was wrong.

WALLACE: “Why are the words not well chosen? Forgetting whether they’re accurate or not, I mean, what do you find offensive about talking about white voters not going for Obama?

AXELROD: “Well, I’m sure that Senator Clinton didn’t mean to conflate ‘hard-working Americans’ and ‘white Americans’ in the same sentence. I know she doesn’t believe that, and I don’t think she meant to, and I’m sure Howard would say the same thing,” referring to Howard Wolfson, Clinton campaign strategist.

WALLACE: “Well, let me ask you about that.

AXELROD: “I think there are a lot of hard-working Americans of all backgrounds and races and ethnicities, and of course she believes that, too.

WALLACE: “Let me ask you about that, because right after the Pennsylvania primary, you gave an interview to National Public Radio in which you said the white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections.

“Do you, in effect, think that — first of all, do you believe that? You did say it right after Pennsylvania. And secondly, are you, in effect, conceding the white working class to John McCain in the general election?

AXELROD: “Not at all. And I think that this is a year in which we have a great chance to do what we haven’t done for many cycles and rally working class Americans again of all backgrounds, because we’re living through a dismal time in our economy, and much of it has to do with the policies that we’ve seen. . . .”

Black journalists Michele Norris of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and Juan Williams of NPR and Fox News were on the pundit panels of “Meet the Press” and “Fox News Sunday,” respectively. They took contrasting approaches.

Norris said, “this is a week . . . when you talk to people within the party outside the campaigns, where the race issue has really started to give them quite a bit of heartburn. When Hillary Clinton talks about Barack Obama not having strong support among ‘Americans, hard-working Americans, white Americans,’ the corollary argument that could be made against her is the drop in her support among African Americans.

“And if she were to become the nominee, there is a real concern that African Americans, who have always been reliable, you know, a part of the electorate for the Democratic Party, would not show up. And if you look at what happened in Ohio in the last election, if John Kerry had improved his performance, his support among African Americans, even only marginally, he might be president today.”

Williams said, “On the big issues — and what she said about white voters by the way, you know, I think some people around here think it’s OK to be virtuous and ignore race when, in fact, race is a very real issue, and that he has had a declining rate of success with white voters, not necessarily over race in specific, but, you know, over things like Reverend Wright and judgments to be made about him as an elitist and the like.

“So these are real issues, because you — from the Democratic Party’s point of view, you want to make sure you do well in November. That’s what this has all been about, winning the White House. And so if she believes she’ll be the stronger nominee, she’s got to make that case to the superdelegates.” Williams backed Clinton’s argument in Sunday’s New York Daily News.

In the New York Times on Saturday, John M. Broder wrote:

“The superdelegate movement toward Mr. Obama, of Illinois — giving him a net gain of six on Friday alone, with more expected — increased the pressure on Mrs. Clinton, of New York, to at least refrain from divisive remarks, particularly after her comments on Wednesday that lower-income white voters would not support Mr. Obama if he became the Democratic nominee. Aides now say she regrets the comments.”

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Cable Company Announces Deal to Buy Newsday

Newsday, the Long Island, N.Y., newspaper that has undergone a wrenching series of job cuts amid uncertainty over who would ultimately become its owner, is being sold to Cablevision Systems Corp., a Long Island-based company that describes itself as operating “the nation’s single largest cable cluster” and also owns Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and the New York Knicks, the newspaper reported on Monday.

 

The company announced an agreement “to acquire Newsday from Tribune Co. in a $650-million deal that would create a regional news and advertising giant with a powerful grip on Long Island,” according to the story by Mark Harrington, Ellen Yan, James T. Madore and Thomas Maier.

“This agreement enables us to maximize the value of Newsday and still retain an interest in this valuable asset,” said Tribune chief executive Sam Zell. ‘The newspaper has a unique circulation base and a tremendously strong brand. I expect them to grow and flourish as a result of this new partnership.’

“Cablevision, a latecomer to the bidding for Newsday, beat News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch, one of the world’s most influential media moguls. He bid $580 million for the newspaper and dropped out on Saturday, saying a deal had become ‘uneconomical.’

The story quoted a source who “said Cablevision is interested in Newsday’s advertising operations, including classified sales, and envisions using the newspaper to expand the amount of local advertising Cablevision sells on the hundreds of channels on its system.

“Cablevision also sees opportunities to expand its Internet operations with Newsday content and brand.”

The newspaper lost a number of journalists of color as it cut positions partly to make itself more attractive to potential buyers. Newsday was part of the old Times Mirror Co., which was sold to Tribune Co., which was sold to billionaire Zell last year.

Among the journalists of color who left Newsday this year and last are Genetta M. Adams, assistant managing editor for features; Stacie Walker, a deputy national editor; National Editor Calvin Lawrence; Mira Lowe, associate editor for recruitment; John Gonzales, a federal courts reporter; reporter Herbert Lowe; J. Jioni Palmer, who covered Long Island’s congressional delegation; Errol Cockfield, Albany bureau chief; Wil Cruz, who worked on Newsday’s Web initiative; Walter Middlebrook, deputy features editor; Ray Sanchez, a onetime Latin America correspondent; and Curtis Taylor, health and science reporter.

“I’m waiting and seeing,” one longtime Newsday journalist told Journal-isms. “It’s going to be three or four months” before the sale goes through. “I’ve been through so many changes, so many buyouts, I don’t get the sense of ‘oh my God, what’s going to happen. It’s just another turn in the road.”

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In L.A., Spanish Newscasts Called Superior

“Last year, the immigrant governor of California told a convention of Latino journalists that immigrants should watch only English-language TV so they can understand the language and news of their home state,” Joe Mathews wrote from Los Angeles Sunday in the Washington Post. “‘You’ve got to turn off the Spanish television set,’ Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger advised the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

“Schwarzenegger is wrong. . . . The error is particularly obvious in cities with the largest immigrant populations, especially Los Angeles, the town the governor calls home. Schwarzenegger could discover ample evidence of this all by himself — simply by turning on his television,” continued Mathews, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation and author of “The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy.”

“On most nights here, the most timely, serious and civic-minded local news is not available on the Internet, the radio or any of the half-dozen English-language stations that broadcast nightly shows that purport to be newscasts. At 11 p.m. each night here, the best newscasts in the market appear on two Spanish-language channels, Univision’s flagship KMEX and Telemundo affiliate KVEA.

“This might come as a surprise to English-speaking Americans, who hear about the Spanish-language TV news only when its on-air personalities engage in soap-opera-style antics, such as the KVEA anchor-reporter who became the mistress of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. But I’ve been watching these two Spanish newscasts and their English competitors on the local ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates, and the content doesn’t lie. If immigrants took Schwarzenegger’s advice and flipped off Spanish stations in favor of English-language news, they wouldn’t have nearly as good an idea of what was happening in their adopted city, state and country.”

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Incompetence Lets Reporter Escape from Burma

“A CNN reporter who left Burma Friday was chased by authorities as he reported on the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis but escaped primarily because of the incompetence of the people after him. Dan Rivers hid under a blanket at one police checkpoint and casually covered up his name on a passport to avoid detection another time. He may ultimately have gotten out of the country due to a stewardess’ impatience,” David Bauder reported for the Associated Press.

“‘I was amazed at the lengths they apparently went just to catch me,’ Rivers told The Associated Press by telephone from Thailand on Saturday.

“Rivers’ story illustrates the preoccupation of Burma’s military government with things other than helping the country recover from a storm that killed thousands and left many survivors homeless. Aid groups have reported difficulties in getting badly needed supplies and relief workers into the secretive country.”

Despite the hostility to the news media by the regime in Burma, called Myanmar by its military commanders, an investigation by the Committee to Protect Journalists has found that exile-run news organizations and in-country, undercover reporters have proved surprisingly resilient.

“Savvy undercover journalists have continued to find ways around government-administered firewalls through the use of proxy servers and other tactics . . . a review of recent coverage — including reports on the devastating May cyclone that struck southwestern Burma — shows that the quantity and depth of in-country reporting has remained consistent or improved since the crackdown,” the organization said last week.

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Deborah Heard, Washington Post AME, Taking Buyout

Deborah Heard, who edits the Style section of the Washington Post as a Post assistant managing editor, is taking a buyout from the newspaper at the end of the year, she told colleagues on Monday.

 

 

Heard, 50, one of the highest-ranking African Americans at the newspaper, has been at the paper since 1984. “I haven’t started to figure out what I’ll do — other than a long vacation — because I’m committed to the Post until Dec. 31st,” she told Journal-isms.

Heard, a 2000 alumna of the Maynard Institute’s management training program, grew up in Alabama and worked at the Miami Herald before joining the Post. She was named to succeed Eugene Robinson as Style leader in 2004 after serving as the section’s No. 2 since 1995. The failure to select Robinson, who is also African American, as managing editor prompted racial concerns in the newsroom. Heard was promoted and Robinson became an op-ed columnist.

Among journalists of color, the Web site FishbowlDC has reported that film critic Desson Thomson took the buyout, and quoted New York correspondent Keith Richburg last month: “I’m going to bali in early may, so I’m going to sit there looking at a white sand beach and the pacific ocean and then make up my mind.”

In announcing Heard’s promotion in 2004, Leonard Downie Jr., the Post’s executive editor, credited her with playing “a large role in Style’s prize-winning success and its special place in our readers’ daily lives.” He called her “a strong voice among the newspaper’s senior editors for innovation, inclusion and excellence.”

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Editor Makes Case for Saving J-School Program

Phil Lewis, editor of the Daily News in Naples, Fla., has added his voice to those seeking to save the journalism program at Florida International University. “The school is slated to lose 12.4 percent of its budget, or around $455,422, over three years, according to Lillian Kopenhaver, its dean. The school may be dismantled if it can’t absorb the cuts,” Miami New Times wrote in April.

“In recent years, FIU has graduated more ‘Hispanic’ journalists than any university in the country, Lewis told readers on Sunday. “That’s why the advisory council for the J-school includes the editors of the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Palm Beach Post. That’s why The New York Times keeps close contact and schedules programs at FIU. That’s why the Scripps Howard Foundation just gave FIU $250,000 to build a new multimedia news lab.

“If you want a newsroom that is as diverse as the community your newspaper serves, FIU is a godsend.

“FIU-trained journalists —8,000 in all — are hard at work in Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia, Argentina and Peru. The FIU School of Journalism established the International Media Center to give guidance — and hope — to journalists in Havana, Caracas and other areas where reporting the truth can mean jail, even death.

“I fear the dismantling of FIU’s School of Journalism threatens all of that.

“Now it is up to Dean Kopenhaver and others — me included — to get that point across to the powers that be.”

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NBC’s Camille Edwards Named News Director in D.C.

 

Camille Edwards, news director at WMAQ-TV in Chicago, has been named news director of WRC-TV, its sister NBC owned-and-operated station in Washington, WRC General Manager Michael Jack announced Friday.

“Camille brings a wealth of experience to the job. She joined NBC5 as News Director in October, 2003 . . . before joining NBC5, she was the Assistant News Director at WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, an ABC O&O television station. Prior to Philadelphia Camille was at WLS-TV in Chicago for over four and half years. She started as a weekend producer and was the Executive producer of the 4:30pm and 6pm shows when she left,” Jack wrote in his announcement.

Edwards is part of a very select group. The 2007 RTNDA/Ball State University Annual Survey showed that African American television news directors were 2 percent of the total, down from 4.2 percent.

Edwards is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and member and former vice president of broadcast for NABJ-Chicago. She is also a member of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the NAACP, the Chicago Urban League, the Chicago Economic Club and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

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2 Go Coast to Coast Speaking Only Spanish

“I had just been appointed as the US Hispanic Affairs Correspondent, when I asked my colleagues, ‘Would it be possible to cross the US from coast to coast speaking only Spanish?’ Some thought so. Others didn’t,” José Baig, one-half of the BBC Mundo team “¿Hablas español?” wrote Friday for Marisa Treviño‘s Latina Lista blog.

“‘There’s only one way to find out’, I said. And that’s how the ‘¿Hablas español?’ initiative was born.” BBC Mundo is the Spanish-language service of the BBC World Service. Baig was joined by his colleague Carlos Ceresole.

“After two weeks on the road, we realized that in most cases people will make an effort to communicate although being approached in a different language. We also found out for ourselves that Hispanic doesn’t mean Spanish-speaker. And finally, that Spanish should no longer be considered a foreign language in the USA,” Baig wrote.

“While on the road, we were able to find Spanish-speakers in every single one of our stops. Even in Snowville, Utah, a town with only 177 people where, according to the local joke, the mayor, the milkman and the ambulance driver are the same person, we found five Spanish-speakers.

“But what we find really surprising this time is the vast number of USA-born people that are learning Spanish. Among them, many studied it at school, some others have lived in Spanish-speaking countries and a few are impressively competent in their command of the language.

“On the political side, most people seem to be worried mainly for the immigration issue. But they’ve also asked the next president for a better environment, an improvement of the healthcare system, more support for education and the end of the war in Iraq.”

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Christian Ewell, Baltimore Sportswriter, Dies at 33

“Christian Ewell, a reporter for The Sun who had written about sports since his college days, died of brain cancer Saturday at a hospice in Kansas City, Mo. He was 33,” Chris Emery wrote Sunday in the Baltimore Sun.

 

“Mr. Ewell joined The Sun in 1997, working as a sportswriter and news reporter in Baltimore and in Howard County. His sports assignments took him to the Super Bowl in 2001, when the Ravens beat the New York Giants, and to the men’s college basketball Final Four in 2001 and in 2002, when the University of Maryland defeated Indiana in Atlanta for the national championship.

“He was chosen as a Chips Quinn scholar in a prestigious national program for young minority journalists. That led to work as a general assignment and sports reporter at the Philadelphia Daily News. He also held internships at the Topeka Capital-Journal, ESPN2 in Los Angeles and the Knight-Ridder bureau in Washington. He studied at Howard University during his junior year.

“His friends and family said Mr. Ewell’s interests were broad and notably included music, reading and food.

“‘He was sort of a Renaissance man,’ said Liz F. Kay, a colleague at The Sun. ‘He was incredibly well-read.'” Ewell also tutored children for Reading by 9, a childhood literacy program.

A memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 4230 S.W. Gage Blvd. in Topeka. The family requests memorial donations to the American Brain Tumor Association, 2720 River Road, Des Plaines, IL 60018.

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Short Takes

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Feedback: Clintons Have a New Marriage Prospect

I am saddened to report that the marriage of the Clintons and Black America (B.A.) seems headed for divorce. It once looked like a union that would go on forever, even though it was a mixed marriage. There was the saxophone playing, the love of Gospel music, BFF Vernon Jordan, new digs in Harlem. Some in B.A. even affectionately referred to Bill as “The Country’s First Black President.”

Then B. A. began playing around on the side — with a handsome young politician from Chicago. It started as a flirtation; a wink here, a smile there, a whispered promise.

“Not to worry,” thought the Clintons. “It’s just a passing fancy, a distraction. After all, we and B.A. have a history that binds us for eternity.”

But the flirtation escalated to a full-blown affair. Tension between the Clintons and B.A. became palpable. Accusations were made, insults traded, tears shed and, worst of all for a mixed marriage, race emerged from exile.

Already, the household is splitting up, with B.A. moving more of its things every day to the abode of the young politician from Chicago.

As for the Clintons, they’ve already got another marriage prospect in sight. His name is Harvey. He’s a fourth-generation Lithuanian-American, lives in southern Ohio, works hard hard hard in a sheet metal factory, and drives a pick-up — with a gun rack.

Joe Boyce
Indianapolis
May 12, 2008

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