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journalisms dec 20

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.

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!”

From the transcript:

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.

 

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