Plain Dealer Editor: We Don’t Share Blame for Killings
AOL Lays Off Managing Editor of Black Voices
4 of Color to Testify at Hearing on Journalism
Prosecutors Accuse Medill’s Innocence Project
A Harsh Reminder That He Has "One of the Coolest Jobs"
Plain Dealer Editor: We Don’t Share Blame for Killings
In a column last week on the horrific killings in Cleveland of at least 11 African American women, all apparently lured to a house by convicted sex offender, Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Phillip Morris asked, "is a silent neighborhood somehow also at fault? Is a silent family at fault? Is this city’s police department at fault? Was this newspaper somehow also a party to silence, ignorance, if not rank indifference?"
The answer for the newspaper, according to Editor Susan Goldberg, is a firm no.
"Phillip has been writing very powerfully about this awful situation Рespecially a column that ran on Friday Nov. 6," Goldberg wrote Journal-isms after being asked the question. In that column, Morris wrote,"as the unmistakable smell of rotting human flesh enveloped the neighborhood . . . a community shut its eyes and held [its] nose."
Morris "will be writing again for Sunday.
"We have been relentless in our pursuit of corruption and mismanagement across the county and in law enforcement," G "Our recent investigative reporting has led to the resignation of the sheriff, contributed to the overwhelming decision of voters last Tuesday to completely change the structure of county government and led to changes in how medication is administered to inmates in the county jail, following the death of Sean Levert.
"The paper has written less about missing people, though we certainly have written quite a bit about some – Shakira Johnson and Gina DeJesus are two cases that come to mind. I say all this to say, No, I do not think we (or local media in general) were complicit in these murders, nor do I think we share in the blame. Is there more that we can write about the needs of the community? Absolutely. It’s what we do. This weekend, we will take an extensive look at missing people in our community.
It’s easy to look back and say we could have, we should have, wish we would have. But it’s hard for us to be blamed for a serial killer preying on vulnerable women. Cleveland weighed down by its problems. Phillip and others have written – and will be writing more extensively – about a tragic case of a five-year-old boy who was apparently beaten to death by his mother, after what police say was years of abuse. And no one noticed. No one. It’s tragic and we have, and will continue, to shed light on how something like that could happen.
"We also have written intensely and extensively about rape and its impact on women. We have written extensively about the impact of poverty.
"In sum, I believe we can be, and are obliged to be, a part of the solution. In this case, you can be assured we are and will continue to look closely at the Cleveland police department, to ask tough questions and to hold them accountable."
AOL Lays Off Managing Editor of Black Voices
Sheryl Huggins Salomon, managing editor of AOL Black Voices, was laid off on Tuesday as AOL trimmed about 100 positions.
Salomon, managing editor since July 2008, told Journal-isms she was the only one at Black Voices laid off. She came to the Web site after seven years as Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of NiaOnline.com. "I will continue to write for Black Voices as Contributing Editor," she said.
"Tuesday’s layoffs were scattered throughout different areas of the company and were not necessarily tied to any one particular business segment," Mike Shields wrote Tuesday for Mediaweek. "The reduction in staff comes about a week after parent company Time Warner’s latest earnings calls, during which it was revealed AOL’s ad sales revenue dropped by 18 percent during the third quarter.
"But that timing may be coincidental, as AOL is said to be mulling a much larger restructuring that could result in far more layoffs. Currently the company employs close to 7,000 people."
4 of Color to Testify at Hearing on Journalism
The Federal Trade Commission said in August it would hear from journalists of color when it holds two days of public hearings on "From Town Crier to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?"
The agency is keeping its word.
Susan S. DeSanti, director of policy planning, told Journal-isms that the agenda for the Dec. 1 and 2 hearings would be released on Monday, but that confirmed panelists include Bryan Monroe, visiting professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, a former president of the National Association of Black Journalists; Karen Dunlap, president and CEO of the Poynter Institute; Kathy Y. Times, the current NABJ president; and Joaquin Alvarado, senior vice president for diversity and innovation at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
When Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., held a Senate committee hearing in May on "the future of journalism," diversity advocates complained that the "D-word," which they argue is central to the success of journalism, hardly came up.
In September, Denise Rolark Barnes of the Washington Informer represented the black press at a hearing by the Joint Economic Committee on the future of newspapers. A last-minute addition after the committee was questioned about the diversity of the witness list, Barnes testified that "what papers like ours need is legislation that will end discrimination on the part of advertising agencies as it relates to ad-purchasing in minority-owned media, and that promotes diversity in advertising agencies’ hiring and promotion practices."
Prosecutors Accuse Medill’s Innocence Project
"Prosecutors on Tuesday accused former journalism students at Northwestern University of paying a witness to record a video statement to help them prove that a man had been wrongfully convicted of a 1978 murder in a Chicago suburb," Emma Graves Fitzsimmons reported Tuesday for the New York Times.
"The new accusations shed light on why Cook County prosecutors had subpoenaed the grades, e-mail messages and records of students who investigated the murder conviction for the university’s Medill Innocence Project. The judge at a hearing on Tuesday did not rule on whether the university would have to turn over the documents."
"The Northwestern students, and their professor David Protess, denied the allegations Tuesday, calling the state’s court filing part of a ‘smear campaign,’" Karen Hawkins of the Associated Press reported.
"’It is so filled with factual errors that if my students had done this kind of reporting and investigating, I would give them an F,’ Protess told reporters after court."
Meanwhile, the National Association of Black Journalists joined the organizations protesting the "sweeping subpoena requesting students‚Äô grades, sweeping subpoena requesting students‚Äô grades, Mr. Protess‚Äô grading criteria, syllabus, unpublished interview notes and records of reimbursements for travel" from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office.
"The request is disturbing. It questions the methods of journalists rather than focusing on facts relevant to a potential wrongful conviction. It unnecessarily places Mr. Protess in danger of incarceration for contempt for failing to turn over student records that under normal circumstances are protected under federal privacy laws. Worst of all, it appears intended to intimidate journalists both present and future from pursuing important investigations regarding the criminal justice system," read the letter from NABJ President Kathy Times and Keith T. Reed, who represents the region on the NABJ board of directors.
A Harsh Reminder That He Has "One of the Coolest Jobs"
John Smallwood, the Philadelphia Daily News sports columnist who spent a month in an induced coma and is now undergoing rehabilitation, told readers of his situation for the first time in a column Wednesday.
"I have one of the coolest jobs around. I get to write about things that are my passion. I’ve covered some of the greatest sporting events," he wrote.
"This has been a harsh way to be reminded of that, but it’s an offshoot of what I’m going through.
". . . Television doesn’t accurately display the explosion of emotion during a big Eagles victory.
"I’m in physical therapy rehabilitation now. Hopefully, I will able to go home soon and get back to work.
"The games must go on. It’s just been painful to watch them go on without me."
Smallwood previously had Hodgkin’s disease, which causes enlargement of the lymph nodes, and returned to the hospital Sept. 24 to have two heart valves replaced.
Opening his chest exacerbated lung problems that could have resulted from previous radiation therapy, Pam Candelaria, a sister, said, so doctors attached him to a heart-lung machine and induced the coma.
