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“Teddy Was a Lion for Civil Rights”

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President Obama and Sen. Ted Kennedy on the White House grounds in April. "For his family, he was a guardian. For America, he was the defender of a dream," Obama said on Wednesday. (Credit: Pete Souza/White House)

Journalists Scurry to Put Kennedy in Perspective

The death overnight of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., had journalists scurrying on Wednesday to put the life of the last surviving Kennedy brother into historical perspective.

Online, NBC’s theGrio.com was first out with a piece with people of color as its point of reference, "Teddy was a lion for civil rights," by frequent commentator Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University.

"Many of us once joked that Bill Clinton was the ‘first black president’ (which he wasn’t)," it began. "We had it wrong. If such a title were to be given to any white man, that should have to be the late Senator Ted Kennedy. He was never president of the United States, but he was certainly one of the kings of his generation.

"As a member of the Senate since 1962, Senator Kennedy had a long career fighting for those forced to live in the underbelly of a capitalist society. Over the last 47 years, he has done it better than nearly any politician in American history.

"African-Americans were among the many beneficiaries of his passionate life’s work, and for that, we will always be appreciative."

The story, time-stamped at 5:45 a.m., was readied in advance, Grio spokesman Dan Woolsey told Journal-isms.

Other news outlets had more general-interest pieces, or, in the case of most Web sites targeting people of color, initially none at all. An exception was AOL Black Voices, which began a reader discussion early Wednesday morning.

Cognizant of Kennedy’s illness, some had their offerings ready.

The Boston Globe put together a special package that included a timeline of Kennedy’s life and a video in which reporter Peter Canellos discussed the legacies of Kennedy’s older brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

The Globe literally stopped the presses at about 1:30 a.m. to change the paper’s front page and several inside pages after the news broke at about 1:25 a.m., Joe Strupp reported for Editor & Publisher.

The paper’s lead story,¬† by Martin F. Nolan, began, "Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who carried aloft the torch of a Massachusetts dynasty and a liberal ideology to the citadel of Senate power, but whose personal and political failings may have prevented him from realizing the ultimate prize of the presidency, died at his home in Hyannis Port last night after a battle with brain cancer. He was 77." ¬†

CBS News announced it would air a hour-long primetime special Wednesday, "Ted Kennedy, the Last Brother," anchored by Katie Couric, at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time.

Included will be Kennedy talking to the late CBS correspondent Ed Bradley about the amputation of Kennedy’s 12-year-old son’s leg due to cancer, CBS said. "A prideful Kennedy shows Bradley one of his favorite pictures, that of his son Teddy Jr. racing in a handicapped skier’s race, with a note that says:

”A favor to Dad, who taught me that you can always be a winner.”

NBC will broadcast a special one-hour, live "Nightly News" anchored by Brian Williams in Hyannis Port, Mass., and ABC will broadcast a one-hour special called "Remembering Ted Kennedy" anchored by Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson at 10 p.m. ET, according to TV Newser.

National Public Radio announced two specials on Kennedy, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern time and beginning at 7 p.m. Scholar Ronald Walters is among those on the 2 p.m. broadcast; senior news analyst Juan Williams is to be on the later one.

Other journalists reacted on their Facebook pages. Jose Antonio Vargas, a former Washington Post reporter now with the Huffington Post, recalled writing in the Post about the Kennedy Center honors four years ago. "i complimented his ‘full-throated baritone’ way deep in the story. a few days later, he sent a signed note, thanking the shout-out. i treasure it," Vargas wrote.

"I was honored to cover the signing of the Kennedy Serve America Act where President Obama and Sen Kennedy came into SE DC just four months ago," wrote Hamil Harris, a current Post reporter.

"I heard him speak at an NAACP convention in 1980, and it was electrifying. He was a man of flaws, no doubt, but his family was an American tragedy, and I do believe his heart was in the fight. That’s more than can be said of far too many politicians," Tananarive Due, a former reporter and Los Angeles-based novelist, offered.

Commentator Roland Martin told Facebook friends he was about to interview Democratic Party strategist Donna Brazile on radio’s "Tom Joyner Morning Show."

April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, said, "The seas would part when he walked into the room or on the South Lawn for an event."

"My most vivid memory of Ted Kennedy is of being in the press gallery in Madison Square Garden when he made his ‘the dream will never die’ speech to the Democratic National Convention in 1980," wrote the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Howard Wilkinson, who was then working at the Troy (Ohio) Daily News. "The whole building shook. Never heard another political speech like it, before or since. And I’ve heard a few."

Others posted a YouTube video of Kennedy singing "Ay Jalisco No Te Rajes" in Spanish during last year’s presidential campaign. ¬†

Not all the comments were about the journalists’ professional lives. Bruce Johnson, veteran reporter at Washington’s WUSA-TV, said, "Going to honor Senator Ted Kennedy by doing some public service work today. Anybody else want in? Find a cause. Do something!"

And others said the most fitting memorial would be passing health-care reform.

New Vibe Owners Pick King’s Jermaine Hall as Editor

"The rapid resurrection of Vibe magazine continues: on Monday the new owners of the revived hip-hop and R&B magazine said that they had chosen Jermaine Hall as the editor in chief of Vibe and its Web site, vibe.com," Dave Itzkoff wrote Tuesday for the New York Times. "Mr. Hall has previously served as the editor in chief of King magazine, a monthly title geared towards African-American men which ceased publication earlier this year. He was also music editor at the rap music magazine The Source and the webmaster at Vibe."

"In a telephone interview, Brett Wright, the co-chief executive of the Vibe Lifestyle Network, described Mr. Hall as ‘a very good writer and a well-connected journalist.’ Mr. Wright said that going forward, vibe.com would provide coverage of urban music and entertainment on a ‘regular, daily, hourly, by-minute basis’ while the print magazine would focus on investigative reporting and long form stories. Overall, Mr. Wright said he wanted the Vibe brand to continue to serve the ‘hip-hop generation‚Äù while it expanded its music coverage to include more R&B, reggae, dancehall and pop, as well as other ‚Äúthings it had gotten away from‚Äù in the arenas of entertainment, fashion and sports.

"The first issue of the new quarterly Vibe magazine is planned for a November release. The long-running publication shut down in June when its previous owners said they could not find new buyers or restructure the company’s debt."

Asians Denounce Magazine’s "Asian-Girl Fantasy" Piece

"Call it the Woody Allen Effect. When the venerable director scandalously left Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter, South Korean-born Soon-Yi Previn — 35 years his junior — he may as well have sent out a press release: Asian-girl fantasy trumps that of Hollywood royalty!" Ying Chu wrote in Marie Claire magazine, to a backlash from readers who found the piece stereotypical.

"Not two years after they tied the knot, media baron Rupert Murdoch walked down the aisle with fresh-faced Wendi Deng ‚Äî 17 days after finalizing his divorce from his second wife. Then, CBS head Leslie Moonves wed TV news anchor Julie Chen; Oscar winner Nicolas Cage married half-his-age third wife Alice Kim; billionaire George Soros coupled up with violinist Jennifer Chun; and producer Brian Grazer courted concert pianist Chau-Giang Thi Nguyen. Add the nuptials of investment magnate Bruce Wasserstein to fourth wife Angela Chao and the pending vows between venture capitalist Vivi Nevo and Chinese actress Ziyi Zhang, and we’ve got a curious cultural ripple.

". . . Enter the doll-faced Asian sylph on the arm of a silver-haired Western suit. (Hello, mail-order bride!) The excruciating colonial stereotypes ‚Äî Asian women as submissive, domestic, hypersexual ‚Äî are obviously nothing new. But decades after The World of Suzie Wong hit drive-ins and more than 20 years since David Bowie’s ‘China Girl’ topped the music charts, why are we still indulging them?

Sing Tao Daily www.singtaousa.com ,a Hong Kong-based publication with seven overseas operations, reported last week that, "Asian-American journalists described such comments as offensive and stereotypical. Jeff Yang, a magazine founder, defended Asian women, saying women like Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, Bruce Wasserstein’s wife, Angela Chao, and actress Ziyi Zhang, who were mentioned in the commentary, all have successful careers and should not be depicted with the stereotypical Asian women image. Taiwan Times reporter, Catherine Chu, also said she found the commentary problematic because it portrays Asian females as weak and materialistic social climbers."

  

From left, Craig Melvin, Tony McNary, Duarte Geraldino, Andre Showell and Demarco Morgan.

How Black Men Can Survive in Television

"A talent drought is sweeping the nation as newsrooms nationwide face a shortage of black male journalists. This panel provides a makeover for the young black journalist to both survive and thrive. Very often hostile work environments, financial struggles, and social temptations drive young black journalists out of newsrooms and into professions where they feel they’ll get greater respect and bigger paychecks. But often, if they can stick it out through that early trial period, a promising career is within reach."

With that program introduction, five journalists tried to guide younger black men in survival techniques at a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists convention this month in Tampa, Fla., "Man Makeover: Saving the Black Male Journalist During Uncertain Times."

"Most/all of the panelists made it to top ten markets before their 30th birthdays and are still trying to figure things out for themselves," the moderator, Andre Showell of BET News, told Journal-isms. "But we noticed some of the guys just a few years younger than us making common mistakes that take them out of the game from the start. we are writing a book on the subject matter set to be published by early next year. Copies will be in hand next NABJ."

The others are Duarte Geraldino of KRIV-TV in Houston; Tony McNary of WGCL-TV in Atlanta; Craig Melvin of WRC-TV in Washington; Demarco Morgan of WNBC-Tv, New York.

They compiled these tips on a handout:

Online, "Good News Is Said to Gain Legitimacy

"The bad news is that the mainstream media too many times still lag behind the times when it comes to fully diverse reporting of the spectrum of news — good and bad — about African Americans," Jackie Jones, a career and life coach who writes for BlackAmericaWeb.com, wrote Tuesday for thedeendersonline.com, Web site of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. "The real story is that the Internet is changing that. In fact, cyber-news is increasingly informing traditional media coverage, and providing more lenses through which to view our world.

"One example is in the coverage of young black people doing positive things, being led by black adults who are doing positive things, and the fact that this is increasingly recognized as ‘legitimate’ news.

". . . The blogosphere is where black achievement can be touted and become the engine that drives mainstream media to take notice and young African Americans hold the key to it in the palm of their collective hand," continued Jones, who has worked as a reporter and editor at several mainstream newspapers.

"Fewer and fewer people use desktop computers at home and so much information can be uploaded to cell phones, that young folk are less likely to lug laptops around. Mobile devices make phone calls, take photos, send and receive e-mails, call up travel directions and can send a short message to dozens, if not hundreds, of people at once.

"According to a Pew Institute and American Life Project study, African Americans are the most avid users of wireless Internet and their use of the mobile Web is growing faster than any other group."

. . . 7 Groups the Media Pretend "Don’t Exist"

"The vast majority of coverage of Black people sticks to easily digestible narrative themes: Overcoming adversity, committing violent crime, engaging in secret elitism, complaining of real or imagined victimization by The Man, allowing the family unit to disintegrate, and so on—these are the types of Black people stories we’ve come to know and love," writer Ashton Lattimore wrote Tuesday for the new NewsOne for Black America Web site.

"And when some subset of people doesn’t fit into one of these pre-set narratives? Well, they get the Loch Ness monster treatment: Some kooky blog or other disreputable source might rant and rave about their existence and importance, but you won’t find CNN or the New York Times taking much notice. But we true believers, we know they’re out there. And so I present without further ado, 7 Groups Of People The Media [Pretend] Don’t Exist:"

The black middle class; gay black people; missing persons who aren’t white and female; non-Christian black people; educated, married black women; Africans who are not poor, starving, and living in small villages, and black police officers.

 

Station Says Its News Crew Attacked with Hoe

"Two underage teenage girls were arrested for dancing semi-nude in a Coca Beach strip club on Friday night. The attorney for the club, ‘Playmates,’ said both girls presented fake ids, indicating that they were over 18, the legal age to be an exotic dancer in the State of Florida," WOFL-TV in Orlando reported.

"Police said the girls were wearing ‘tiny bikini-type outfits’ and that they had been working at the club for months.

"When a FOX 35 crew arrived at a Cocoa home to seek out relatives of one of the underage dancers, an older woman answered the door shouting expletives.

"The woman then chased the crew off the property with a garden hoe, striking at a cameraman from another television station.

"Not long after the confrontation with that woman, another woman contacted FOX 35 reporter Holly Bristow, claiming that she was a sister of one of the dancers. She said the publicity surrounding her sister’s arrest resulted in her to be "kicked out of school."

Short Takes

 

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