Greg Moore Named Editor of Year for Aurora Coverage
“Frontline” on Gang Interveners Wins Dupont-Columbia Award
Majority of Blacks Say Owning Guns Puts Safety at Risk
Charlie Rose Settles Class Action Filed by Unpaid Intern
Will Sutton Leads Dow Jones Business Intern Program
Rhonda Lee Has No Job Offers but 7,000 Facebook Fans
Human Rights Watch Slams Israel on Media Building Attacks
Short Takes
Greg Moore Named Editor of Year for Aurora Coverage
Gregory L. Moore, editor of the Denver Post, is to receive the National Press Foundation’s Benjamin C. Bradlee Award as Editor of the Year “for leading his paper’s coverage of the Aurora theatre shooting spree – which occurred at midnight after the paper had gone to bed and relied almost exclusively on social media to inform the community of the horrific events that evening,” the foundation announced on Wednesday.
In answering questions from Journal-isms readers in July about coverage of the shooting spree, which killed 12 people and wounded dozens, Moore said, “We are doing whatever we feel we need to do to cover this story right . We had people on the scene within an hour of the shooting, maybe sooner . . . We had some people on the scene for 17 hours.”
Jorge Ramos, the longtime anchorman of Univision News, who is also a public policy show host and the author of 11 books, is receiving the Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.
Frank Deford, the legendary sports journalist whose work is found on NPR, HBO and in Sports Illustrated, will receive the 2012 W.M. Kiplinger Award for Distinguished Contributions to Journalism.
The National Press Foundation was created by the National Press Club, but the two organizations are independent of each other, Foundation President Bob Meyers told Journal-isms.
“Frontline” on Gang Interveners Wins Dupont-Columbia Award
A PBS “Frontline” documentary that “follows a group of violence Interruptors to the front lines of inner city violence and profiles their efforts to combat it with dignity” was among the winners of the Dupont-Columbia awards announced at Columbia University on Wednesday.
“The Interrupters” was “Shot over the course of a year, filmmakers Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz captured the streets of Chicago during a period of widespread violence that drew national attention. With extraordinary initiative, enterprise and access, the team opened doors into places most people can’t go, telling complex stories about former gang members working to break the cycle of violence,” the announcement said. “The documentary provides new understanding of a stubborn societal problem through strong characters and excellent reporting, shooting and editing.”
Majority of Blacks Say Owning Guns Puts Safety at Risk
Whites and blacks differ sharply on gun control, according to a new survey from Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Monday through Wednesday in the aftermath of the deadline shooting spree in a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.
Asked which was more important, to protect the right to own guns or to control ownership, 51 percent of whites said “to protect the right to own guns” but only 24 percent of blacks did. Forty-two percent of whites said “to control ownership,” a choice selected by 68 percent of blacks. Eight percent of each group said they did not know.
Asked whether gun ownership does more to protect people from crime or whether it puts people’s safety at risk, 54 percent of whites said it protect people from crime, but only 29 percent of blacks did. Fifty-three percent of blacks said it puts people’s safety at risk, but only 33 percent of whites did.
Asked about the effect of allowing citizens to own assault weapons, both whites and blacks said it would make the country more dangerous. Eighty-three percent of blacks said so, as did 61 percent of whites. Twenty-six percent of whites said it would make the country safer, as did 10 percent of blacks.
Asked whether they had any guns, rifles or pistols in the home, 42 percent of whites said yes but only 16 percent of blacks did. Eighty-three percent of blacks answered no, as did 52 percent of whites.
Overall, Pew reported, “The public’s attitudes toward gun control have shown only modest change in the wake of last week’s deadly shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Currently, 49% say it is more important to control gun ownership, while 42% say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns.
“This marks the first time since Barack Obama took office that more Americans prioritize gun control than the right to own guns.”
The survey was taken at a time of increasing criticism from African Americans that the steady killing of blacks in urban areas has received far less attention than the Newtown killings.
- Shahid Abdul-Karim, New Haven (Conn.) Register: Some black Connecticut residents question media attention on Newtown shootings
- Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post: Obama: From talk to action on gun violence
- George E. Curry, National Newspaper Publishers Association: Violence is ‘as American as Cherry Pie’
- Jeff Gewert, Stamford (Conn.) Advocate: Newtown resident: Media is to blame for school tragedy
- indianz.com: Red Lake Nation shooting survivors lend support in Connecticut
- Ted Johnson, Variety: Obama’s task force to look at gun ‘culture’
- Michael Malone, Broadcasting & Cable: Newtown and News Media: A Mix of Tension and Gratitude
- Dori J. Maynard, Maynard Institute for Journalism Education: It’s Time for Ordinary People To Lead Discussion on Guns
- Barbara Reynolds, Washington Post: Newtown shootings: Focus on mental illness first
Charlie Rose Settles Class Action Filed by Unpaid Intern
“Charlie Rose and his production company have agreed to pay as much as $250,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by a former unpaid intern who claimed minimum wage violations,” Steven Greenhouse reported Thursday for the New York Times.
“Under the settlement, Mr. Rose and his production company, Charlie Rose Inc., will pay back wages to a potential class of 189 interns. The settlement calls for the interns to receive generally $1,100 each — $110 a week in back pay, up to a maximum of 10 weeks, the approximate length of a school semester.
“The main plaintiff was Lucy Bickerton, who said she was not paid when she worked 25 hours a week for the “Charlie Rose” show from June through August 2007. Ms. Bickerton said her responsibilities at the show, which appears on PBS stations, included providing background research for Mr. Rose about interview guests, putting together press packets, escorting guests through the studio and cleaning up the green room.
“Ms. Bickerton in an interview described the settlement as ‘a really important moment for this movement against unpaid internships.’
“This is the first settlement in a series of lawsuits brought by unpaid interns who asserted that they had suffered minimum wage violations. Other such lawsuits have been filed against the Hearst Corporation and Fox Entertainment — both companies deny that they failed to comply with wage and hour laws regarding their interns. . . .”
Will Sutton Leads Dow Jones Business Intern Program
The Dow Jones News Fund is recruiting media and news organizations to hire 2013 summer interns for 10 weeks in its business reporting internship program,” the news fund announced on Thursday.
“DJNF business reporting interns will participate in an intensive training course at New York University from May 25 to 31. The 2013 program director is Will Sutton, a Society of Business Editors and Writers member who serves on its diversity committee. Sutton has supervised business coverage as a newspaper editor and he was a 2012 Donald W. Reynolds Visiting Professor of Business Journalism at Grambling State University. He is a former president of the National Association of Black Journalists and a co-founder of what became UNITY: Journalists of Color. Interns will be ready for work by June 3.
In April, Sutton offered an 11-point plan for adding diversity to business journalism ranks.
The Dow Jones announcement said, “. . . To enroll to hire one of more than 75 applicants, contact Linda Shockley at linda.shockley@dowjones.com or 609-520-5929. Details at https://www.newsfund.org.”
Sutton leads public relations and communications at Grambling State University.
Rhonda Lee Has No Job Offers but 7,000 Facebook Fans
Rhonda Lee, the meteorologist who was fired by KTBS in Shreveport, La., after responding on Facebook to a viewer who questioned her short Afro hairstyle, said Thursday she hasn’t had any job offers but that her Facebook fan page is exploding.
Lee appeared on Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy, Now!” 
AMY GOODMAN: So, what has been the response to your firing, Rhonda Lee, as you gain more and more national attention?
RHONDA LEE: I think it has been such a blessing. It’s been a blessing in disguise, that’s for certain. I really had no idea that this story would go around the globe. I mean, I still continue to be overwhelmed and just so grateful for the support. I mean, the first day after the story broke, by Richard Prince with the Maynard Institute, it was phenomenal. I mean, I logged onto my fan page, and I had maybe about 600 likes, I think, and then it said new fans, 800-and-something. And I said, “That can’t be right.” And then, as the day went on, I suddenly had a thousand fans, 2,000 fans, 5,000 fans. I think I’m up to 7,000-and-something now. I mean, the support has been overwhelming. I really didn’t expect this to go any further than maybe Texarkana, maybe into Dallas, a couple hours away. But it has opened eyes, most importantly. And I feel that perhaps that’s what this was supposed to do. I really thought it was just a labor dispute, but it turned into something bigger than myself, I feel. And it’s become a good talking point and a good catalyst for perhaps moving the conversation of black women and our hair forward into the 21st century and beyond.
AMY GOODMAN: As the former meteorologist for KTBS, what is your forecast? Do you think they’re going to offer you your job back? Have you been offered other jobs?
RHONDA LEE: I would love to have my job back. Even to this day, I maintain I had a great work environment. I really did. My co-workers were great. I loved what I did. I loved my hours. I loved everything about it. I haven’t had any other job offers as of yet. Where do I go from here? Right now I’m just going to try to get through the holidays and see what happens. But I really—like I said, more than anything, I hope that the conversation for race issues, particularly here in the South, is furthered a little bit further than what it—what I think it has been nowadays. But my forecast is: It’s looking pretty sunny, I think.
Short Takes
- “Federal prosecutors will be forced to retry the former rookie New Orleans police officer who gunned down Henry Glover days after Hurricane Katrina, hours before another cop ignited Glover’s lifeless body inside a car on the Algiers levee,” John Simerman, reported Tuesday for NOLA.com|The Times-Picayune. “The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals . . . found that David Warren received an unfair trial because he was caught up in the prosecution of other officers accused of covering up Glover’s shooting. Columbia Journalism Review wrote in September, “A.C. Thompson’s reporting on transgressions by the New Orleans police force in the wake of Hurricane Katrina led to an article in The Nation, a reporter position at ProPublica, three convictions (one since overturned) for the police officers involved in the murder of a man named Henry Glover, and, starting September 23, a character on HBO’s Treme.”
- Nielsen Holdings N.V. announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Arbitron Inc. in a $1.26 billion deal, TVNewsCheck reported on Tuesday. David Honig, president of the Minority Media Telecommunications Council,called the acquisition welcome because “Nielsen has unparalleled expertise in accurately measuring multicultural viewership, demographics, and consumer trends such as audience engagement.”
- The Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University now has a studio capable of streaming live video to major television networks at a moment’s notice, Jared Council reported on Dec. 14 for Inside Business: the Hampton Roads Business Journal. “”We can do it fast because anyone here on campus can be in that seat within seven or eight minutes and can be on the air within another five minutes,” said Dean Brett Pulley.
- “Antonio Mora, a weekday prime-time anchor at WFOR-Channel 4 in Miami/Fort Lauderdale, was let go Monday after station honchos refused to renew his contract,” Jose Lambiet reported Wednesday for his Jose Lambiet’s Gossip Extra. “The happy-go-lucky Mora, 57, was the solo anchor of the station’s 6 p.m. news.”
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In New York, “The Daily News is disbanding its pool of photo permalancers, employees who work full-time hours for the tabloid on set day-rates but are not salaried employees with benefits, Capital has learned,” Joe Pompeo reported Thursday for Capital New York. “A handful of these photojournalists — about five or six, according to people familiar with the situation — have been offered salaried positions with benefits starting Jan. 1. The remaining dozen or so will lose the regular full-time schedules they’ve had for years, sources said. That includes Marcus Santos, the photographer who was famously decked by Alec Baldwin while on assignment covering the ’30 Rock’ star’s marriage license acquisition last summer, said a source with direct knowledge of Santos’ employment status.”
- “Ben Williams, a retired KPIX-TV staffer who was one of the first African-American television reporters in the nation, has died at the age of 85,” the Bay Area station reported Tuesday. “Williams passed away on Monday, his daughter-in-law told CBS 5. Williams spent his entire broadcast career at KPIX before retiring in the 1980s; he got his start as a reporter at the San Francisco Examiner before moving to television.”
- “Media critics have long lamented the decline of even-handedness in American news coverage,” M.R. reported Monday for the Economist. “The fashion for partisan stridency on channels such as Fox and MSNBC, they say, has cheapened the national debate and split the voting public into blinkered, self-reflective camps. But the critics haven’t seen the worst. The political jousting on American networks looks like child’s play compared with the rhetorical fireworks that now regularly erupt on screens in Egypt. . . . ”
- “State security agents in Southeast Nigeria blocked a reporter from filing a story Saturday evening about the status of a governor who hasn’t been seen for several months,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported Tuesday, condemning “this act of crude censorship.”
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