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After Questions, White House Tightens Access

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Gate-Crashing Prompts Contentious Exchange

Media Turn on Social Secretary Desiree Rogers

Tribal Council Votes to Close Hopi Newspaper

Papers Called Late to "Business/News Integration"

Can’t Kill Cover on "Tips Obama Can Take From Tiger"

Obama Rejects Special Aid for Minority Broadcasters

Racial Inequity Is Pronounced for Blacks With Degrees

Oops! Copy Editor Changes "911" to "9/11"

Short Takes

Gate-Crashing Prompts Contentious Exchange

Reporters’ questioning of White House security procedures helped lead to a change in policy that places White House staff members along with the Secret Service at entry checkpoints to the Executive Mansion, according to April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks.

Ryan was in the thick of some of that questioning on Wednesday.

"Contentious exchanges between White House press secretaries and members of the media have been fairly commonplace during the past few presidential administrations," as Brett Michael Dykes blogged for Yahoo News.

"However, the one that took place Wednesday between White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and April Ryan of American Urban Radio, in which Gibbs essentially compared Ryan to a petulant child, is among the most heated (and entertaining) in recent memory.

"The testy exchange was sparked by Ryan’s insistent questioning of White House social secretary Desiree Rogers’ role at the recent state dinner, which has been in the headlines because of the fallout from Tareq and Michaele Salahi’s ‘party crashing.’

"Ryan claimed that there have been whispers around Washington insinuating that Rogers had overstepped the traditional role of her title at the event to become the ‘belle of the ball,’ thus ‘overshadowing the first lady.’ Frustrated by Ryan’s tabloid-y line of questioning, Gibbs instructed her to ‘calm down’ and to ‘take a deep breath,’ adding ‘I do this with my son and that’s what happens.’"

"As the press corps cringed, murmured and chuckled at Gibbs’ chastising, Ryan shot back: ‘Don’t play with me.’

Ryan told Journal-isms on Saturday that the story was not about her. She said there had been "two days of the line of questioning about the security of the president of the United States and the prime minister of India, whose life had already been threatened a year before.

"To the White House’s credit, they went back to the old policy or old procedures. The policy was (changed) after the first line of questioning."

Gibbs announced the change at the Wednesday news conference. A memo circulated that day from Jim Messina, the White House deputy chief of staff, that "contained four new or revised procedures for future functions," Cam Simpson reported for the Wall Street Journal. "Most significantly, White House staffers will be stationed with Secret Service personnel at checkpoints – and the White House, not the Secret Service, will now have primary responsibility for checking the names of those queuing against the official guest lists."

At a House hearing on Thursday, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan said that published reports claiming that President Obama faced a 400 percent increase in death threats were incorrect, Jason Horowitz reported Friday in the Washington Post.

" ‘I’m not sure where that number comes from,’ he said. The number of threats against Obama, he said, ‘are the same level as it has been for the last two presidents.’"

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the Homeland Security Committee chairman, said that as the first African American to chair the committee, "he has sensed heightened concern among the African Americans who already feared for the president’s safety given the historic nature of his position and the country’s racially charged past," Wil Haygood, Horowitz and Michael D. Shear reported Thursday in the Post.

"’Joe Madison’s been all over the story,’ Thompson said of the popular radio host.

"’The symbolism with this being the first African American president is huge, and along with that comes concern for his safety. What did he get? Must have been 96 percent of the African American vote.’"

Media Turn on Social Secretary Desiree Rogers

The headline on a story from the Columbia Journalism Review on Thursday was, "Being liked in Washington is a sometime thing — just ask Desiree Rogers," and the commentary this week backed it up.

"Those Chicagoans who have made their way to Washington with President Barack Obama should be feeling a chill," Steve Daley wrote.

"The first one who needs to seek shelter and a warm coat is White House social secretary Desiree Rogers.

"Born in New Orleans, Rogers became a fixture in Chicago’s business community, political culture, and party-going circuit, in part as protege of Obama best friend and current White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. Until last week, the Washington press corps seemed to agree that not only was Ms. Rogers cuter than a speckled pup in a little red wagon, she was playing a serious game as well.

". . . On Wednesday, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote about the gate-crashing Virginia grifters who waltzed into a White House state dinner last month. But Dowd soon turned her attention to Ms. Rogers, who is clearly — and suddenly — viewed as having gotten too big for her designer britches. . . .

"That same day, The Washington Post’s Style section let its readers know that while the Secret Service may have been a trifle inattentive with Presidential security, Ms. Rogers was guilty of the high crime of preening and drawing attention to herself.

". . . In March, there was this full gush, complete with the requisite slideshow, from the Huffington Post: ‘She‚Äôs only been in Washington a little over two months but Chicago transplant Desiree Rogers has already been crowned the District‚Äôs best-dressed woman by Huffington Post readers.’

"This week, the Huffingtons had moved on to sterner stuff, with a Dec. 2 article headlined, ‘The Twilight Saga: Does Desiree Rogers Have a Future?’ "

As Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., noted in the Washington Post¬†a week ago, administration staff from the social secretary’s office always accompanied security officers at checkpoints because staffers had a greater familiarity with the invitees on a guest list, and were in a better position to make judgment calls about unexpected guests.

King noted that Rogers, who also sat as one of the guests at the dinner, acknowledged that "there was nobody there from the social staff" at the gate on the night in question.

Michael Isikoff of Newsweek had reported on Sunday, "The White House staff member whose job was to supervise the guest list for state dinners and clear invitees into the events says she was stripped of most of her responsibilities earlier this year, prompting her to resign last June.

"The account of Cathy Hargraves, who formerly served as White House ‘assistant for arrangements, ‘raises new questions about whether changes that she says were made by President Obama’s social secretary, Desiree Rogers, may have contributed to the security lapses that permitted Virginia socialites Michaele and Tareq Salahi to crash the state dinner for India’s prime minister last week and get themselves photographed with the president."

Tribal Council Votes to Close Hopi Newspaper

"The primary newspaper covering Hopi lands, the Hopi Tutuveni, will be closed under a budget passed Monday by the Hopi Tribal Council, according to the paper’s editor," the Arizona Daily Sun reported on Tuesday.

"The 6,000-circulation paper will publish through mid-December, but may or may not publish an issue for the end of the year, said Stewart Nicholas, the Tutuveni’s editor for the last nine years. The Hopi Tutuveni has been published with one interruption since the 1970s, and distributed to readers from Hopi to Tuba City, Flagstaff and Winslow."

Ronnie Washines, president of the Native American Journalists Association and a member of the Yakima Nation in Washington state, issued a statement calling the closing "personally and professionally disheartening.

"Completely eliminating the tribal newspaper does more harm to a government working to improve its financial situation," Washines said.

"A fully functioning government needs a voice that can disseminate updated news and information regarding the factual status of that government at any given time."

Papers Called Late to "Business/News Integration"

"It’s not difficult to see why journalists and others reacted with alarm Thursday when they learned that section editors at The Dallas Morning News would start reporting to sales managers," Richard Prince wrote Friday for the Poynter Institute.

"The news, first published by the Dallas Observer, came from a memo sent Wednesday to Morning News employees by Editor Bob Mong and Cyndy Carr, senior vice president of sales, outlining what they called a ‘business/news integration.’

"New ‘general managers’ would lead 11 ‘business and content segments’ that would include parts of the newsroom.

"It seemed as though the venerated wall between the news and business sides of the operation had been smashed in part of what Belo called a ‘bold strategy.’

"But Mong and others involved in the new direction, at least at the Morning News, suggest that a different line deserved more attention: ‘We are proceeding … in the same way our News leadership and our Publisher have worked collaboratively for years,’ the announcement said.

"’To me, this is nothing new for the newspaper,’ Executive Sports Editor Bob Yates said in a phone interview. ‘Editors of the paper report to the publisher. It’s the same pattern.’

Rich Alfano, who starts Monday as a general manager at the Morning News, "said the newspaper industry is arriving late to the integration concept."

Can’t Kill "10 Tips Obama Can Take From Tiger" Cover

"There’s no mulligan for Golf Digest," as Keith J. Kelly wrote¬†Friday for the New York Post.

"The magazine’s January issue is due to hit newsstands next week with a cover that screams: ‘The Top 10 Tips Obama Can Take From Tiger.’

"It features a photo composite that appears to show the president and the embattled golf superstar on a course together."

Golf Digest, which has Woods under an exclusive seven-figure contract as its ‘playing editor,’ wasn’t trying to cash in on Tiger’s newfound notoriety.

"Rather, the cover was made weeks ago and the Cond?© Nast monthly deemed it would be too expensive to pull copies after it had gone to press.

"So the mag, which has 1.65 million in paid circulation, is slated to go on sale next Tuesday."

Darren Rovell of CNBC reported Saturday that even though the official newsstand date is Dec. 8, the issue hit some stores Saturday.

The magazine is already publishing messages from readers about the issue. "Nice Jan. 2010 cover…I got a huge laugh. 10 tips Obama can take from Tiger…DON’T GET CAUGHT! Don’t you wish you could have a redo! Too funny," Brenda Laurenti of Willard, Utah, wrote in a letter published online.

Commentary elsewhere ranged from thoughts on Woods’ infidelity to the media coverage.

On theGrio.com, David A. Love wrote, "rather than paying attention to aspects of Tiger Woods’ life that should remain purely personal, people should instead focus on his failings as a public figure. As an athlete, Woods has excelled and assumed a preeminent leadership role. But as a black athlete who owes a great debt to those giants who came before him, Woods falls short."

Jesse Washington, the Associated Press’ race relations reporter, wrote Saturday that "When three white women were said to be romantically involved with Woods in
addition to his blond, Swedish wife, blogs, airwaves and barbershops started
humming, and Woods’ already tenuous standing among many blacks took a beating."

Obama Rejects Special Aid for Minority Broadcasters

"After members of the Congressional Black Caucus boycotted a key vote on financial regulations this week in a bid to draw more help for minority broadcasters and other businesses, President Obama told USA Today that he doesn’t want to focus on one segment of businesses in particular," Radio Ink reported on Friday.

"He said, ‘The most important thing I can do for the African-American community is the same thing I can do for the American community, period, and that is get the economy going again and get people hiring again.’

"The New York Times reported yesterday that Inner City Broadcasting, facing millions in debt to Goldman Sachs and other lenders, has hired a prominent lobbying firm to push lawmakers for special help for minority broadcasters. Inner City owes about $230 million to Goldman Sachs and GE Capital, and Black Caucus members have reportedly met with top Obama administration officials asking that they push the lenders to renegotiate the agreements, on the grounds that the lenders themselves have received government aid."

Racial Inequity Is Pronounced for Blacks With Degrees

"That race remains a serious obstacle in the job market for African-Americans, even those with degrees from respected colleges, may seem to some people a jarring contrast to decades of progress by blacks, culminating in President Obama’s election," Michael Luo wrote Monday in the New York Times.

"But there is ample evidence that racial inequities remain when it comes to employment. Black joblessness has long far outstripped that of whites. And strikingly, the disparity for the first 10 months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has been even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared with those without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing field — in fact, it appears to have made it more uneven.

"College-educated black men, especially, have struggled relative to their white counterparts in this downturn, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate for black male college graduates 25 and older in 2009 has been nearly twice that of white male college graduates — 8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent."

Public Enemy’s "911 Is a Joke" was released 11 years before the attacks of 2001. (Video)

Oops! Copy Editor Changes "911" to "9/11"

A copy editor changed a reference to "911 Is a Joke," a song on "Fear of a Black Planet," the classic 1990 rap album by Public Enemy, to "9/11 Is a Joke."

"The error was not the fault of Akeya, the reporter on the story, but was made during the copy-editing process. A correction was printed once the error was discovered," Kris Coratti, director of communications at the Washington Post, told Journal-isms, referring to reporter Akeya Dickson.

The correction was picked up on Web sites from Regret the Error to FishBowl LA to Wonkette to Gothamist.

"Brutal," wrote Gothamist. "The song ‘911 is a Joke’ was of course released in 1990, on the seminal Fear of a Black Planet album, approximately 11 years before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."

With no indication of familiarity with the author of the story, Wonkette wrote, "Why WaPo Neocons Should Not Write About Hip Hop."

Short Takes

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