Maynard Institute archives

Essence Web Site Hit by Layoffs

by richard0533

Time Inc. Begins Paring 280 Jobs in N.Y Locations

On Cable, Pundits Host Election Night Coverage

R. Kelly, Michael Jordan Listed as Obama Visitors

Fired NPR Manager Lands Part-Time Job at D.C. Affiliate

Chris Brown Featured on Cover of Vibe Relaunch

New Owner Says Vibe Competed With Wrong Magazines

Danyel Smith "Better Than Fine" in Post-Root Life

At Anchor Desk, Oprah Returns to Her Journalism Roots

Newsroom Fight Said to Reflect Loss of "Swagger"

Honored for Work with High School Journalists

Short Takes

Time Inc. Begins Paring 280 Jobs in N.Y. Locations

Essence cover for November features Nia Long.The staff of the newly relaunched essence.com took a large hit on Wednesday as the parent Time Inc. began to implement companywide cutbacks that, according to a Time Inc. filing with the New York Department of Labor, are to number 280 in the state between Nov. 2 and Jan. 31.

An Essence spokeswoman said she could not comment on specifics, but an Essence employee confirmed a report on the Journalisticks Web site that four of the cuts from Essence included a fashion assistant, a "work and wealth" assistant, one of three deputy editors and a special projects director who had been with the magazine since the 1970s.

‘They told us it was downsizing,’ one employee was quoted as saying, referring to essence.com. ‘We’re very confused. We worked so hard for the relaunch.’

"The site’s managing editor, Emil Wilbekin, is still on staff. Steven Psyllos, deputy editor for Essence.com remains as does the photo editor," according to Journalisticks. "Otherwise the ENTIRE web team is gone, appx 12-15 ppl."

Elsewhere within Time Inc., Erin Carlson of businessinsider.com reported that 11 people were cut at Entertainment Weekly; four on the editorial side and seven on the business side.

The Gawker Web site published a memo from People Managing Editor Larry Hackett seeking eight volunteers on the writing staff to accept severance packages.

The company also decided to shut down FSB, formerly known as Fortune Small Business, Stephanie Clifford reported for the New York Times.

Emil Wilbekin's staff cut.On Tuesday, Clifford reported, "Approximately 15 to 20 sales and marketing employees were dismissed from Time Inc.’s news group tonight, largely from Sports Illustrated, according to a Time Inc. executive who asked not to be named as the company had not given authorization to discuss the matter."

Essence announced on June 1 that it had hired Wilbekin, a former editor of Vibe and Giant magazines, to be "responsible for the development of original, timely and compelling daily content and programming for the site’s multiple channels.

"As one of the first projects to emerge from the partnership between The Warner Bros. Television Group’s Telepictures Productions and Time Inc.’s Essence Communications Inc., the revamped Essence.com is the largest and fastest growing African-American magazine website."

It said the site’s "unique offerings" include "original video programming – EXTRA on ESSENCE and ESSENCE TV – and an active online community in partnership with the Ning social network. EXTRA on ESSENCE is an of-the-minute roundup of the week’s hottest entertainment news, gossip, and celebrity style."

On Cable, Pundits Host Election Night Coverage

"Does it matter that cable newschannels allowed pundits to host Tuesday election coverage?" media critic Eric Deggans asked Wednesday on his St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times blog.

"Remember when one of the big controversies during last year’s election season was the use of opinionated pundits on MSNBC to report election returns?

"That may feel like a quaint memory if Tuesday’s election reporting is any indication, as Fox News Channel and MSNBC both folded coverage into their existing, opinionated pundit shows in prime time, assuring that results would be immediately dissected in the partisan terms favored by each channel’s host lineup.

"On Fox, that meant conservative hero Bill O’Reilly spent much of his show chewing over issues with former George W. Bush electoral mastermind Karl Rove (he did have news anchor Bret Baier deliver election news in breaks). Later, Sean Hannity was interviewing former Virginia Sen. George ‘Macaca’ Allen, who lost his bid for re-election after tossing that racial slur at a worker for a rival campaign, talking about Republicans winning back the Virginia governor’s office.

"On MSNBC, liberal heroes Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow presented returns within their shows as well, chewing over the results with an intensity rarely seen for off year elections, which in St. Petersburg Tuesday drew less than 30 percent of voters — a typical result across the country."

In the New York mayoralty election, David Carr wrote in the New York Times, "Both polls and pundits had Michael Bloomberg walking away with the New York City mayoralty, but he won only by a margin of 5 points . . . Media outlets underestimated the disaffection with the current mayor, partly because of his workaround on term limits and perhaps because of his willingness to spend tens of millions pounding an opponent, the Democrat William Thompson Jr., who had very little way of responding."

 

At Anchor Desk, Oprah Returns to Her Journalism Roots

While Oprah Winfrey was in Dallas last month filming a show at the annual state fair, she did something she hadn’t done in 26 years: a live newscast. She read the news alongside WFAA’s Gloria Campos on the 5 p.m. show. Winfrey’s Web site posted the video.

R. Kelly, Michael Jordan Listed as Obama Visitors

"The White House on Friday published nearly 500 visitor records online that detail visits made in the months from [President] Obama’s inauguration until the end of July, The Washington Post reported," Kirk Davis wrote for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

"The records were in response to 110 specific records requests made in September and were released nearly two months before the White House is set to begin publishing visitor logs online each month.

"In September, the Obama administration agreed to begin publishing visitor logs to settle four lawsuits . . . "

Garance Franke-Ruta wrote¬†in the Post, "Many of the names appear, on first glance, to be boldface ones ‚Äî such as Michael Jordan, William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Robert Kelly (‘R. Kelly’) and Malik Shabazz ‚Äî but the White House warned on its blog that these names in particular were ‘false positives.’

"’The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House,’ wrote Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform."

Meanwhile, evaluations of Obama’s first year in office, pegged to this week’s anniversary of that historic Election Day, began:

Fired NPR Manager Lands Part-Time Job at D.C. Affiliate

Greg Peppers, whose firing as executive producer, newscast, at National Public Radio three weeks ago intensified concerns about the level of diversity at NPR, starts work at the end of the month as a part-time copy editor at the news-oriented NPR affiliate in Washington, WAMU-FM.

Jim Asendio, WAMU news director, told Journal-isms he felt fortunate to get Peppers. "It’s a win-win situation for all," he said. Peppers, who spent 22 years at NPR, is to work at the American University-owned station three days a week.

Peppers, one of two black men in newsroom management at the network, has not publicly discussed his dismissal. Responding to concerns raised by the National Association of Black Journalists, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller acknowledged, "our upper management group is not very diverse" and said "we are examining our overall diversity status critically."

Meanwhile, Rod Dreher, a conservative editorial Rod Drehercolumnist for the Dallas Morning News, invoked quotas in a piece reacting to NPR’s response, and maintained that good minorities are hard to find.

Writing on BeliefNet.com, Dreher said, "I wish folks like Vivian Schiller, instead of kowtowing to people like the NABJ, would instead challenge them to recruit more minorities for college journalism programs. I haven’t looked at any numbers lately ‚Äî so if you have access to them, please correct me ‚Äî but in general, minority candidates for journalism jobs are relatively scarce.

"A friend of mine at a big newspaper told me a couple of years ago about trying to recruit a Hispanic for a plum position, and having a very difficult time finding qualified applicants. He said that there’s so much demand for minorities now that the media outlets with the greatest resources tend to scoop up the better candidates as quickly as they come on the market."

Chris Brown Featured on Cover of Vibe Relaunch

Chris Brown in a shot from his Vibe cover shoot. 'And... this ain't even the cover. Holler,' Vibe.com says."As they try to bring Vibe magazine back from the dead, its new owners and editor have chosen a provocative subject for the new incarnation’s first cover: Chris Brown, who could use a little resuscitation himself," Nat Ives wrote¬†on Monday for AdAge.com.

"The cover with Chris Brown, who is attempting a comeback after pleading guilty in June to felony assault on fellow performer and now ex-girlfriend Rihanna, actually shares the print run with covers featuring Drake, another hip-hop artist. But it’s the Chris Brown cover that’s more likely to get people talking.

"And if the choice succeeds in generating the buzz that’s intended, Vibe’s cover will show off the power that print can still wield. Putting a feature about the tarnished pop star online alone, by contrast, probably wouldn’t stand to get the same attention.

"But Vibe and its fellow music magazines still face more challenges from digital media than, say, fashion magazines do. Music, not to mention its devotees, works better with digital than glossies focused on visuals. That’s why you now see Vibe magazine recast as just one arm of the Vibe Lifestyle Network, why Rolling Stone is bringing its website back in-house, and why, to some degree, Blender lies in the magazine graveyard."

New Owner Says Vibe Competed With Wrong Magazines

Leonard BurnettOne of the reasons the previous incarnation of Vibe failed is because "We went from being the kind of Rolling Stone of urban culture to competing with The Source and XXL," more hard-core hip-hop publications, according¬†to Leonard Burnett, co-CEO and group publisher of Uptown Media Group, Vibe’s new owners.

In an interview published Wednesday, David Hirschman of mediabistro.com asked Burnett, "Where do you think the past incarnation of Vibe went wrong, and what’s going to be different this time around?

"It was really a perfect storm," Burnett replied. "I think that over the years, there was a lack of investment into the brand itself, specifically on the digital side and on the brand outside just the print vehicle. . . .

"Then the advertising environment just really propelled a bad situation to become even worse. Vibe thrived off of urban fashion, music, and automotive ‚Äî and then when you go into ’05, ’06, and ’07 [the advertising] just kept deteriorating. . . .

"The book also didn’t lend itself [to these new categories]. [Vibe’s] aesthetic perspective and editorial focus [originally spoke] to a very broad and important perspective of what urban music and culture meant (which really wasn’t just rap, but R&B, reggae, and gospel, and anything you can move and dance to ‚Äî and even where the consumer was going with the blending of Jay-Z and Coldplay, and this sort of rap and alternative rock). We went from being the kind of Rolling Stone of urban culture to competing with The Source and XXL. These are great books, but . . .¬† Rolling Stone is really the music and culture magazine that has stood the test of time ‚Äî and when you look at the breadth of what they have with the core of it being rock ‘n roll, mixing the old with the new and the influx of urban, and the political scene, the fashion scene."

He added, "I think Danyel [Smith], who had been part of the team that was part of the first test issue and had been with Vibe for most of its years, did a great job in a tough environment."

Smith, editor in chief of the incarnation that went out of business on July 1, told Journal-isms she wanted to express "how happy I am for everything going on in Vibe and how very proud I was to be a part of the Root."

. . . Danyel Smith "Better Than Fine" in Post-Root Life

Danyel Smith, who stepped down¬†suddenly two weeks ago as executive editor of theRoot.com, said Wednesday that "I couldn’t be happier" in her post-Root life.

Asked what she was up to, she said she would limit her answer to two words ‚Äî "a lot" ‚Äî and said she wouldn’t elaborate.

"I am absolutely fine, better than fine ‚Äî in New York," she said, indicating that she wasn’t looking back.

Donna Byrd, publisher of theRoot.com, announced Oct. 22 that after six weeks on the job, Smith was "leaving The Root because of issues related to her commute."

When the New York-based Smith took the Washington-based job, theRoot said that "Smith will be based in both Washington, D.C. and New York." Smith told Journal-isms by telephone that "the commute was tough" and said she wouldn’t go beyond her prepared statement.

Smith is married to Elliott Wilson, former editor of the hip-hop magazine XXL, who remained in New York. Earlier this year, he founded RapRadar, "a Web site he hopes will eventually be a Huffington Post-like destination for hip-hop music fans and, perhaps, a print magazine," as Dylan Stableford reported for Folio magazine.

Newsroom Fight Said to Reflect Loss of "Swagger"

The well-publicized fight in the Washington Post newsroom on Friday "was about more than just a stupid article," Natalie Hopkinson wrote Wednesday for theRoot.com.

"What we are watching is a whole profession losing its swagger.

"The offending piece was a USA Today-style ‘charticle’ that riffed on the news that a congressional investigation was leaked. Upon being handed the piece to edit," Style section editor Henry Allen "reportedly deemed the collection of sentences ‘the second worst’ he‚Äôs ever seen in his 43 years in journalism.

"The reporter told Allen to stop being such a ‘cocksucker,’ and then Allen, a former Marine, clocked him. The Post‚Äôs top editor was among those who broke up the fight.

"Ever since news broke, the media house of mirrors has been reading all kinds of meaning into the incident. The Washingtonian account read the fisticuff as sort of a Custer’s Last Stand for journalism, the feisty geezer defending the integrity of the profession and knocking out gimmicky infotainment

". . . The Post newsroom will be poorer without Allen’s stealth bullshit detection. But I’m not crying about it. The high-minded principles of the Fourth Estate will live on. Thanks to technology and globalization, the voices from the margin are moving toward the center. It is scary and bumpy new terrain. But it also means there are more outlets than ever for off-beat voices. Voices like that of the great Henry Allen."

Allen told Politico, "Back when I got into journalism, the idea that a fistfight in a newsroom would turn into a news story was unthinkable." Asked what life has been like since Friday, the other party, Style reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia, told Journal-isms he had been directed to refer calls to the Post’s public relations person.

 

  

Honored for Work with High School Journalists

Erin Hill, coordinator of the Detroit Free Press High School Journalism Program, received the John V. Field award of the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association at an Oct. 20 ceremony at Michigan State University. "It’s a lot of work" with a lot of red tape. "We really feel that she’s gone above and beyond," the director, Cheryl M. Pell, told Journal-isms on Wednesday. Hill arranged for students in 14 Detroit high schools to receive computers, digital cameras and flip video cameras last year, a note to the Free Press staff said. She is shown with teachers participating in the program.

Short Takes

  • The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is hoping supporters will help it win $1,500 from America’s Giving Challenge. The group with the most donors (no matter the amount) in a 24-hour period, ending Thursday at 3 p.m. EST, wins $1,500. "Give $10, give $25, whatever you want, but every bit helps," Ivan Roman, the NAHJ executive director, wrote on his Facebook page. "If all my friends just gave $10, NAHJ would . . . get more than $13,000 plus the $1,500 from the challenge. Tell your friends. I donated again just now and it’s so easy. So can you. Help us keep more Latinos in journalism." On Wednesday night, NAHJ stood at No. 42¬†on the "Daily $1,500 Challenge Leaderboard."
  • "A journalist specializing in police matters was kidnapped and killed execution-style in Durango state in northern Mexico, the most dangerous Latin American country for the press, prosecutors said Tuesday," Agence France-Presse reported. "Bladimir Antuna Garcia, a reporter for the police section of El Tiempo de Durango newspaper, ‘was found dead minutes before 9:00 pm on Monday’ (0300 GMT Tuesday), the Durango attorney general’s office said in a statement." "Next to the body was a note stating: ‘This happened to me for giving information to soldiers and for writing too much,’ according to national daily La Jornada," the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
  • "Tribune Co.’s ill-fated employee stock ownership plan is toast," Michael Oneal wrote¬†Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times. "In a memo to employees announcing a new retirement plan Tuesday, Chief Administrative Officer Gerry Spector said the ESOP was likely to be terminated when the media conglomerate emerged from bankruptcy protection. Oddly enough, the decision to eliminate the ESOP won’t stop employees from getting their first ESOP share allocations as scheduled at the end of this year. It’s just that those allocations won’t be worth the paper they’re printed on because of the bankruptcy."
  • CNN correspondent Soledad O’Brien’s "In America" franchise ‚Äî which has produced "Black in America" and "Latino in America" ‚Äî will be expanded in 2010, CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein announced and a CNN spokeswoman confirmed. The unit will add "more than a dozen positions, writes Klein in an email to staff, obtained by TVNewser." That unit will be headed up by Bart Feder, CNN’s senior vice president of current programming, who is succeeding Mark Nelson, who has overseen CNN Productions since 2005. Nelson is leaving the network.
  • "The wife of troubled NY1 anchor Dominic Carter ditched him during a weekend jaunt to Kansas City, Mo. ‚Äî and triggered an extensive police search when her distraught daughter told cops her mom was under ‘duress,’ The Post has learned," the New York Post reported¬†on Wednesday. "Marilyn Carter, who walked out on her allegedly abusive husband on Sunday at a downtown Marriott, left her clothes behind in the room and spent the entire night missing ‚Äî only to be found the next morning at the airport about to board a flight home to New York, police said."
  • "Latinos were once unfamiliar to more than half of all Americans, but a new poll indicates that two-thirds of those surveyed now say they have at least some contact with Latinos where they live, work or shop," CNN reported¬†on Oct. 21. "Sixty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Wednesday say they have some or a lot of contact with Latinos. That’s up 15 points from 1990."
  • "After more than 10 years providing information to Hispanics in Alaska, publisher Gil S?°nchez was forced to shut down his Web site El Sol de Alaska," Veronica Villafa?±e wrote on her Media Moves site. "Gil tells me that he had two main reasons for calling it quits: ‘The first reason was all the hate mail, malicious viruses and attacks on the Web site. Secondly, the demand of time in order to do a good job was ever increasing.’" The Alaska Journal of Commerce wrote in 2003, "Sanchez is a reporter at Anchorage Public Radio station KSKA-FM. He said numerous calls to his desk from the Lower 48 from individuals seeking information in Spanish about Alaska and Latino businesses in Alaska prompted the idea."
  • As President Obama considers a new strategy for the 8-year-old war in Afghanistan and the debate continues over whether to deploy tens of thousands of additional troops to the country, NPR News‚Äô "All Things Considered" will devote an hour of its program on Thursday to examine ‚ÄúWhat‚Äôs Next in Afghanistan?‚Äù the network announced. The special airs in the first hour of the afternoon newsmagazine.
  • Columnist George E. Curry has a rejoinder to fellow columnist Gregory Kane’s comments made in Monday’s Journal-isms: ‚ÄúGreg‚Äôs decision to focus on my pointing out that he mischaracterized our Emerge covers at least four times misses my central point. As I noted, Greg had previously written columns critical of both Rush Limbaugh and Clarence Thomas ‚Äì calling Thomas a ‚Äòfool‚Äô and saying, ‚ÄòIf Republicans hope to make any headway with American voters, they can start by retiring Rush Limbaugh‚Äôs mouth.‚Äô ‚Äî yet he criticized me for upbraiding Limbaugh and Thomas. That‚Äôs why I called him confused.‚Äù He added, "Clarence Thomas is no Joe Frazier. At least Frazier tried to knock out his opponents. Thomas is trying to knock out his people."
  • John Smallwood, the Philadelphia Daily News sports columnist who spent a month in an induced coma, wrote Wednesday to the Sports Task Force of the National Association of Black Journalists: "thanks for all the kind thoughts. I’m in rehabilitation now and slow regaining my motor skills. it’s a slow process, but¬†I hope to be back to normal by thanksgiving."
  • "Top executives from African media houses gather in Lagos on Thursday for two days of consultations on how to sustain the development of good journalism on the continent," Boakai Fofana wrote Thursday for allafrica.com. "Conference participants include Dele Olojede, founder of Nigeria’s NEXT newspaper and Africa’s only winner of the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for journalism, and U.S. media personalities Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the renowned online medium, the Huffington Post, Ted Koppel, formerly anchor of the prestigious ABC Nightline news program and John Lavine, dean of the Medill School of Journalism of Northwestern University in Illinois. AllAfrica president Amadou Mahtar Ba is spearheading the African Media Initiative, which gave rise" to the leadership forum taking place in Nigeria.

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