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A Hint of Chicago Politics at NABJ?

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Winner’s Supporter Wanted Opponent Disqualified

Kathy Times, the newly elected president of the National Association of Black Journalists, might have secured the job without opposition had one of her supporters prevailed.

The supporter, a lawyer and associate member of the organization, formally challenged the qualifications of Times and her opponent, Angelo B. Henderson.

NABJ rejected the supporter’s request.

Eliminating election opponents is not new in the political world. In 1996, Barack Obama famously won his first election to the Illinois State Senate after successfully challenging the petitions of three of his Democratic opponents.

However, such a move appears to be unprecedented for a presidential election in NABJ, the nation’s largest and oldest association of journalists of color, founded in 1975.

"There was a challenge," Elections Committee Co-Chair Melanie Burney, an editorial writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer, acknowledged on Monday. "The Elections Committee reviewed the challenge, consulted the executive director and NABJ’s lawyer, and as a result of that . . . upheld the certification of every candidate. The same certification process was used for every candidate." She did not use Henderson’s name.

The events took place in late April and early May, out of the spotlight. No announcement was made of the challenge. The association’s magazine, the NABJ Journal, has relinquished its watchdog role within the association, and the NABJ Monitor, the student publication that covers the NABJ convention, missed a nameless reference to the challenge by Elections Committee Co-Chair Herbert Lowe at an NABJ board meeting on Tuesday.

Times, an anchor and investigative reporter at WDBD-TV in Jackson, Miss., told Journal-isms Monday night that "the election is over and the board is moving forward." She referred questions to the Elections Committee, including the identity of the supporter who filed the challenge. Times defeated Henderson, 325 to 248, in balloting that concluded on Friday.

Henderson, a Radio One talk-show host in Detroit whose background includes a Pulitzer Prize for his work at the Wall Street Journal and work for Real Times, a chain that owns black newspapers, said the Elections Committee asked him to submit employment verification and answer questions about his typical day. He also serves as an associate pastor, and he had to prove that he spent more than 51 percent of his time as a journalist.

The Elections Committee was satisfied that Henderson, already a full member of NABJ, qualified. It was after that decision that the challenge from the Times supporter came.

In January, the committee had asked the board of directors to re-examine its criteria for membership as turmoil in the news industry swept away jobs and forced many journalists to reinvent themselves in the workplace. New recommendations were released at last week’s convention, but they apparently still do not exactly match Henderson’s situation.

They would add "online/emerging media" to the list of platforms where journalists may work, add a new membership category to be called "online/emerging media," and provide that "NABJ members who’ve exhausted their six month extension" after losing their jobs be allowed to "retain their status as a full member for year as long as they pay the full member rate," wrote board member Charles Robinson III, who chaired the commission on membership.

"I’m not traditional," Henderson told Journal-isms. "As we move forward, we have to look at people who work in a variety of jobs."

"Maybe," he said of the rejection of the challenge to his candidacy, "it will be easier for the next person who doesn’t work for one company."

Times said she agreed with a re-examination. Having served on both the elections and membership committees, she said, looking at membership criteria "is definitely going to be a priority for me." 

(c) 2009 Universal Press Syndicate. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

"Dick Cheney" Orders a Hit on Michael Vick

"Today is the day that Dick Cheney advises the NFL to kill Michael Vick ‚Äî the start of a satiric fictional storyline that, like a blindside sack or shooting accident, you just won’t see coming. At least not in The Washington Post," Michael Cavna wrote Monday on the Washington Post Web site.

"That’s because The Post, both in print and online, chose not to run this week’s original ‘Tank McNamara’ strips. Instead, Post readers will see syndicate-sanctioned ‘Tank’ reruns.

"Post Managing Editor Raju Narisetti says the decision was a no-brainer: The original strips were deemed ‘inappropriate.’ The Post sacked the week’s strips, in which NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell seeks advice on how to handle the reinstatement of former quarterback/convict Vick, who ran a pit-bull ring that resulted in canine deaths; the storyline attempts to satirize issues such as perceptions of racism by the NFL front office and owners."

Meanwhile, CBS announced¬†that "60 Minutes" will air Vick’s first interview since he admitted two years ago to running a dogfighting ring ‚Äî a crime that landed him in federal prison for 18 months and got him suspended from the NFL. The interview, conducted Monday in Virginia, is to be broadcast Sunday.

The ex-Atlanta Falcons quarterback "was conditionally reinstated by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on July 27th, a week after he was released from federal custody. If a team is interested in him, Vick could be playing again in a regular league game by the sixth week of the NFL season," CBS explained.

"The segment will also include interviews with Wayne Pacelle, head of the Humane Society of the U.S., the country’s largest organization dedicated to the protection of animals. Tony Dungy, the former NFL coach who will be a special advisor to Vick, will also be interviewed."

Top Court to Decide on Release of Prisoner Photos

"The United States Supreme Court will hear the U.S. government’s appeal on a lower court ruling requiring the release of photos showing the abuse of prisoners held in overseas facilities," Eli Clifton wrote Monday for Inter-Press Service.

"The government is appealing a 2008 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit which ruled that the government must release the photos to comply with an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

The Obama administration initially agreed to release the photos ‚Äî and decided not to appeal the court’s decision ‚Äî but reversed position on May 28 when the government asked the appeals court to recall its order for the photos release, since an appeal was to be filed in the Supreme Court, the story said.

Sotomayor Approval Could Boost Cameras in Court

"The Radio-Television News Directors Association said Wednesday that Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation by the Senate for the Supreme Court was an encouraging sign for cameras in that venue," John Eggerton reported¬†for Broadcasting & Cable.

"RTNDA, which has been pushing to get cameras into the high court for years, was buoyed by Sotomayor’s response to questioning from camera fan Herb Kohl about her views on televising the court.

"’I have had positive experiences with cameras when I have been asked to join experiments using cameras in the courtroom,’ she said.

"While she did not commit to supporting them, RTNDA pointed out, she said she would be a ‘new voice in the discussion,’ which RTNDA points out is an improvement over the justice she is replacing, David Souter, who was firmly opposed.

L.A. Reporter Bonds With Victim of Drive-By

"I looked into the woman’s face. Her large brown eyes widened with fear. She winced in pain. Blood spurted from her thighs," Molly Hennessy-Fiske wrote on Monday for the Los Angeles Times.

"I dropped my purse and knelt beside her on the asphalt.

"Reporters are trained to remain detached, to observe and record without interfering. But the circumstances that Saturday afternoon compelled me to reach out and help this stranger, the victim of a drive-by shooting in South Los Angeles.

"From that chance encounter, a bond would grow between us — fleeting but powerful. Later, I would learn about her life, that she was a working single mother who had just moved to the high desert to escape gang violence. But at that moment, all I could think about was how to stop the bleeding.

"Someone had ripped up a white T-shirt and tied the strips of cloth around her legs, below her shorts, as tourniquets. I put my hands on the bloodstained rags and pressed. She cringed but did not complain.

"I had taken a first aid course before going to Baghdad on assignment in 2006. I hadn’t needed to use the training in Iraq. I never imagined I would need it in Los Angeles."

L.A. Times Publishes Oral Histories From Hiroshima

"Early on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, pilot Paul Tibbets and his crew took off from the Pacific island of Tinian in a B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay," the Los Angeles Times wrote on Sunday. "Hours later, they dropped Little Boy, the first atomic bomb used in warfare, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on Aug. 9, the U.S. dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki.

"Today, the world is still struggling with how to control the weapons unleashed 64 years ago. Nine countries are known or are widely believed to have nuclear weapons capability, with Iran working to develop it. On this anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, we are publishing firsthand testimony from the nuclear era’s first victims.

"The following oral histories, gathered in 1995 as part of a project for the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation and translated by Mitsuru Ohba of Hiroshima City University, have been condensed and edited for clarity. Other witness reports of the bombing can be found at http://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/index.html . . ."

U.S. Journalists Free, but What About S. Koreans?

"As the news spread about the release of two U.S. journalists from a North Korean prison, the biggest question for some Korean ethnic media is: How about the South Koreans the North has been holding as hostages for years?" Anthony Advincula and Eunji Jang wrote last week for New America Media.

"The pardon . . . of Current TV reporters Euna Lee and Lisa Ling during the visit of former U.S. President Bill Clinton could just be a reflection of how North Korea is willing to make peace agreements with the United States — but not with South Korea.

"’It is very difficult to free our own South Korean hostages because North Korea intentionally treats our government differently. We are not America,’ said Jong Hoon Kim, editor of Korea Daily in Atlanta, Ga.

"The result, Kim said, is that hundreds of South Korean hostages languish in North Korean prisons. These hostages — the most recent of whom include two fishermen — have been taken in small groups over time and stand little chance of release."

Credit: Fernmitchell.com

Obviously, Young Girl Had Never Seen Naomi Sims

"I’ve written this column to pay tribute to what, for some, may be a little known black history fact. But I’ve written because I am reminded once more of the time that a white teacher at one of Jefferson County’s alternative schools pulled me to the side and asked me to share a special word with one of her students," Betty Winston Bay?© wrote¬†Thursday in the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal.

"The girl was smart and had good potential, but even the white teacher realized that the young black girl was being held back by low self-esteem, largely because of her very dark skin.

"When I took that precious child to the side, she looked at me with the saddest eye and said that she’d never seen a dark-skinned woman that she thought was beautiful or had done anything great. I wanted to cry. That young girl obviously had never seen Naomi Sims. I write this for her, and for the children that perhaps she has had by now."

Sims, arguably the first black supermodel, died Aug. 1 of breast cancer at age 61.

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