Isoul Harris, Entertainment Journalist, Heads Uptown Magazine
Isoul Harris, an alumnus of People magazine, the Huffington Post and Atlanta-based 944 Magazine, has been promoted from executive editor to editor-in-chief of Uptown magazine. The April issue is his first as top editor. Harris succeeds Angela Bronner.
“I certainly want to build on what the brand has become over last 9 years,” Harris, 39, told Journal-isms by email, “a publication presenting African-American life in the most beautiful, professional and creative way possible. The current March cover with comedian and actor Kevin Hart leaping mid-air sporting a Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo jacket exhibits the new direction in which I would like to take the magazine: stylish, fun, and energetic. That coupled with more substantive pieces such as “The New America” a feature about post-Obama America, which was written by MSNBC host and civil rights leader Al Sharpton. I want UPTOWN to be a book of sophistication and substance.”
Harris’ first book, “Nicki Minaj: Hip Pop Moments 4 Life,” is due from Omnibus Press on April 1. He says he has interviewed Jada Pinkett-Smith and Will Smith, Janet Jackson, Rihanna, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Drew Barrymore, LeAnn Rimes, Usher, Beyoncé, OutKast, Vince Vaughn and Queen Latifah.
Uptown, based in New York, has a circulation of 228,488, according to the Alliance for Audited Media, previously the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Soledad O’Brien Owns “Black in America” Franchise
Soledad O’Brien, who is giving up her CNN morning show, “Starting Point,” in exchange for forming a production company and continuing to supply documentaries to CNN on a nonexclusive basis, says she now owns the rights to the “Black in America” and “Latino in America” franchise.
“We struck an unusual deal,” O’Brien told Diane Brady of Business Week on Thursday. “I’ll get to leave CNN with my catalog and documentaries. We were able to create a brand at CNN — Black in America — that I now own. I can take that brand and extend it in any way I want. You have Netflix (NFLX) and all these channels that are looking for interesting and different ways to tell stories. To have ownership of Black in America and Latino in America is hugely important.
“I absolutely pushed for that — it was critical to me. I’m so affiliated with this brand that there wasn’t a real struggle. I don’t just own it, but I can now take it across other platforms.
“I’m not exclusive to CNN. If I decide I want to go and do a show somewhere, I can go and do it. I’ve never owned my own content. Most people in TV do not own their own production company. In fact, most of us don’t even own our own Facebook (FB) pages, and some don’t own their Twitter account. . . .”
Williams Attributes Apparent Plagiarism to Researcher
“In a case of apparent plagiarism, Fox News pundit Juan Williams lifted — sometimes word for word — from a Center for American Progress report, without ever attributing the information, for a column he wrote last month for the Hill newspaper,” Alex Seitz-Wald reported Thursday for Salon.
“But that editor’s note mentions only the attribution problem, and not the nearly identical wording that was also fixed.
“In a phone interview Thursday evening, Williams pinned the blame on a researcher who he described as a ‘young man.’ ”
Erik Wemple wrote Friday for the Washington Post, “So what Williams is saying here is that he lifted his researcher’s words. Why, then, wasn’t the researcher credited in the piece?
Referring to Hugo Gurdon, editor in chief of the Hill, Wemple continued, “When asked about that matter, Gurdon replied, ‘I’m not sure that researchers always do get credit.’
“They should. The only time they rear their heads should not be when they allegedly screw up.”
“In a phone interview Thursday evening, Williams pinned the blame on a researcher who he described as a ‘young man.’ . . .”
Latinos Closing Digital Divide With Whites
“Latinos own smartphones, go online from a mobile device and use social networking sites at similar — and sometimes higher — rates than do other groups of Americans, according to a new analysis of three surveys by the Pew Research Center, Mark Hugo Lopez, Ana Gonzalez-Barrera and Eileen Patten reported Thursday for the Pew Hispanic Center.
“The analysis also finds that when it comes to using the internet, the digital divide between Latinos and whites is smaller than what it had been just a few years ago. Between 2009 and 2012, the share of Latino adults who say they go online at least occasionally increased 14 percentage points, rising from 64% to 78%.2 Among whites, internet use rates also increased, but only by half as much — from 80% in 2009 to 87% in 2012.
“Over the same period, the gap in cellphone ownership between Latinos and other groups either diminished or disappeared. In 2012, 86% of Latinos said they owned a cellphone, up from 76% in 2009.”
Social Media Becoming Indispensable for Journalists
The evidence is mounting that familiarity with social media is becoming indispensable for journalists.
Twitter “is building a powerful media company that is a threat to many of the biggest players in digital media,” Brian Morrissey reported Wednesday for Digiday. “Its ambitions to this point have been dogged by questions of scale. Remember all those stories about Twitter quitters? No more. Two hundred million monthly active users, the company reports, are double last year’s number. But still, how many people really tweet? The company now processes 1 billion tweets every two and a half days. During New Year’s in Japan, that meant 33,000 tweets per second. Half of all Americans now see, read about or hear about tweets every day. These are facts that back up its execs’ contention that Twitter is now a ‘global town hall.’
“All that scale and activity gives Twitter something else: leverage. . . .”
Meanwhile, Lynne Varner, editorial writer and columnist at the Seattle Times, wrote Friday about the backlash against the Seattle Public Schools after it began investigating a class exploring white privilege.
She told Journal-isms by email, “I also created a Word Cloud adjacent to my column to get responses from people about how they view the treatment of minority students in Seattle. I opened it to responses from parents and non-parents, in Seattle and outside, because I want to better understand how the public education system overall treats minority students. As you know with Word Clouds, the more a word is chosen the larger it will be.”
Not Much Evidence of Hiring for New Fusion Network
In applying for a $3.5 million job-creation grant last year from Miami-Dade County, Fusion, the new ABC-Univision English-language cable network targeted to Hispanics, “promised to create 346 new jobs over the next five years — 201 in 2013 — in addition to retaining 137 jobs in the county,” Veronica Villafañe recalled Tuesday for TVNewsCheck. “The new jobs would have an average salary of $81,000.
“So far, there isn’t much evidence of such hiring.
“A LinkedIn site currently shows only 10 job listings for Fusion, including a digital reporter, coordinating producer, assignment manager and director of communications and public affairs, but an ABC spokesperson says they’re ‘working 24/7 to bring people on board.’ . . . ”
March 10 Marks Anniversary of King-Gandhi Journey
“Having won our independence in a nonviolent struggle, Indians join Americans in celebrating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership of the civil rights movement in the United States,” Nirupama Rao, India’s ambassador to the United States, wrote Friday for Politico. “On Aug. 28, we will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington where King delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, and, on April 4, we will mourn the 45th anniversary of his assassination.
“On March 10, we will mark another milestone moment in King’s public ministry and personal journey. On that day, 54 years ago, he returned from a monthlong journey to India where he rededicated himself to the nonviolent struggle for justice to which the leader of our nation’s independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, gave his life.
Rao continued, “Through most of the past century, Indians and African-Americans supported each other’s struggles because we identify with each other’s predicaments and principles. . . . ” elaborating on the Gandhi-African American connection.
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, New York Times: The Good, Racist People
- Khalid Salaam, the Shadow League: Social Illiteracy Is What’s Plaguing America’s Race Relations
- Fatima Shaik, In These Times: Black and Bengali: A new book traces the hidden story of a mixed-race community.
British GQ Pulls Naomi Campbell Piece on Chávez
“In the wake of Hugo Chávez‘s death Wednesday afternoon, British GQ re-published an interview in which British supermodel Naomi Campbell fawned over the ‘rebel angel’ Venezuelan autocrat,” Andrew Kirell reported Friday for Mediaite.
“Within hours, however, the piece was mysteriously scrubbed from the site. Was this a protective PR demand from Campbell’s people? After all, she’s in the midst of promoting her new Oxygen reality show? . . .”
- Editorial, Al Día, Philadelphia: In Latin America, U.S. Would Rather Talk About Villains than Partners
- Katie Glueck, Politico: Jesse Jackson on Hugo Chavez: ‘Democracies evolve’
- Vanessa Rodriguez, Fox News Latino: After Hugo Chavez’s Death, Venezuelan Expatriates Ponder a Return to Homeland
- Noah Rothman, Mediaite: Jesse Jackson’s ‘Tribute’ At Chavez Funeral: He Fed Hungry, Lifted Poor, Helped People ‘Realize Their Dreams’