Maynard Institute archives

De Lama Leaving Chicago Tribune

by richard0514

Managing Editor Was 2nd Latino in Newsroom

George de Lama, who as managing editor for news at the Chicago Tribune is one of the highest-ranking Latinos in mainstream daily newspapers, announced Wednesday he is leaving the paper. “I don’t know what my next incarnation will be. But I am excited at the prospect of exploring the possibilities,” he wrote.

 

De Lama, 51, the son of Cuban immigrants, began his career at the Tribune as a summer intern, rising through the ranks from metro reporter to national and foreign correspondent. He has also served as chief of correspondents, national and foreign editor. He was named managing editor for news in 2006.

“The Tribune gave this immigrants’ kid from Uptown the world, literally, and I’ll be forever grateful,” he said in a note to colleagues on Wednesday. “The paper sent me off on my first foreign assignment at 23 and let me roam far and wide, writing home to tell of what I saw along the way. I met presidents and paupers, comandantes and cardinals, Nobel laureates and no shortage of mopes and dopes. I covered cops and robbers, elections and wars and all manner of crushing misery and soaring achievement. I had two lifetimes’ worth of adventures, all from a privileged front-row seat to history.

“We hear a lot these days about how times are changing. Well, I’ve seen my share of that here, too. When I started at the Tribune, I was only the second Latino who had ever worked in this newsroom. The other one left at the end of my first week. For the next year-and-a-half, I was the only one on the staff. While we still have much to do on this front, I depart a more diverse Tribune as the first Latino to ever appear on our masthead. I sincerely hope I am not the last.”

In the 2008 diversity census of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Tribune reported 22.9 percent journalists of color, including 5.8 percent Asian American, 9.3 percent black or African American, 4.9 percent Hispanic and 2.9 percent Native American.

Hanke Gratteau, promoted in March to deputy managing editor, will succeed De Lama as managing editor for news, Tribune Editor Ann Marie Lapinski said in her own note. “Hanke has been working closely with George for many years, and his promotion of her to deputy managing editor in March was one step in a transition process that George has helped guide.”

“George came to this newspaper as a summer intern 30 years ago next month, and worked his way to the masthead by excelling at every assignment he held, including metro reporter, national and foreign correspondent, chief of correspondents, national and foreign editor, deputy managing editor and managing editor,” Lapinski’s note said. “He is a son of this city who grew up to edit the newspaper he read as a child. He was the reporter every editor cherishes — a skilled and resourceful digger who wrote like a dream. As an editor, he valued the same in his staff. There are many thousands of stories, only some of them under his byline, which were told, or better told, because of George’s great gifts.”

De Lama said, “for some time now, I’ve been thinking hard about my desire to do something new. Over the last few months, I began discussing it in earnest with Ann Marie. Earlier this year I finally decided that the time was right, and since then I have been working with her to help ensure a smooth transition.”

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Suddenly, Commentators Are Talking About Race

 

 

 

With the outcome of the West Virginia primary all but preordained, the cable networks busied themselves Tuesday night talking about Hillary Clinton‘s reasons for staying in the contest — and about race.

Commentators who once spoke blithely about “women” now more accurately discussed “white women” in talking about Clinton’s base of support.

On MSNBC, Chris Matthews confessed to having misgivings about even “talking this way. I mean, we’ve known that racial and ethnic issues always get in the way of arguing over issues, real issues, but this conversation, as it’s turned, I mean, I even hate saying things like ‘white working-class voters,’ you know?” Matthews said. “I was taught, growing up, don’t even say words like ‘blue-collar,’ don’t even get into that kind of elitist talk. We’re not sociologists, we’re Americans.”

Nevertheless, Matthews began his election night coverage with a reference to a statement by Clinton to USA Today last week that helped open the doors more widely to discussion of the contest in racial terms.

Clinton told USA Today on May 7, “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 and the front-runner, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

“It’s almost like she’s the Al Sharpton of white people,” Matthews said of Clinton.

It wasn’t just television coverage that zeroed in on race. The New York Times story on the primary results began this way:

“Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won a lopsided victory on Tuesday over Senator Barack Obama in the West Virginia primary, where racial considerations emerged as an unusually salient factor. Mrs. Clinton drew strong support from white, working-class voters, who have spurned Mr. Obama in recent contests.”

As Gary Langer reported for ABC News, discussing the exit polls:

“Two in 10 whites said the race of the candidate was a factor in their vote, second only to Mississippi. Just 32 percent of those voters said they’d support Obama against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, fewer than in other primaries where the question’s been asked.

“Indeed, as noted, among all West Virginia primary voters, only 51 percent they would support Obama vs. McCain, far fewer than elsewhere and one of many signs of antipathy toward Obama in the state.

“Among Clinton’s supporters, just 38 percent said they would vote for Obama against McCain; nearly as many said they would back McCain; and the rest said they would sit it out.”

Clinton herself eschewed talk of “white voters” in her victory speech, even as she made an argument that she is a better candidate against McCain than Obama.

“For me, this election isn’t about who’s in or who’s out or who’s up or who’s down,” she said. “It’s about the common threads that tie us together — rich and poor, young and old, black and white, Latino and Asian, Democrats, Republicans and Independents. We are united by common values. We all want a better world for our children and we want the best for our country. And we are committed to putting a Democrat back in the White House.”

Admittedly, the talk about race has been mostly about whites, as Keith Boykin noted on his dailyvoice.com Web site, in a piece headlined, “What About Black Voters?”

“I’m tired of hearing about working-class white voters in this election. The presidential candidates aren’t running for president of middle-class white America; they’re running for president of all of America,” Boykin wrote.

Dawn Turner Trice added Monday in the Chicago Tribune, “It’s hard to look at the ‘black vote’ as being nuanced and complicated because, for some, it’s still hard to look at blacks as being nuanced and complicated.”

And Mary Mitchell wrote for Thursday’s Chicago Sun-Times, “Obama’s problem attracting so-called ‘white, blue-collar’ workers is rooted in the reluctance of this demographic to vote for a black man.”

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Piece Describes Racism Toward Obama Workers

What is apparently the first mainstream newspaper story to report on the raw racism unleashed against campaign workers for Sen. Barack Obama ran in the Washington Post on Tuesday.

 

Kevin Merida

Writer Kevin Merida said he had received “an avalanche” of reaction, and Liz Spayd, editor of washingtonpost.com, told Journal-isms the front-page piece was “one of the most read we’ve had in a long time.”

“Look on washingtonpost.com at the comments — 3,335 when I checked this morning,” Merida, a Post associate editor, said on Tuesday. “My inbox was deluged with emails. Spent all day looking at them and responding to them, and they are still coming in.”

“For all the hope and excitement Obama’s candidacy is generating,” the story said, “some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed — and unreported — this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They’ve been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they’ve endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can’t fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.

“The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.”

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Clinton Dominates the Week’s Campaign Coverage

“We now know who the Democratic nominee ‘is gonna’ be,’ declared NBC’s Washington bureau chief Tim Russert the night of May 6 as results became clear. The cover of Time magazine showcased a beaming Barack Obama with the headline: ‘And The Winner* Is . . .’ Many press accounts described the Illinois Senator’s return to Capitol Hill late last week as a ‘victory lap.’ ” Mark Jurkowitz wrote for the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s Weekly News Index.

“In a campaign with more twists than a Twilight Zone episode, the media all but officially pronounced Obama the Democratic nominee last week after he emerged with a big win in North Carolina and a near-tie in Indiana. There are only a handful of Democratic primary contests left. And the consensus was that Hillary Clinton needed a stronger showing on May 6 to change the increasingly insurmountable-looking pledged delegate math and/or the superdelegates who have been steadily migrating to Obama.

“Ironically, in the week that calls for her to drop out grew louder, Clinton generated her highest level of coverage this year. According to PEJ’s Campaign Coverage Index, she was a significant or dominant factor in 70% of the campaign stories from May 5-11. Obama was a close second, at 67%. But at only 12%, Republican John McCain ended up with his lowest level of coverage in 2008.”

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Sue Simmons’ F-Word Has New Yorkers Talking

“During a live promotional segment on Monday night on WNBC-TV, Sue Simmons directed an obscenity at her longtime co-anchor, Chuck Scarborough. She later apologized,” James Barron wrote Wednesday in the New York Times.

 

Sue Simmons

“It looked like a spat between two people who have worked together for so long that they know each other’s rhythms a little too well. And, of course, they have worked together, for ages — or at least since 1980. There was Chuck Scarborough, reading something on a computer screen embedded in the desk and not listening to his co-anchor, Sue Simmons.

“So she let him have it in what sounded like mock derision. But she used a word seldom heard on the noncable air, and then only by accident — a word that is not publishable in the newspaper.

“The difference between them and, say, a couple having a spat over the dinner table was that they were on television — live television, on a network-owned station in the nation’s largest media market.

“It happened during a promotional spot at about 10:30 p.m. on Monday night on WNBC-TV, when they were supposed to describe stories that would be on their newscast at 11. By Tuesday morning, the outburst had New Yorkers talking about the nature of cursing in everyday conversation— not to mention the nature of Ms. Simmons, almost as permanent a presence in local news as there can be— and about how some things seem to be appropriate nowadays, even on television — and some things are not.”

Richard Huff wrote in the Daily News, “The decision to keep her on by Ch. 4 management after the gaffe left some industry insiders mulling Simmons’ future.”

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Podesta, Lamb Taking Washington Post Buyout

Two more veterans at the Washington Post, Don Podesta, an assistant managing editor for copy desks, and Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb, obituaries editor, are taking a buyout.

 

Don Podesta

“I plan to find a job at some point and probably not in newspaper journalism, the main thing I want to do is chill for a couple of months then do a little traveling,” Podesta, 58, told Journal-isms. “I’ve been working since I was 16 and in newspapers starting in high school, so I’m ready for some time off and then something different.” However, he said, “I have had a couple of interviews, and if I get an offer, I would probably start work sooner rather than later.”

Podesta, a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, was born in Chile and spent much of his childhood in Colombia before coming to the United States as a teenager. He has lived or worked in almost every Latin American country, and was once the paper’s correspondent in South America, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He was named to the newly created job of assistant managing editor in charge of the newsroom’s copy desks in 2005 after co-chairing a task force on copy editors.

He told Journal-isms he has recommended that his job be divided among various assistant managing editors and copy desk chiefs.

 

Yvonne Lamb

Lamb came to the Post in 1986 as editor of the Post’s weekly section for the District of Columbia, then became an assistant city editor responsible for law enforcement and courts coverage. She attended the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education’s Management Training Center in 1989, and returned to the newsroom as assistant metropolitan editor/staff development. She became director of training in 1994 and chief of the obit desk 10 years later.

A native of Savannah, Ga., Lamb is from a civil rights family. Her late brother Earl Shinhoster was “a child of the civil rights movement, having begun, at the age of 13, working with the youth council of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and some 30 years later serving as acting executive director of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization,” she wrote in a Post story. Another brother, George, was among those who integrated Groves High School. “A short while later, he helped to integrate the city’s white community college, before leaving there to march with King throughout the South,” she continued.

Lamb worked at the Atlanta Daily World, the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph and the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune before joining the Post.

Among other managers of color at the Post, Milton Coleman, deputy managing editor, Sandra Sugawara, assistant managing editor for financial news, Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, assistant managing editor for sports, Michel du Cille, assistant managing editor for photography, and Shirley M. Carswell, assistant managing editor for planning and administration, told Journal-isms they were not taking the buyout, Garcia-Ruiz because he is too young and Carswell because she is not eligible. Deborah Heard, assistant managing editor for Style, said on Monday she had decided to take the offer.

To be eligible, the employee must turn 50 within calendar 2008 and must have at least five years’ experience, also by the end of calendar 2008. Some 235 people, both those in the Newspaper Guild and in management, are eligible, according to Peter Perl, assistant managing editor for training and development.

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“Twitters” Lead Reporting on China Earthquake

“The world had real-time news about China’s massive earthquake as victims dashed out ‘twitter’ text messages while it took place, in what was being touted Tuesday as micro-blogging outshining mainstream news,” Glenn Chapman wrote for Agence France-Presse.

“As the earth shook with tragic consequences, people in the parts of China that felt the quake used their mobile telephones to send terse messages using the service provided by the San Francisco-based Twitter Inc.

“News of the deadly catastrophe reached Twitter devotees such as blogger Robert Scoble in San Francisco even before the massive temblor, which killed more than 12,000 people in Sichuan province, was reported by news organizations and the earthquake-tracking US Geological Survey.

“Twitters are abbreviated text messages that can be instantly posted on online bulletin boards and personal websites and sent to the mobile telephones of selected friends.”

Meanwhile, National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” hosts Robert Siegel and Melissa Block were in Sichuan Province covering the quake. “They continue to report on the aftermath and recovery efforts. The hosts were in Chengdu with producers Andrea Hsu and Art Silverman when the quake struck. They were preparing for a special week of China coverage that had been planned for next week,” as NPR said, introducing a blog chronicling their reporting.

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May 15 Deadline to Nominate an Educator

The National Conference of Editorial Writers annually grants a Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship — actually an award— “in recognition of an educator’s outstanding efforts to encourage minority students in the field of journalism.” The educator should be at the college level.

Nominations, which are now being accepted for the 2008 award, should consist of a statement about why you believe your nominee is deserving.

The final selection will be made by the NCEW Foundation board and will be announced in time for the Sept. 17-20 NCEW convention in Little Rock, Ark., when the presentation will be made.

Since 2000, an honorarium of $1,000 has been awarded the recipient, to be used to “further work in progress or begin a new project.”

Past winners include James Hawkins of Florida A&M University (1990); Larry Kaggwa of Howard U. (1992); Ben Holman of the U. of Maryland (1996); Linda Jones, Roosevelt U., Chicago (1998); Ramon Chavez, U. of Colorado, Boulder (1999); Erna Smith of San Francisco State (2000); Joseph Selden of Penn State (2001); Cheryl Smith; Paul Quinn College (2002); Rose Richard, Marquette University (2003); Leara D. Rhodes of the University of Georgia (2004); Denny McAuliffe of the University of Montana (2005); Pearl Stewart of Black College Wire (2006); and Valerie White of Florida A&M University (2007).

Nominations may be e-mailed to Richard Prince, NCEW Diversity Committee chair, at this e-mail address. The deadline is May 15.

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May 15 Deadline for Ida B. Wells Nominations

Nominations are being accepted until May 15 for the 2008 Ida B. Wells Award, presented annually to a media executive or manager who has made outstanding contributions toward making American newsrooms and news coverage more accurately reflect the communities they serve.

Administered jointly by the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Conference of Editorial Writers, the award seeks to give tangible and highly visible recognition to an individual or group of individuals who have provided distinguished leadership in increasing access and opportunities to people of color in journalism and improving coverage of underrepresented communities, in the words of a news release.

First bestowed in 1983, the award is named in honor of the pioneering 19th century editor and publisher who was a champion of integration and whose crusade against lynching earned her acclaim on two continents. Professors at the Medill School of Journalism serve as curators of the award.

Eligibility: Any news executive, manager or journalist who has made significant contributions to newsroom diversity and/or improved coverage of communities of color is eligible for the award.

Nominations: Any person may nominate a candidate for the award by completing a nominating form and submitting it along with supporting statements to m-awards@northwestern.edu

Presentations: The award is presented alternately at the national conventions of the sponsoring bodies. The 2008 award will be presented at the convention of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, planned Sept. 17- 20 in Little Rock, Ark.

Previous Winners:

2007 — Steve Capus, president, NBC News
2006 — Virgil L. Smith, president and publisher, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times
2005 — Reggie Stuart, corporate recruiter, Knight Ridder
2004 — Don Browne, chief operating officer, Telemundo
2003 — David Yarnold, senior vice president and editor, San Jose Mercury News

2002 — Sam Adams, retiring curator, Ida B. Wells Award Program
2001 — Reid MacCluggage, editor and publisher (ret.) the Day, New London, Conn.
2000 — No award given
1999 — Timothy M. Kelly, president and publisher, Lexington-Herald-Leader, Ky.
1998 — Paula Walker Madison, vice president and news director, WNBC, New York

1997 — Frank A. Blethen, publisher and chief executive officer, the Seattle Times
1996 — Donald Graham, publisher and board chairman, the Washington Post Co.
1995 — Shelby Coffey III, editor and executive vice president, Los Angeles Times
1994 — Gerald M. Sass, senior vice president, the Freedom Forum
1993 — Wanda Lloyd, senior editor for administration, USA Today

1992 — Jay T. Harris, vice president/operations and assistant to the president, Knight-Ridder Inc.
1991 — John C. Quinn, deputy chair, the Freedom Forum, former chief news executive, Gannett Co. Inc.
1990 — Mervin Aubespin, associate editor, the Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.
1989 — Albert Fitzpatrick, assistant vice president, Knight-Ridder Inc.
1988 — David Lawrence Jr., publisher and chair, Detroit Free Press

1987 — Loren Ghiglione, editor and publisher, the News, Southbridge, Mass.
1986 — James K. Batten, president, Knight-Ridder Inc.
1985 — Barry Bingham Jr., editor and publisher, the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times, Ky.
1984 — Daniel B. Burke, president and chief operating officer, Capital Cities Broadcasting
1983 — Allen H. Neuharth, chair and president, Gannett Co. Inc.

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Short Takes

  • TV One CEO Johnathan Rodgers is offering to cover the cost of 10 more scholarships for laid-off members of the National Association of Black Journalists to attend the Unity Journalists of Color convention in August. NABJ is offering others.
  • “Apparently the editors of People have a bit of a problem differentiating between Asian males,” according to Radaronline. “On page 38 of this week’s issue . . . an interview with Korean Speed Racer actor Karl Yune is accompanied by text identifying him as Korean pop star Rain.”
  • “Craig Melvin, a WIS-TV news anchor and one of the most familiar faces in the Midlands, will be leaving the station in July,” Otis R. Taylor Jr. reported in the State of Columbia, S.C. “He will become a reporter and anchor on NBC-owned WRC-TV in Washington, D.C., placing Melvin in a top 10 TV market.”
  • Chauncey Bailey, the assassinated editor of the Oakland (Calif.) Post, was posthumously awarded the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity last week by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
  • The fatal shooting of a Loyola University Chicago journalism student as she drove her car on Chicago’s South Side on May 4 might be connected to another shooting the same evening in which two people are being questioned, authorities said, Dan P. Blake reported in the Chicago Tribune. In recent months, Ishma Stewart, 20, “had been calling newspapers and magazines, trying to land a journalism internship. ‘She felt that journalism was a platform for her to go in and do her part to change the world a little bit — and at least expose some of the truth that may be neglected by mainstream society,’ her brother said,” according to the story.
  • When compared with public radio stations in other markets, Washington’s WAMU-FM says it ranks third nationwide, behind only San Francisco’s KQED-FM and NYC’s WNYC-FM in public radio listenership, according to the Web site dcrtv.com. Caryn Mathes, general manager, and James Asendio, news director, are African American stewards of a station serving a majority-white audience. On the ratings, “We’re able to publish this information because public stations have signed a new agreement with Arbitron that now allows us to share comparative station data. We weren’t allowed to share it previously,” Mathes told Journal-isms.
  • “In her remarkable story, ‘Beyond Rape: A Survivor’s Journey,’ Joanna Connors, a reporter at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, writes about her experiences getting raped. But the story isn’t just about rape. It also addresses important issues of race and class,” Keith Woods wrote Tuesday for the Poynter Institute. The victim is white; the rapist black. “Among the reasons the editors decided to run the package in a single day rather than spreading it out over five days had to do with race: the cumulative picture of the black characters in the story is nuanced and deep. But The Plain Dealer staff decided that it was easy to see little more than stereotype if you read some of the chapters out of context. It’s something to think about any time you’re following a developing story about race relations or racial conflict,” Woods wrote.

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