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On Race, Many Not Ready to “Move On”

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CNN Survey Finds Gap Between Blacks, Whites

Whites and African Americans start from such different places in discussing race that it should be no surprise that attempts at dialogue get derailed, according to CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien, discussing a survey conducted for CNN and Essence magazine for CNN’s upcoming “Black in America” documentaries. O’Brien, principal reporter for the project, said she found the same gap among journalists.

“I’ve done numbers of interviews with journalists who’ve said, ‘I’m shocked that there’s bias in hiring,’ — shocked, and these are journalists,” said O’Brien, who was born to a black Cuban mother and an Irish-Australian father and considers herself multiracial.

One question in a telephone survey of 2,184 adults asked how seriously respondents viewed racial discrimination against blacks. Forty-three percent of blacks said it was a “very serious problem,” a view held by only 11 percent of whites. Forty-four percent of blacks said it was a “somewhat serious problem,” compared with 46 percent of whites. Twelve percent of blacks said it was “not a serious problem,” but 42 percent of whites agreed with that statement. The sampling error for that question, part of a survey taken March 26 to April 2, was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

“One of the things that we saw certainly in the documentary was that that difference is actually key,” O’Brien told reporters Tuesday in a conference call. “The fact that blacks see it as a very serious problem and whites don’t was very interesting and (was) reflected a lot in the number of the interviews that we did. And I think also (it) gave us a sense of where the discussions about race sometimes get derailed because both sides, if you will, black and whites, are not starting from the same page,” she continued.

“A lot of the white people we would interview sort of felt there was no problem at all, and why would we continue to talk about race when, as one person put it, ‘Listen, you now have a black guy who’s a nominee for president of the United States,’ ergo, it’s clear that black people have ‘caught up with’ — his terms — white people. . . .

“Black people in the audience . . . almost jumped out of their chairs when they heard that.

“Black in America” began on April 3 with an examination of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. It continues this month with two additional two-hour documentaries: “The Black Man” on July 23 and “The Black Woman & Family” on July 24. Essence magazine, which like CNN is owned by Time Warner, is also producing reports, some of which are on its Web site.

Other poll questions asked whether race will always be a problem in the United States (blacks, 51 percent yes; whites, 57 percent no); how much contact members of each race had with the other; how financially secure one feels; whether King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was still relevant; whether that speech influenced the person questioned; and whether life for black men (and separately, black women) has gotten better in the last 10 years, and in the last 40 years.

Blacks were more likely to tie poverty to race and history, O’Brien said, “where whites were less often going to make that connection. . . . in race discussions black people did not want to move on. They felt very connected to the history — the assassination of Martin Luther King. The history of racism and Jim Crow in this country and slavery — hundreds of years-long history, where whites (were) much less likely to refer to a history that long.

Also heard in her discussions, O’Brien said, “was the question of understanding and being able to trace your roots.” It “was fascinating because for a lot of the young, especially black boys in some of the urban centers where we focused our documentary, they were unable to — they didn’t know where they came from. And if any of you caught Chris Rock talking about that with Oprah, (it) was really interesting when he said — at least it really struck a chord with me — when he said, ‘I would have tried harder if I had known that my great- great- great-grandfather was a slave, but when he became free he became a politician and a landowner and accomplished this and accomplished that.’ And it made us wonder how many of these young black boys . . . especially sort of don’t know where they come from . . . For a lot of people the American dream is your uncle came over to this country and with $2 he built this and accomplished that and did this and did that and for a lot of black people in this country that story does not exist.”

O’Brien also said that in making the documentary, she heard whites ask at least 15 times, “Why are black people so angry?” Black women, particularly, said they felt they were living in two worlds, whereas “white people often didn’t really think of that.” The black women discussed how they “were a different person” at the office “than the person they were at home and with their friends” and how stressful that could be.

The different starting points make conversations about race difficult. “Race is personal. It’s very hard to have objective dispassionate conversation about race and not feel — and people involved not feel that they are being personally described, attacked, ignored, etc.,” O’Brien continued. “I think that race cuts to the core of who you are in this country and because it gets unpleasant very quickly, we cannot have those conversations.

“I mean, the number of young men who would stop me in the hallways just here at CNN to tell me ‘make sure you get in how hard it is for me to get a cab when I leave this building at 1 o’clock in the morning working on a big project, because I run technology for all of CNN but I can’t get a cab, and the humiliation of having to ask a white colleague to get that cab for you who, by the way, is hierarchically below you on the totem pole, and having to say “get that cab so I can go home.” ‘”

O’Brien said the “Black in America” series did not discuss Asians or Latinos partly because it was partnering with Essence, a magazine for black women, and because “race relations between black and white have touched an ugly and difficult history and a history — you know there is a difference between coming to this country because you’ve decided to make a better way for your family and coming to this country on a slave ship. I mean that’s just the difference and that’s the difference that not all people are willing to accept or even think about.”

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More Staff Cuts, From L.A. Times to Tampa Tribune

 

Janet Choi

“The Los Angeles Times today announced plans to cut 250 positions across the company, including 150 positions in editorial, in a new effort to bring expenses into line with declining revenue. In a further cost-cutting step, the paper will reduce the number of pages it publishes each week by 15%,” Michael A. Hiltzik reported Wednesday on the Times Web site.

The Los Angeles paper thus joins the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune, Tampa’s WFLA-TV, KTLA-TV in Los Angeles and KNTV-TV in the San Francisco Bay area among the latest news outlets to implement staff cutbacks.

“The editorial staff cuts, which amount to roughly 17%, will be spread between the print newsroom and The Times’ Web operations and are to be completed by Labor Day,” the Times story said.

At Tribune-owned KTLA, weekend anchor Walter Richards and reporter Willa Sandmeyer were let go along with reporter Janet Choi and others, Greg Braxton reported on Monday for the Los Angeles Times.

 

 

Reporter Daniel Garza was among the layoffs at the Bay Area’s NBC station, KNTV. A Bay Area native, Garza worked at the station for 18 years. He is a founding member of the San Jose chapter of the California Chicano News Media Association.

At the Tampa Tribune, 11 staffers were to be notified Wednesday they will be laid off, with 10 more job cuts coming in the next 12 weeks or so, according to Tribune editor Janet Coats, Eric Deggans reported Wednesday in the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.

“Tampa NBC affiliate WFLA will lose 10 positions by year’s end, including three people who took a buyout offer previously extended by the company and two on-air people whose contracts were not renewed, weather forecaster Mace Michaels and reporter Claudia DeCampo,” Deggans’ story continued.

At the Journal Sentinel, Publisher Elizabeth Brenner announced another voluntary separation program for full-time employees.

“Our advertising customers — especially car dealers, real estate agents, hiring officials, retailers and mortgage banks — have been battered by a ‘perfect storm’ of deteriorating credit conditions, slowing home sales, contracting company size and higher gas prices,” she said.

At the Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal, Managing Editor Cory Lancaster told Journal-isms that of 38 newsroom staffers affected by cutbacks last week, five were journalists of color. One was a reporter, one a photographer, and three were support staff, whom she said she considered to be journalists.

The News-Journal was cited in 2007 by the American Society of Newspaper Editor for a 70.8 percent increase in minority hiring. ASNE gave it a Diversity Pacesetter award.

Meanwhile, “Owners of The Record of Hackensack, N.J., and the Herald News in West Paterson, N.J., are implementing a new cap on severance pay that will limit departing staffers to 12 weeks’ severance no matter how long they have worked for the company,” Joe Strupp reported Wednesday in Editor & Publisher.

“It is a necessity right now. We have had several job eliminations and severance payouts are becoming an untenable drain on cash flow,” Linda Iceland, corporate communications manager, said.

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How About a Story About What Patriotism Means?

“What is a patriot?

“That’s a really good story,” Butch Ward wrote on Tuesday for the Poynter Institute, “especially with the approach of Independence Day, which political consultants obviously think provides a perfect context for arguing over who’s patriotic enough to be president.

“But what does patriotic really mean? Isn’t the answer a lot more complex than our current political discourse would suggest? Dictionary.com defines patriot as ‘a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.’

“I don’t see any mention of armies or flags or national anthems in that definition, but for the better part of seven years now, the word patriot has been redefined to applaud those who support this nation’s military campaigns, and to impugn the character of those who suggest other courses of action.

“Now it’s being used to question whether Sen. Barack Obama has what it takes to be president.

“Here’s my first question for you: Is your coverage of this debate limited to simply replaying the ‘He’s-not-patriotic-enough-yes-I-am’ rhetoric? Are you playing into the hands of political consultants who want your community’s voters to make another choice based on symbols and emotions instead of sound thinking?

“How about a label story on your community’s patriots?

“Who are they? What do they do? How do they ‘love, support and defend their country and its interests with devotion?’

“Remember: The goal of this story is to help the audience to think — to challenge the assumptions that limit our ability to see through the spin and vote intelligently.”

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2nd Amendment Ruling Recalls Carl Rowan Incident

The late columnist Carl T. Rowan, though a gun-control advocate, played a part in softening support for the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns, struck down last week by the Supreme Court, according to Brian DeBose, writing Tuesday in the Washington Times.

Since the first D.C. Council banned handguns in 1976, “the law has been an anathema to defenders of the Second Amendment,” DeBose wrote. “It wasn’t until Carl T. Rowan Sr., a staunch supporter of the ban, shot teenage-trespassing-swimmer [Benjamin N.] Smith on the evening of June 14, 1988, that D.C. residents really began to question the ban’s usefulness. Mr. Rowan was one of the most prominent black journalists of the 20th century, and he advocated for a federal law ‘that says anyone found in possession of a handgun except a legitimate officer of the law goes to jail — period.’ Yet, ultimately, a 1989 jury found him not guilty of shooting the trespasser. Jurors noted that it should be Mr. Rowan’s right to defend his home and property with a gun.”

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Viewers Petition to Support NABJ President

 

NABJConvention.org

Barbara Ciara

Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists and an anchor at WTKR-TV in Newport News, Va., is receiving some community support as her television station undergoes a dizzying series of personnel changes.

An online petition addressed to Jeff Hoffman, the station’s new general manager, tells him that “Barbara is more than a familiar face. She is a local icon. She is a community staple. She is an integral part of what makes Hampton Roads.

“Barbara is important to us. Having her on the air is important to us. In short, we miss her and want to see more of her.”

“Initially, my role was reduced last August to anchor the Noon and 5pm news to accommodate my duties as president of NABJ,” Ciara told Journal-isms via e-mail.

“The news director who was recently fired took it to another level a few months later when he removed me from the 5pm broadcast — which was a breach of the agreement between myself and the GM and News Director.” That general manager has also left the station.

David Squires wrote about the petition, which had 128 signatures on Wednesday night, in the Daily Press of Newport News on Wednesday.

“Ciara, a Hampton University graduate at NewsChannel 3 since 2000, has seen her role shrink since August from anchoring three newscasts to just one show at noon. She was also removed from news department management,” Squires wrote.

In the last two weeks, the assignment director, a well-known reporter and anchor and the news director and assistant news director have all left. Hoffman, the general manager, has been at the third-place station only since June.

“I’ve been in this business 30 years. It never ceases to amaze and surprise me the loyalty the viewers have to their newsroom family on the air,” Ciara told Journal-isms.

Hoffman told Squires, “I think it’s wonderful that people think that highly of Barbara, of people at our station. I’m grateful they took some time out of their day to say something that thoughtful and engage in dialogue that’s going to make our station better.

“I’ve known her (Ciara) a short time,” he said. “I can tell you I think she’s a terrific asset to our station.”

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Can Advocacy Blogs Also Be Journalism?

“On its Web site, the Detroit News hosts ‘Going Home: A Journal on Detroit’s Neighborhoods,’ which gives voice, with a regularity and an intensity that a resource-strapped newspaper simply cannot, to the neighborhood” called City Airport, Megan Garber writes in the July/August issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. The area is “perhaps the most dangerous section of what is perhaps the most dangerous city in America.

“Don’t let its expansive tagline fool you: ‘Going Home,’ at least for now, is exclusively about this neighborhood. Through prose and pictures, it introduces the area’s residents and documents the neighborhood’s physical devolution. It links to regular News stories, audio slideshows, and interactive graphics about the area. As a piece of journalism, ‘Going Home’ is stubbornly anti-anthropological; its posts are not mere vignettes, narrated in the detached tones of reportorial observation. ‘Going Home,’ as its name suggests, is highly personal,” Garber writes.

“The blog’s guiding force and principal writer is Michael Happy, a News sports reporter who grew up in the City Airport neighborhood but moved away when he was twelve, in 1976. . . .Happy enlisted his friend and colleague, Jonathan Morgan, the News’s multiplatform editor, to write the blog with him.

“Ask Happy and Morgan what ‘Going Home’ is, fundamentally, and they’ll tell you, without hesitating, that it’s journalism — a logical extension of the work they do and the skills they’ve developed as professional reporters. But ‘Going Home’ is more than storytelling. It is community building. It is advocacy. And Happy and Morgan aren’t just reporting the neighborhood’s story. They’re affecting the story. In some ways, they are the story.

“‘It’s just not right,’ says Christine MacDonald, a Detroit News metro reporter in the paper’s City Hall bureau. ‘Going Home’s’ blatant agenda-mongering, she says, no matter its good intentions, compromises the paper’s overall credibility. Dave Josar, MacDonald’s colleague in the City Hall bureau, shares her concern, and wonders, ‘What are the rules here?’ It’s a fair question, and one that newspapers around the country are struggling to answer as they incorporate reporters’ blogs into their online strategy.”

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3 Journalists Freed in Zimbabwe Without Charges

Three freelance journalists who were arrested in Harare, Zimbabwe, during the second round of the presidential election on June 27 — Richard Judson, Regis Marisamhuka and Agrisson Manyenge — were released two days later without being charged, Reporters Without Borders reported on Wednesday.

“The police arrested them on suspicion of working without being properly accredited with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) — the usual pretext for detaining journalists,” the press freedom group said.

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Short Takes

 

Barbara DuMetz

Bebe Moore Campbell

 

Lupita Murillo
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