U.S. Projected to Become Majority-Minority in 2043
Why We Should Pay Attention to Media Consolidation
Media Ignorance Made Singer at Once Famous, Obscure
G.M. Was the Most Unpopular Man in the Room
Number of Imprisoned Journalists Highest Since 1990
Wanted: Holiday Stories That Downplay Consumption
Short Takes
U.S. Projected to Become Majority-Minority in 2043
“White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2043, according to new census projections, part of a historic shift that is already reshaping the nation’s schools, workforce and electorate,” Hope Yen reported for the Associated Press.
“The official projection, released Wednesday by the Census Bureau, now places the tipping point for the white majority a year later than previous estimates, which were made before the impact of the recent economic downturn was fully known.
“America continues to grow and become more diverse due to higher birth rates among minorities, particularly for Hispanics who entered the U.S. at the height of the immigration boom in the 1990s and early 2000s. Since the mid-2000 housing bust, however, the arrival of millions of new immigrants from Mexico and other nations has slowed, pushing minority growth below its once-torrid pace.
“The country’s changing demographic mosaic has stark political implications, shown clearly in last month’s election that gave President Barack Obama a second term — in no small part due to his support from 78 percent of non-white voters. . . “
The Census Bureau reported, “The black population is expected to increase from 41.2 million to 61.8 million over the same period. Its share of the total population would rise slightly, from 13.1 percent in 2012 to 14.7 percent in 2060.
“The Asian population is projected to more than double, from 15.9 million in 2012 to 34.4 million in 2060, with its share of nation’s total population climbing from 5.1 percent to 8.2 percent in the same period.
“Among the remaining race groups, American Indians and Alaska Natives would increase by more than half from now to 2060, from 3.9 million to 6.3 million, with their share of the total population edging up from 1.2 percent to 1.5 percent. The Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population is expected to nearly double, from 706,000 to 1.4 million. The number of people who identify themselves as being of two or more races is projected to more than triple, from 7.5 million to 26.7 million over the same period.
“The U.S. is projected to become a majority-minority nation for the first time in 2043. While the non-Hispanic white population will remain the largest single group, no group will make up a majority.”
Why We Should Pay Attention to Media Consolidation
“In a world with hundreds of cable channels and thousands of websites, it must sound as quaint as talk about VHS players and Walkmans to worry about how many media outlets any one company gets to own,” Eric Deggans wrote Tuesday in his media blog in the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times.
“But even in a media landscape with countless options, the nation’s biggest media companies also control our biggest TV stations, radio outlets and online destinations, wielding an influence that can be magnified far beyond the actual platforms they own.
“In the Tampa Bay market, just three companies — Clear Channel, CBS Radio and Cox Radio — own 20 radio stations, including the top 16 outlets reaching more than 80 percent of people listening in November’s ratings period.
“And some of media’s biggest websites, from the Huffington Post to the Drudge Report, are built around “aggregating” stories already reported by other news outlets, allowing the New York Times or Wall Street Journal to echo across a wider swath of the Internet than you might imagine.”
- John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable: NAA: FCC Rule Change Would Have Little or No Impact on Minority Ownership
- John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable: NABOB: FCC Should Delay Ownership Vote
- Jenn Ettinger, Free Press: Congressional Opposition Growing to FCC Media Ownership Proposal
- Edward Wyatt, New York Times: Republicans Tell F.C.C. Not to Give Away Airwaves
Media Ignorance Made Singer at Once Famous, Obscure
“The Chicago Sun-Times declared Jenni Rivera ‘a heroine’ and quoted an entertainment executive who lauded her ‘extraordinary gifts,’ ” Paul Farhi wrote Wednesday in the Washington Post. “The New York Times compared her to Diana Ross and Tina Turner. Numerous media accounts labeled her a superstar.
“Chances are, this was news to you. Chances are, you’d never heard of Rivera until you learned that she died in a plane crash in Mexico on Sunday.
“On Monday, U.S. authorities confirmed that Jenni Rivera, a U.S.-born singer whose soulful voice and openness about her personal troubles made her a Mexican-American superstar, was killed in a plane crash in northern Mexico.
“The American-born Rivera has sold at least 15 million records — more than many other successful and widely acclaimed singers in the United States. But she did not enjoy much attention from the English-language media. Although she was bilingual, Rivera sang only in Spanish. Her most ardent, record-buying fans reside primarily in the American Southwest and farther south, across Mexico.
“Rivera’s life and death suggest once again that it’s possible to live in parallel Americas, with the larger part only dimly aware of the enormous things happening in the other one. For all our instant connectivity, it’s possible for someone to be hugely famous and perfectly obscure — all at the same time. . . . “
G.M. Was the Most Unpopular Man in the Room
A week after a shakeup in the programming of Washington’s community radio station, WPFW-FM, the general manager, John Hughes, remained the most unpopular person in the room.
Hughes addressed a packed “town hall meeting” of about 180 station listeners at Howard University that ran over its two-hour limit Tuesday night. He heard an earful as his boss, Summer Reese, interim executive director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Pacifica Foundation, sat in the audience. Hughes again apologized for the way more than a dozen of the station’s on-air programmers were abruptly let go.
But, as he has said previously, listenership is dwindling, the station is “reeling under economic conditions” and it needs to “be smarter about what we put on the air.”
Hughes was reminded of the unique nature of much of the station’s programming, however, almost as unique as the structure that in theory at least, gives listener representatives a role in governing the station.
In her turn at the microphone, Sofiyyah Abdullah, a Muslim and a Native American, told the crowd that “most of the Muslims on the station have been canceled,” and “the only radio station that carries Native American news” in the area had been moved from Friday night to 1 p.m. Fridays, “the middle of the afternoon.”
Nasar Abadey, a jazz drummer who teaches at Peabody Preparatory, a community school for the performing arts in Baltimore, said he used the station as a teaching tool and added, “my youngest son was raised to listen to WPFW 24/7.” Referring to the progressive political stance of the station and its “Jazz and Justice” slogan, Abadey said, “jazz is a music of protest.”
John Constantine, a Haitian American businessman, said many Haitians would take off from work Saturday nights to listen to “Konbit Lakay.” the station’s Haitian show. “That’s how we got our news,” he said. “. . . Haitian people paid a heavy price to be where they are. You serve the people. The station was there for people who had no voice.”
Hughes, challenged to provide details on how he would address the objections and urged to roll back his programming changes, proposed to caucus with Reese and some of the community representatives on the elected local governing body, known as the local station board. After continually pointing to the station’s dire financial straits, Hughes was asked his salary. “I’m not going to divulge that,” he said.
- Jonathan L. Fischer, Washington City Paper: The Airing of Grievances: Can WPFW modernize while remaining D.C.’s “jazz and justice” station?
- thepeople4pfw
Number of Imprisoned Journalists Highest Since 1990
A census of imprisoned journalists by the Committee to Protect Journalists has identified 232 writers, editors, and photojournalists behind bars on Dec. 1, an increase of 53 from 2011 and the highest since the organization began the survey in 1990, the press freedom group said
“We are living in an age when anti-state charges and ‘terrorist’ labels have become the preferred means that governments use to intimidate, detain, and imprison journalists,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in a release. “Criminalizing probing coverage of inconvenient topics violates not only international law, but impedes the right of people around the world to gather, disseminate, and receive independent information.”
“The three leading jailers of journalists were Turkey (49), Iran (45), and China (32), where imprisonments followed sweeping crackdowns on criticism and dissent, making use of anti-state charges in retaliation for critical coverage.”
CPJ said the census “does not include the many journalists imprisoned and released throughout the year, which are otherwise documented on www.cpj.org. Journalists who either disappear or are abducted by nonstate entities such as criminal gangs or militant groups are not included in the prison census. Their cases are classified as ‘missing’ or ‘abducted.’ ”
Wanted: Holiday Stories That Downplay Consumption
“It all started with my pal Tanya’s Facebook post,” Annette John-Hall wrote after Thanksgiving in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
” ‘Jack and I have decided to reject the out-of-control commercial aspect of the Christmas season,’ she wrote recently. ‘We will not be giving gifts to any adults. Instead, we hope to share the gift of time and fellowship with the people we love during the holidays.’
“. . . Over the years, I’ve come to know you, dear readers, pretty well. Agree or disagree, you’re a passionate, caring bunch. So I have no problem issuing a request:
“Take the Giving Pledge. Tell me what you are doing to give of yourselves this holiday season. I will take the best stories and share them in this space between now and the new year. Just a simple act of giving can change how we think about what has become a receiving season. . . .”
- Darryl E. Owens, Orlando Sentinel: How to simplify your Christmas season, and be happier for it (Nov. 23)
- Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: What truly matters during the season (Nov. 28)
- Ruben Rosario, St. Paul Pioneer Press: This holiday season, I’m watching a film about torture
- Ana Veciana-Suarez, Miami Herald: The gift of reading: a true joy (Dec. 1)
- Ana Veciana-Suarez, Miami Herald: 21st Century Hanukkah: Vodka, latkes and candles (Dec. 8)
Short Takes
- Michael Paul Williams, columnist for the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, told his publisher, Tom Silvestri, in an interview Sunday, “A lot of what we do as columnists is designed to tick people off. Historically, Richmond has preferred polite to provocative. My subject matter hasn’t always gone over very well with a portion of our readership, which over two decades have made their feelings known through snail mail, email, Letters to the Editor and online reader comments. I’ve been accused of ‘fanning the flames’ so much that I wondered at times if a bellows was in my column photo.” Williams was named one of the humanitarian honorees by the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities.
- “WDTW-AM in Detroit will be donated by Clear Channel to The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council,” RadioInk reported on Tuesday. The donation of WDTW will allow MMTC to offer a complete build-out opportunity of a new, major-market radio station to an entrepreneur or non-profit entering into broadcasting.”
- “David Gonzales has parted ways with KCAL, the CBS-owned independent station in Los Angeles, a station spokesperson has confirmed to TVSpy,” Merrill Knox reported for TVSpy on Tuesday. “Gonzales anchored the station’s noon and 2 p.m. newscasts alongside Sandra Mitchell. He was last on the air December 4.”
- Voting by members of the Unity Journalists coalition on a new name for the group ends at 11:59 p.m. EST Friday. The name will ultimately to be decided by the Unity board members. The coalition includes Hispanic, Asian American, Native American and lesbian and gay journalists.
- ” . . . Since Comcast took majority control of NBCUniversal in January 2011, it has installed new management at Telemundo and increased the operating budget,” Meg James reported Monday for the Los Angeles Times. “Last year Comcast agreed to spend about $600 million for the rights to broadcast the FIFA World Cup soccer tournaments in 2015 through 2022 — nearly double the amount that Univision currently pays.”
- Jina Moore, who has been a freelance correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor for five years, has been impressed by the response to her October story titled “Below the line: Poverty in America,” which won the November Sidney Award, Amber Larkins reported for Wednesday for AJR. ” The article focused on how the government measures poverty and what it’s like to be poor in America.”
- “ESPN’s ’30 for 30′ season finale ‘You Don’t Know Bo’ earned a 2.3 metered market rating over the weekend to become the cable channel’s highest rated documentary on an overnight basis, according to the Nielsen Company,” Cherie Saunders reported Monday for EURWeb.com. “Directed by Michael Bonfiglio and produced by @radical.media, the film takes a close look at two-sport athlete Vincent Edward ‘Bo’ Jackson, the only athlete ever selected to play in the NFL Pro Bowl and the MLB All-Star Game.”
- “Last Wednesday, on a flight to Washington DC, I read an article in both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times about the horrific fire in Bangladesh two weeks ago in which 112 people died in a factory producing clothes for Wal-Mart,” Adam Levy wrote Sunday for Talking Biz News. “Both articles were respectful of the tragedy and the magnitude of the disaster. That’s where the similarities end — and left me thinking one publication dropped the ball on reporting this crucially important story.”
- Two cases challenging state and federal laws concerning same-sex marriage couples are not the only significant civil rights cases the Supreme Court has decided to take up this term, Suevon Lee reported Monday for ProPublica. “Last month, the Supreme Court said it will consider the constitutionality of a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the hallmark legislation from the Civil Rights era that has come under increased challenge.” Lee offers an explainer.
- “Matt Drudge is taking advantage of the criticism directed at filmmaker Quentin Tarantino for the use of a racial epithet in his films to inappropriately splatter that epithet across his webpage seven times, in an apparent attempt to shock readers with racially charged rhetoric,” Remington Shepard reported Wednesday for Media Matters for America. “Drudge has a history of featuring racially inflammatory language and images on his website.
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