Maynard Institute archives

Sober Responses to Obama’s War Plan

by richard0647

Columnists Feel Their Confidence in President Tested

Joint Editorial on Climate Change Runs in 45 Countries

Study Finds Little Focus on Lives of U.S. Hispanics

Piece on Tiger Woods’ White Women Proves Polarizing

Media Site Issues Mea Culpa for All-White List

Reporting of “Actual Work of Schools” Found to Be Scant

Coverage of Domestic, Global Poverty Found Wanting

Mexican Family Awaits Fate of Kidnapped Reporter

Johnson Publishing Co. Remembers Negro Digest

Cadets listen to the President Obama’s speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point last week. Columnist Colbert King said he felt himself “drinking the Kool-Aid” afterward. (Credit: Pete Souza/White House)

Columnists Feel Their Confidence in President Tested

“Brother, we are trying,” Deborah Mathis wrote Monday on BlackAmericaWeb.com, addressing President Obama.

“Trying to give you the space you need to do all of the heavy lifting required for the job you so vigorously sought and so decisively won, against a world of odds and a long and discouraging history. A job fraught with pressure and danger and the highest of stakes.

“. . . But, the clock is running and, like all participants in a revolution – and your election was revolutionary, sir – we want to see the fruit of our gamble as soon as possible.

“We had your back last year. We are trying to stay faithful and to not let you down.

“Please return the favor.”

As noted in this column last month, “For Nov. 16-22, Obama’s white approval rating fell to 39 percent, but it was 73 percent among nonwhites. It was 91 percent among blacks and 70 percent among Hispanics.”

Leonard Pitts Jr., the syndicated Miami Herald columnist, wrote last week that the headline on that column, “White defections drag down Obama rating,” was “a fair reading, I suppose. But you could just as fairly headline it: ‘Nonwhite Support Inflates Obama Rating.’

“From where I sit, Obama’s performance has been neither as execrable as the rating among whites would suggest, nor as walk-on-water miraculous as the rating among blacks and browns would have us believe. And that gap between them is less a measurement of a president’s performance than of a nation’s enduring irresolution.”

Pitts wrote his column before Obama announced he was sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Judging from the sober reaction from commentators of color, the decision is putting to the test their faith in the president’s ability to deliver. Some outright oppose his plan; others are lukewarm.

“The slurping sound you may have heard after President Obama’s speech at West Point was yours truly once again demonstrating his trust in a leader by drinking the Kool-Aid,” Colbert I. King wrote in the Washington Post on Saturday. “This time, however, I didn’t chug-a-lug as I did after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003, presentation to the U.N. Security Council on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.”

In the New York Times, Bob Herbert lamented, “We still haven’t learned to recognize real strength, which is why it so often seems that the easier choice for a president is to keep the troops marching off to war.”

“It was fun while it lasted, but we don’t have ol’ Bush to kick around anymore,” Roland S. Martin wrote Friday in his syndicated column. “Now the heat will be applied fully to Obama, and we’ll have to see whether Mr. Calm, Cool and Collected can handle the tough moments as easily as he’s enjoyed the praise and adulation.”

Still, as Mathis pointed out, there is no rush to judgment.

“Obama has had successes,” Rochelle Riley wrote in the Detroit Free Press. “Lost in the forgettable, 24-hour news cycles are his successful efforts to extend post-job health and unemployment benefits and the rescue of the American auto industry.

“That he didn’t put a man on the moon again in his first year isn’t cause for alarm. The overwhelming expectation and lack of context for what he has faced in his first year is surprising, even in a city where politics outweighs common sense.

“But what will eventually define the Obama presidency is not whether he flies faster than a speeding bullet in his first year on the job. What will define his presidency is not whether he drops a ball.

“What will define his presidency, which is expected to last at least three more years, is whether he strikes out or, at some point, hits one out of the park.”

The Society of Environmental Journalists has created a blog to track the Copenhagen summit conference on climate change. Representatives from 192 nations are expected.

Joint Editorial on Climate Change Runs in 45 Countries

The highly anticipated United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen opened on Monday with 56 newspapers in 45 countries carrying the same editorial, urging politicians to work together to forge an agreement, as the BBC reported.

Among other points, the editorial declared, “The industrialized world should dig deep into its pockets to help poorer countries adapt to climate change and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically.”

But the editorial, written by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, did not appear in most American newspapers, with the Miami Herald as an exception. The prevailing opinion on the e-mail list of the National Conference of Editorial Writers was that newspapers ought to “speak with their own voice, not as part of an orchestrated campaign, however noble one might believe the cause to be,” as the Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph wrote for Tuesday’s editions.

The Wall Street Journal, via its online columnist James Taranto, sneered, “This is such a dire emergency that the editorial boards of 55 newspapers . . . cannot be troubled to write a word about it.”

Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy Now!” is broadcasting from the conference. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank on African American issues, said it was sending a six-member delegation that includes Julianne Malveaux, a syndicated columnist who is also president of Bennett College for Women.

“The Joint Center delegation will be working with other delegations to talk about ways to engage our constituents in issues of climate change,” Malveaux told Journal-isms. “We have a full schedule. I will be writing at least one, and perhaps several columns on this.”

On Monday, “Democracy Now!” broadcast interviews by producers Mike Burke and Elizabeth Press with several delegates, activists and journalists from across Africa.

One was journalist Chikondi Juma of a private radio station in Malawi in southern Africa.

“Malawi being a developing country, it is affected in many ways. It is an agro-based economy. So, because of the changes in climatic conditions, most of the times we don’t have adequate rains, or sometimes we have too much of it, and we have droughts and then floods. And also health conditions, there is a lot of mosquitoes, so malaria cases go up,” he said.

“So I believe that the United States and the other countries, all the rich countries, they need to do something, because, like, a poor country like Malawi, I don’t think there’s nothing that we can do. We want to get developed, but we can’t, because we are affected by climate change. I believe that the rich countries can do something by either reducing the emissions and, of course, providing some money for developing countries to also put up some adaptation measures and the mitigation measures for this climate change thing.”

Study Finds Little Focus on Lives of U.S. Hispanics

“From Feb. 9 to Aug. 9, 2009, only a fraction of all news stories studied contained substantial references to Hispanics – just 645 out of 34,452,” the Pew Hispanic Center reported in a study Monday. “And only a tiny number, 57 stories, focused directly on the lives of Hispanics in the U.S., according to a media content analysis done jointly by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Hispanic Center, both of which are projects of the Pew Research Center.

“In the six months studied the biggest news event by far that referenced Hispanics was the nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latino to serve on the high court. More than a third of all the coverage that dealt with Hispanic people or issues was about Sotomayor’s nomination.

“The degree to which Hispanics are covered in the news varied by media sector. Newspapers gave them the most attention, with Hispanic references in 4.3% of the front-page coverage studied. Hispanics were least likely to be referenced on cable television, appearing in 1.9% of the newshole studied.”

Piece on Tiger Woods’ White Women Proves Polarizing

Jesse WashingtonIt’s not often that Jesse Washington gets the kind of reaction he did to his piece on Tiger Woods: E-mails, he said, were “in the good double digits,” and were 60 to 40 percent negative.

Washington is the Associated Press’ national race relations reporter.

“Amid all the headlines generated by Tiger Woods’ troubles ‚Äî the puzzling car accident, the suggestions of marital turmoil and multiple mistresses ‚Äî little attention has been given to the race of the women linked with the world’s greatest golfer,” he wrote.

“Except in the black community.”

All the women are white.

“When I report opinions that people don’t like,” he told Journal-isms, “they assume they are my opinions and that I have an agenda to advance that opinion. But my job is to report what’s going on. My job is to try to capture what people are saying and thinking and feeling in various communities involving race.”

Zennie Abraham, who blogs on the San Francisco Chronicle Web site, wrote, “Jesse Washington’s AP-blasted take is a reflection of a certain part of Black America that no longer represents the sum total of Black America: those who racially segregate themselves and hate any image of racial mixing for fear that it may result in the devaluation of their blackness.”

The responses, Washington said, “range from ‘you’re saying Tiger Woods is a racist, and you, Jesse Washington, are a racist,’ to ‘this is an oversimplification of the issue.’ . . . The responses indicate that interracial relationships are still a very, very sensitive topic. It’s not often that you get that many people blogging about what you write.”

Washington was the AP’s entertainment editor when he was selected in July 2008, from among 449 applicants, to become the wire service’s national writer on race and ethnicity.

Media Site Issues Mea Culpa for All-White List

Rachel SklarThe all-white nature of so many Web sites, especially those dealing with the media, was highlighted on Monday when Mediaite published a list of 28 – count ’em – media leaders who died during the decade.

There was no Ed Bradley, the icon of cool at CBS News; Gerald Boyd, the first and only black New York Times managing editor; Frank del Olmo, the Los Angeles Times pioneer; William Woo, St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor; Ebony magazine founder John H. Johnson; or Maynard Institute co-founder Nancy Maynard or anyone else of color.

“Mediaite has been rightly called out for a big, glaring error: On our list of 28 media leaders we’ve lost this decade there was not a single person of color. Not a one,” the site’s editor, Rachel Sklar, wrote later in the day.

“It’s an omission we are fixing even as I type this, but that’s not the point: the point is taking responsibility for it and holding it up as yet another reminder of how easily groups are marginalized in our media. Even by people who loudly complain about being marginalized.

“. . . This, by the way, is an amazing example of why we need diversity in newsrooms. Even the most well-intentioned person can’t see everything, or see from a perspective they don’t have. This is how we learn from each other ‚Äì and examples like this are, hopefully, what we avoid when we do.”

Sklar was called to account by Bryan Monroe, a former president of the National Association of Black Journalists, who had just testified last week before the Federal Trade Commission about the whiteness of the Web.

Monroe reported back to NABJ’s e-mail list that Sklar had added five African Americans: Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-N.Y., Johnson, Richard Pryor, Bradley and Michael Jackson.

It remained to be seen whether the site would expand its list of contributors or alter its extensive home-page list of links to media sites, blogs and columns, which appears to be as white as the original list of media leaders who passed on.

Reporting “Actual Work of Schools” Found to Be Scant

“Despite the importance of media coverage for public understanding of education, news reporting on schools is scant,” according to a report last week from the Brookings Institution.

“As we note in this report, there is virtually no national coverage of education. During the first nine months of 2009, only 1.4 percent of national news coverage from television, newspapers, news Web sites, and radio dealt with education.

“This paucity of coverage is not unique to 2009. In 2008, only 0.7 percent of national news coverage involved education, while 1.0 percent did so in 2007. This makes it difficult for the public to follow the issues at stake in our education debates and to understand how to improve school performance.

“Of the education news that is reported across any education level, little relates to school policies and ways to improve the curriculum or learning processes. There was hardly any coverage of school reform, teacher quality, or other matters thought to be crucial for educational attainment.

“Instead, most stories this year dealt with budget problems, school crime, and the H1N1 flu outbreak. The emphasis on school budgets isn’t surprising given the country’s dismal economic news. Indeed, educational finance and the economic stimulus package together made up 17 percent of all national stories this year. However, the lack of coverage of the actual work of schools remains a significant problem.”

Coverage of Domestic, Global Poverty Found Wanting

“Have you read much in the mainstream press about the Millennium Development Goals to reduce extreme global poverty, hunger and disease by 2015?” asks John Hanrahan at Nieman Watchdog. “What about coverage of the U.S. government’s failure for almost a decade to meet its pledged contributions to help achieve these goals?

“And have you recently read any comprehensive press accounts about the effect of the economic collapse on the level of poverty in our own country and abroad? Or for that matter, how much did you see in the press about U.S. poverty prior to the collapse?

“Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, says the answer to all of these questions would be: Not very much.

“Sachs sees both global and domestic poverty as urgent issues that need more in-depth attention from the mainstream press¬†- and, more importantly, action from the White House and Congress – as poor people here and abroad face even worse situations because of the worldwide economic recession that is adding to their already tragic lives.”

Mexican Family Awaits Fate of Kidnapped Reporter

Abducted: Maria Esther Aguilar Cansimbe“David Silva, the husband of abducted reporter Maria Esther Aguilar Cansimbe, ran his hand roughly across his forehead twice, then held his face, looked down, and said, ‘Every night it’s the same until 2 or 4 in the morning, waiting for the phone call, listening for the car to stop on the street. Then if one does, I’m sure it’s her coming home. But it never is,’ ” Mike O’Connor wrote for the Committee to Protect Journalists, describing a scene in the state of Michoac?°n, Mexico.

Aguilar was taken Nov. 11.

“Silva, the husband of the missing reporter, said the influence of the cartels in Zamora is so strong he can’t rely on the police to find his wife. ‘With most of the police here you don’t know who you’re talking to-a detective or a representative of organized crime,’ he said.

“Silva is one to know. He met Aguilar 15 years ago when she was 19, just starting her career on the police beat, and he was then the police chief of Zamora.

“Journalists in Zamora and in other cities in Michoac?°n agreed with Silva’s analysis of the police, but went further. They said that the city government in Zamora, like other cities, not only lets the cartels operate but is so afraid of them that it is paying them monthly protection money. In a climate of lawlessness, local officials in Zamora may be emulating the cartels by also threatening reporters who write stories they don’t like.”

A Negro Digest cover from 1966 features singer Abbey Lincoln; a Black World from 1971 features Soledad bother George Jackson, a “martyr” killed while trying to escape from San Quentin Prison.

Johnson Publishing Co. Remembers Negro Digest

“NEGRO DIGEST was in many ways ahead of its time, part pre-Google aggregation of contemporary Black thought culled from many sources, as well as a forum for strong, independent and – for the time – revolutionary and incendiary voices. W.E.B Dubois, a young, not so famous Martin Luther King, Carl Sandburg, Frantz Fanon, all were contributors to the publication that for a time became the unofficial intellectual forum for the Negro protest movement,” Eric Easter wrote Friday for ebonyjet.com.

“When you read the magazines, the words still resonate strongly. Imagine how strong they seemed sixty years ago. Indeed too strong for many. EBONY was created, in fact, as a lighter, more user-friendly companion which, of course, did gangbusters and quickly became the company’s flagship magazine. Even well beyond its profitability, founder John H. Johnson continued to publish Negro Digest (which morphed into Black World) well into the 70’s because of its unique role in the community as a critical forum.

“The Negro Digest archives (as well as those from EBONY, EBONY Jr. and JET) from 1961 forward are now available on Google and soon on EbonyJet.com as a searchable widget.”

Clovis E. Semmes, a professor of African-American Studies at Eastern Michigan University, wrote in 2001, “Through the pages of Negro Digest, Hoyt Fuller became a major architect of the Black Arts and Black Consciousness movement of the mid-1960s and 1970s, and Negro Digest and Hoyt Fuller became widely recognized for their role in the new African-American cultural
renaissance. Historian Robert L. Harris, Jr. (1984) observed that ‘Fuller made Negro Digest the most influential and most widely read Black literary magazine in this country.’ “

The name of the publication was changed in 1970 to Black World.

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