Maynard Institute archives

World’s Largest Will Be a Bit Smaller

by richard0496

Unity Attendance Adjusting to Industry Turmoil

 

 

Four years ago at the Washington Convention Center in the nation’s capital, the president of Unity: Journalists of Color looked out at the world’s largest convention of journalists and announced that attendance had reached 8,158, exceeding projections. It would not be unrealistic to expect 10,000 attendees in 2008, Ernest Sotomayor said.

That was before the dissolution of Knight Ridder, the sale of the Tribune Co., the accelerating rush to the Internet and the accompanying buyouts and layoffs.

Now the alliance of black, Hispanic, Asian American and Native American journalists, which meets July 23-27 in Chicago, is hoping it can attract 6,000 attendees. As of 4 p.m. Friday, paid registrations stood at 4,314, compared with 5,625 at this point in 2004. Advance registration has closed, though attendees may still register on site.

“We are frustrated that we cannot do more to help people, because the layoffs are everywhere at once, so pervasive, and we are often last hired,” Deirdre Childress of the Philadelphia Inquirer, secretary of the National Association of Black Journalists, told Journal-isms. “What has been interesting to us is the number of people coming but not registering. There are also a number of folks without rooms just seeking space on floors of rooms.” She said she and board member Aprill O. Turner had secured sponsors for two hotel suites to house eight members, including students and people between jobs.

As media companies this week announced new rounds of cutbacks claiming 900 jobs, NABJ announced it would continue offering scholarships that will help laid-off members attend. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association had announced similar programs.

In fact, said Onica Makwakwa, Unity’s executive director, the convention’s biggest selling point is that job recruiters are attending its “Career Expo” despite the economic climate. “We have more booths sold on the Expo side than in ’04,” she told Journal-isms. “If you’re out of a job, you should make that an option. This could be an investment in your career, to energize your job-search efforts.”

Makwakwa said that the turmoil in the news media meant “not having a clear sense of what the climate is going to be,” requiring convention planners to “constantly be flexible.”

Aside from the workshops, the invited presidential candidates, the networking, the business meetings, the parties and the awards galas, the annual conventions are key to each of the organizations’ financial health.

NABJ, the largest Unity group, originally budgeted for an attendance of 2,150 and now is at 1,970, Gregory Lee Jr., the association’s treasurer, said. That leaves it $25,000 below its original projections. “It’s a lot but it could have been worse,” Lee said of the lower figure. “I consider that a blessing.” He said NABJ has been cutting costs in anticipation of the reduced numbers.

At the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, “the projections for us haven’t changed,” Iván Román, the executive director, said. “We were conservative from the beginning.” The attendance figures dropped for last year’s convention in San Jose, Calif., and right after that came a wave of industry tumult. NAHJ planned for another drop in 2008. Thus, it reached its goal of netting $250,000 from registrations, which represents about 830 people, he said. NAHJ is extending financial assistance to another 54 people under its program for members who have been laid off, he said.

“Our attendance (for AAJA) will obviously be lower than we had projected (10-15% lower) and securing sponsorships for AAJA-specific programs and events at UNITY has been a big challenge,” said Rene Astudillo, the Asian American association’s executive director. “But while the economic climate will impact our financial bottom line, we are hearing a lot of excitement and anticipation from our members who have registered to attend the convention. They are looking forward to the skills that they will learn from the workshops and to the networking opportunities that will be available to them through the career fair and other events. We planned for 1,000 paid registrants under AAJA,” he said. “To date, we’re in the mid-700s.” He said close to 20 had taken advantage of the assistance program.

The Native American Journalists Association, smallest of the groups, also saw a drop-off from Unity 2004, when 192 preregistered, Executive Director Jeff Harjo told Journal-isms. This year 169 did. Harjo, too, cited cutbacks in the industry, but said NAJA had met its projections.

The organizations will be measuring the financial success of Unity not only by how much the umbrella organization takes in, but by how well each participating association does. NABJ is not entirely happy with the egalitarian aspects of the formula under which the proceeds of the quadrennial event are allocated, Lee said. “The Unity in 2008 will really impact whether there will be a 2012. The model has to change financially and structurally.”

With fuel costs skyrocketing, next year’s conventions will have more than news industry uncertainty to worry about, NAHJ’s Román noted. Locations that require airline travel will become more problematic.

For 2009, NABJ will convene in Tampa, Fla.; AAJA will be in Boston; NAJA will be in Albuquerque, N.M., for its 25th anniversary — and NAHJ will be in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

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East Bay Papers Losing 13 Percent of News Staff

“The operator of this newspaper undertook company-wide job cuts on Friday, affecting every department, including the newsroom, advertising, circulation and production,” George Avalos wrote Friday on the Web site of the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times.

[At the Oakland Tribune, one of the papers affected, the layoffs included Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig, city editor and vice president/print of the Bay Area Black Journalists Association who had also chaired the National Association of Black Journalists Council of Presidents. Tribune Editor Martin Reynolds told Journal-isms on Saturday that no other journalists of color were affected at his paper.]

“Separately, Bay Area News Group-East Bay said it will notify a local labor union that it intends to reduce the newsroom rank-and-file work force by nearly 13 percent. BANG-East Bay operates numerous papers in the East Bay and San Mateo County,” Avalos’ story continued.

“BANG-East Bay would not specify the total number of job reductions across the company.

“The company also said it plans to lay off 29 out of 226 employees in a newsroom operation whose journalists voted this month to be represented by the Newspaper Guild.

“The publications affected by the restructuring are owned by California Newspapers Partnership, whose managing partner is Denver-based Media News Group Inc.

“‘We are not immune to the financial challenges facing the economy in the East Bay and the newspaper business in general,’ John Armstrong, president and publisher of BANG-East Bay, said in a prepared release.”

Just in March, the Bay Area News Group-East Bay, which includes the Oakland Tribune, the Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, Fremont Argus, Hayward Daily News, Tri-Valley Herald, San Jaoquin Herald, San Mateo County Times and a dozen weeklies, lost 107 employees through a buyout offer.

“In my nearly five decades in this business, I’ve never experienced a downturn so deep and so broad,” Armstrong said in a memo to the staff.

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Broadcasters Discouraged by Obama Statements

Reports about Sen. Barack Obama‘s stance against media consolidation and on other broadcast issues “are discouraging for TV broadcasters, but they leave room for hope,” veteran broadcast-industry writer and editor Harry A. Jessell wrote Friday in his TV Newsday online newsletter.

“But why should broadcasters hope?” Jessell asked.

“Obama seems to believe that at least part of the answer to the consolidation of the traditional media is not new structural regulations, but in stricter enforcement of the antitrust laws and in maintaining the Internet as a vital and wide-open alternative to traditional media.

“Obama is on the right track here.

“Media mergers — large or small — should be judged solely on antitrust grounds” by either the Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission “on the same economic grounds as any other merger.

“Perhaps if Obama trusted the DOJ and FTC to scrutinize media deals closely — and in an Obama administration, why wouldn’t he? — he might be persuaded to go along with legislation or rulemakings that modestly relax media ownership limits.

“Obama also seems to understand that the Internet is an alternative to traditional media and that the more powerful it becomes, the less need there will be for special rules and regulations that hobble broadcasting.”

Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain “disagree on how to make the Internet flourish. Obama favors Net neutrality regulation that would prevent the big telecom companies from discriminating among content providers in the level of service they provide,” he continued.

According to Michael Powell, the former FCC chairman who represents McCain, “McCain fears that any kind of regulation will backfire, making the Internet less ‘free and open.'”

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Obama Criticizes Misogyny, Materialism in Rap

“Barack Obama yesterday plunged into the United States’ controversy over the wilder reaches of hip hop, accusing some singers of sending young people the wrong message,” Chris Stephen wrote Thursday in Scotland’s newspaper the Scotsman.

“In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he took aim at the prejudice and glorification of violence by some black rap artists.

“‘I am troubled sometimes by the misogyny and materialism of a lot of rap lyrics,’ said the Democratic presidential candidate. ‘It would be nice if I could have my daughters listen to their music without me worrying that they were getting bad images of themselves.’

“But he added that the genre had broken down barriers, saying: ‘I think the genius of the art form has shifted the culture and helped to desegregate music.’ He said the hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and rappers Jay-Z and Ludacris were ‘great talents and great businessmen.'”

Obama actually did not use the word “black” to describe the rap artists. He also said he was a fan of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Earth Wind and Fire, Elton John and Stevie Wonder, among others.

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Chanda Taylor, Producer at CNN, Dies at 35

 

Chanda Taylor

Chanda Nicole Taylor, a television producer and former president of the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists who chronicled her battle with brain cancer, died on Thursday at her home in Newnan, Ga. She was 35.

Born July 7, 1972, in Newnan, Taylor was a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She worked at WFTS-TV in Tampa, Fla., WFOR-TV in Miami, WJBK-TV in Detroit, WSB-TV in Atlanta, WFTV-TV in Orlando, and at CNN in Atlanta, where she started work as a producer in September.

“Chanda was truly an inspiration. She took us young producers under her wing and gave us so much advice, tips, pointers and most of all love,” a colleague said on the National Association of Black Journalists e-mail list.

On “My Brain Blog,” Taylor said she was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Multiforme Stage IV brain tumor in November. She also wrote, “Remember when life is beating you up, put your dukes up and fight back and remember you’re getting stronger with each punch.”

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Chicago Paper Tells of Coping With Violence

“For many Chicagoans, bars on their doors and windows can only protect them so much. On the street, they’re in danger every day — navigating a world filled with gangs, guns and drugs. This is the story of six Chicagoans doing the best they can in the city’s toughest neighborhoods — where 40 were shot and 7 killed on a single weekend in April.”

Thus began “59 Hours: A Sun-Times special report on violence” Sunday in the Chicago Sun-Times.

It was written, of course, before Thursday’s Supreme Court decision establishing an individual right to keep handguns in the home. In one of the first commentaries on the ruling by a journalist of color, Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post wrote on Friday, “I’ve always had trouble believing that a bunch of radicals who had just overthrown their British oppressors would tolerate any arrangement in which government had a monopoly on the instruments of deadly force. I don’t mean to sound like some kind of backwoods survivalist, but I think the revolutionaries who founded this nation believed in guns.

“Yesterday’s decision appears to leave room for laws that place some restrictions on gun ownership but still observe the Second Amendment’s guarantee. If not, then the way to fix the Constitution is to amend it — not ignore it.”

In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sylvester Brown Jr. wrote Thursday of a time when he believed in “the ‘kill or be killed’ code of the street. Although religion was heavy in my young life, the violence that often accompanies poverty was an even greater influence. Neighborhood talk about drug-related deaths, police tape blocking doors and dried blood on sidewalks has a way of influencing young minds. Black life seemed dangerous and expendable.

“. . . Education and self-reliance changed my life,” Brown wrote. “A concerted, black-led movement can change others raised in negative environments.”

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Zimbabwe Newspapers Forced to Stop Distribution

Zimbabwe’s ruling party, ZANU PF, “this week intensified its crackdown on the private media by intimidating and harassing newspaper distributors and vendors,” Lucia Makamure reported Friday in the Zimbabwe Independent.

“Munn Marketing Distributors, which distributes local weeklies the Zimbabwe Independent and the Standard and South African newspapers the Mail & Guardian, Sunday Times, Sunday Independent and the Star was forced to stop selling in Masvingo, Chivhu and Victoria Falls until after today’s election.

“The company’s operations manager, Nicholas Ncube, told the Independent that he was stopped in Chivhu on Monday by a group of youths wearing Zanu PF bandanas and T-shirts who took his ID card and told him to stop distributing the Sunday Times in the town.

“On Monday when we got to Chivhu a group of youths dressed in Zanu PF regalia stopped us and told us that the Sunday Times and other private newspapers had been banned in Chivhu and Masvingo.”

“Ncube said the youths took their ID cards and threatened to kill them if they continued distributing the newspapers in Chivhu and Masvingo.

“He alleged that many of the company’s vendors in Harare were on Monday beaten up, intimidated and forced to wear Zanu PF regalia when selling newspapers.”

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Short Takes

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Deb Willis
  • “HarperCollins’s Amistad imprint announced today it will publish ‘Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photos’ on October 28 with a 250,000-copy first printing,” Lynn Andriani reported Wednesday in Publishers Weekly. “The book will cover Barack Obama’s campaign from its beginning through June, and will include more than 150 full color and b&w photographs plus an introductory essay. Deb Willis, chair and professor of the New York University Tisch School of the Arts Photography and Imaging, will select and edit the photos. Kevin Merida, author of ‘Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas‘ (Doubleday) and a Washington Post writer, will write the introductory essay.”
  • Investigative journalism that revealed that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff lied under oath in a costly lawsuit against the city earned Detroit’s Free Press a Public Service Award from the Associated Press Managing Editors Association, the AP reported on Thursday. “The Virgin Islands Daily News of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, won the small circulation category for uncovering an ill-conceived fee that the territory’s waste management authority was quietly planning to impose on every business and individual. It was the newspaper’s second consecutive Public Service award and fifth in 13 years.” List of winners.
  • “The Freedom Forum, in partnership with the Associated Press Managing Editors and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, is accepting nominations for the seventh annual Robert G. McGruder Awards for Diversity Leadership,” the foundation announced on Friday. “The awards go to individuals, newsrooms or teams of journalists who embody the spirit of McGruder, a former executive editor of the Detroit Free Press and relentless diversity champion. McGruder died of cancer in April 2002. Jurors will be looking for nominees who have made a significant contribution during a given year or over a number of years toward furthering diversity in newspaper content and in recruiting, developing and retaining journalists of color. The deadline to make a nomination is Aug. 1.”
  • A study of 366 opinion articles written by college teachers or researchers and published by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Star-Ledger, the largest-circulation newspaper in New Jersey, found, among other things, that men wrote 78 percent of the academics’ opinion pieces in the Star-Ledger, 82 percent in the Times, and 97 percent in the Journal. “Of all our analyses,” authors Bob Sommer and John R. Maycroft wrote, “this is perhaps the most astonishing,” according to Richard Pérez-Peña, writing Monday in the New York Times.
  • “Sportscaster Daryl Hawks, who has been with San Francisco’s KNTV-TV for three years, is joining NBC-owned WMAQ-Ch. 5 in Chicago, effective July 28,” Phil Rosenthal wrote on the Chicago Tribune Web site on Wednesday. “Channel 5 announced today it has hired Hawks as a replacement for Ryan Baker, who joined CBS-owned WBBM-Ch. 2 earlier this year.”
  • Robert L. Johnson, the BET founder

 

Robert L. Johnson
  • and avid Hillary Clinton supporter, found there were consequences in Chicago for his disparaging comments about Sen. Barack Obama, such as that Obama would not have been the front-runner in the Democratic primary race if he had not been black. “The criticism against Johnson in the black community was so fierce, a local businesswoman was forced to cancel an annual breakfast fund-raiser because she had invited Johnson as the keynote speaker. Black people in corporate positions who had the clout to fill up tables at about $100 a seat balked at supporting Johnson,” Mary Mitchell wrote Thursday on her Chicago Sun-Times blog.
  • “A white former Post-Tribune employee was not denied a promotion to head the newspaper’s Gary bureau in favor of a less-qualified black applicant, a federal court jury found Tuesday,” Andy Grimm reported Wednesday in the Indiana newspaper. “The eight-member jury reached a verdict after little more than half an hour. The trial took six days, including two days on the stand by former deputy Lifestyle editor Kimberly Steele, in addition to testimony from Post-Tribune editors.”
  • A top aide to the new mayor of London, Boris Johnson, “quit last night after sparking fury by saying black people could ‘go home’ if they did not like having a Tory mayor of London,” Britain’s Mirror newspaper reported on Wednesday. James McGrath, 34, Johnson’s deputy chief of staff, made the comments to Mark Wadsworth, a black reporter who writes for the Web site the-latest.com. McGrath, an Australian immigrant, said he thought his comments were off the record. Wadsworth wrote that he had been told it was the first time in Britain that reporting by an alternative Web site had prompted the resignation of a public official.
  • “Broadcasters have overcompensated for their lack of executives from ethnic minorities by putting too many black and Asian faces on screen, a leading television industry figure said last night,” Leigh Holmwood reported Thursday for Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “Samir Shah, a member of the BBC’s board of directors, said this had led to a ‘world of deracinated coloured people flickering across our screens — to the irritation of many viewers and the embarrassment of the very people such actions are meant to appease’.”
  • Elder Bernice King, National Urban League President Marc Morial, author and professor Michael Eric Dyson, Michel Martin of National Public Radio and motivational speaker Les Brown will dissect the auditions of candidates seeking to replace Tavis Smiley as commentator on the syndicated “Tom Joyner Morning Show,” a spokeswoman for the radio show said on Friday. They will also provide their opinions on the personalities, who begin their eight weeks of on-air auditions on July 1.

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