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| WTHR reporter Bob Segall interviews an undocumented worker who says his address was used to file tax returns from four other undocumented immigrants who did not live there. They received $29,000 in IRS refunds. (Video) |
Story on Tax Abuse by Undocumented Workers Earns Peabody
A six-month investigation by WTHR-TV in Indianapolis that documented IRS mismanagement resulting in billions of dollars in fraudulent tax refunds, many going to immigrants in the country illegally, was among the recipients Wednesday of a Peabody award, the oldest awards in broadcasting.
“The national response to WTHR’s ‘Tax Loophole’ investigation has been huge,” the station said. “Millions of people have watched the videos that show how undocumented workers are tapping into an IRS loophole — a loophole that allows illegal immigrants to claim billions of dollars in tax credits.”
The station also said, “The investigation was viewed online more than 14 million times and triggered IRS reforms designed to save U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars.
“In announcing 39 Peabody recipients Wednesday morning at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, the Peabody judges wrote ‘WTHR’s stunning investigation exposed not only how illegal immigrants were bilking billions in tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service but also how the IRS had known of the scamming and failed to stop it,’ ” the station reported.
Other winners included CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes” for “Joy in the Congo,” which celebrated the emergence of a home-grown symphony orchestra in the war-ravaged African republic; “D.L. Hughley: The Endangered List,” “a mock documentary on Comedy Central in which the comedian campaigned to get black men the ‘same EPA protections’ as the Kaman cave cricket and the Texas kangaroo rat; the Smithsonian Channel’s “MLK: The Assassination Tapes,” “in which rare archival footage was fused into a gripping reconstruction of the events surrounding the Civil Rights leader’s 1968 murder.”
Also, “The Loving Story,” “a poignant film shown on HBO about a couple infamously arrested in 1958 for daring to marry across racial lines”; “Summer Pasture,” “an ‘Independent Lens’ film that chronicled a nomadic Tibetan family’s natural and political hardships; and ‘Why Poverty?,’ a collection of eight distinctively different films from Steps International that explored aspects of that human condition historically and here and now,” “What Happened at Dos Erres,” a “This American Life” spellbinder “about a Guatemalan immigrant who learns that the man he believed to be his father actually led the massacre of his village”; “Rapido y Furioso (Fast & Furious),” “Univision’s Mexican perspective on the infamous ATF gun-tracking debacle”; and “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” “a sterling magazine series that springboards from athletics,” among others.
Apple, Google, Facebook Still Stonewalling on Diversity
“A CNN Money report finds that Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL) and other tech titans continue to stonewall questions on the diversity of their workforce, five years after the Mercury News kicked off a quest to find out the racial makeup of the workforce at the country’s most important technology companies,” Jeremy C. Owens reported last week for the San Jose Mercury News.
“CNN Money, which began its own investigation in 2011, reported Monday that its attempts to obtain the data — which companies with more than 100 employees must provide to the federal government annually — from 20 prominent tech firms in the U.S. have hit the same roadblocks. Of the 20, only Intel (INTC), Dell and Ingram Micro voluntarily released the data.
“Ten companies were able to block the release of the data from the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not federal contractors: Facebook, LinkedIn, Netflix (NFLX), Twitter, Yelp, Zynga, Amazon, Groupon, Hulu and LivingSocial.
“Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), IBM and Microsoft successfully appealed to the Labor Department to keep their information private, claiming that public release of the data would cause ‘competitive harm.’ Cisco (CSCO) and eBay (EBAY) data was released through the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, filing, providing the news organization with information from five of the 20 companies it originally contacted.
“The Mercury News attempted to obtain the same data from the 15 largest tech companies in Silicon Valley in 2008, and nine companies — including Cisco, Intel and eBay — turned it over. After six companies refused the request, an 18-month legal battle ensued that forced the release of the data from HP, but not the other five companies: Apple, Google, Yahoo (YHOO), Oracle (ORCL) and Applied Materials. . . .”
Gay Journalists Urge “Same-Sex,” Not “Gay Marriage”
Just before two days of Supreme Court arguments on same-sex marriage issues began on Tuesday, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association issued suggestions on covering the topic.
The arguments concluded Wednesday with the court appearing ready to strike down a central part of a federal law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as Adam Liptak and Peter Baker reported for the New York Times. A majority of the justices expressed reservations about the Defense of Marriage Act, they wrote.
NLGJA said, “Journalists should consider diversity of opinion when bringing these stories to readers, viewers and listeners. Look beyond preconceived ‘pro’ and ‘con”‘sides. Not all LGBT community members are in favor of marriage for same-sex couples; not all members of communities of faith are opposed.
“Reporters should note the differences between marriage law and the legal designation of civil unions. Civil unions are presumed to extend many marriage benefits and protections; however, they do not include the federal protections and benefits available to married couples.
“As NLGJA has previously noted, the oft-used term ‘gay marriage’ is both inaccurate and misleading. ‘Gay marriage’ implies the creation of a new set of legal standards and guidelines as opposed to what is being sought by most advocates ? the extension of currently existing benefits and responsibilities to include same-sex couples. More appropriate terminology in discussing such legislation would be ‘marriage rights for same-sex couples.’ Or, in those instances where a briefer description is necessary, ‘same-sex marriage’ as ‘same-sex’ is a more accurate and inclusive description than ‘gay.’ “
- Perry Bacon Jr., the Grio: How Obama changed the gay marriage debate
- Jeff Bercovici, Forbes: Huffington Post Goes All In On Marriage Equality
- Nisha Chittal, Poynter Institute: Journalists share arguments for, against using same-sex marriage symbols on social media profiles
- Mary C. Curtis, Washington Post: A ‘military spouse of the year’ closely watches the Supreme Court
- Eric Deggans, Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times: As Supreme Court considers ending gay marriage ban, I name TV’s top portrayals of gay people which helped get us here
- Keli Goff, the Root: Gay-Marriage Coverage: A Media Shutout?: Coverage of the issue may be overshadowing another important civil rights cause.
- Susan Green, NPR: Fighting For The Right To Marry, A Family Tradition
- Noah Rothman, Mediaite: CNN Anchor Gets In Explosive Personal Battle With Conservative Over ‘Legality’ Of Gay Marriage
- Al Tompkins, The Poynter Institute: Why the Supreme Court should allow TV cameras in the courtroom
- Alex Weprin, TVNewser: After Proposition 8 Oral Arguments, Cautious Analysis From Correspondents
In Hollywood, TV Writers See Disconnect on Diversity
“The 2013 TV Staffing Brief analyzes employment patterns for 1,722 writers working on 190 broadcast and cable TV shows during the 2011-2012 season, highlighting three specific groups who have traditionally been underemployed in the TV industry: women, minority, and older writers.
“ ‘It all begins with the writing,’ said Dr. Darnell Hunt, author of the report and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA and professor of sociology. ‘From concept to characters, from plot to narrative, writers play a fundamental role in the fashioning of stories a society circulates about itself. But in the Hollywood entertainment industry, unfortunately, there has all too often existed a disconnect between the writers hired to tell the stories and an America that’s increasingly diverse with each passing day.’
The guild added:
“Minority writers nearly doubled their share of staffing positions since the millennium, but remain severely underrepresented. Between 1999-00 and 2011-12 seasons, minority writers’ share of TV employment increased from 7.5% to 15.6%. Despite this increase, minorities as a combined group remain underrepresented by a factor of more than 2 to 1 in television staff employment in the 2011-12 season.
“Women and minorities continue to be underrepresented among the ranks of Executive Producers in television. In the 2011-12 season, women were underrepresented by a factor of more than 2 to 1 among the writers who run television shows; minorities were underrepresented by a factor of nearly 5 to 1.
“10% of shows of TV shows in the 2011-12 season had no female writers on staff; nearly a third had no minority writers on staff.
“In the 2010-2011 television season, only 9% of pilots had at least one minority writer attached, while just 24% of pilots had at least one woman writer attached. . . . “
Expect to See More of Al Roker on NBC
“Another bit from the New York cover story on how NBC intends to bring ‘Today’ back to its former morning glory,” Chris Ariens wrote Monday for TVNewser. Joe Hagan writes:
“Last fall, Today producers used a research firm called Sterling to help analyze how viewers felt about the show. The producers flew to Florida to hang out in viewers’ living rooms, identifying themselves as researchers. A woman named Adrianna, for instance, thought the interviews went on too long, but she liked the weatherman. ‘People told us, “I love that Al Roker,” ’ says [‘Today’ executive Alex] Wallace. ‘So they’re getting more Al Roker. It’s not an anti-Matt [Lauer] thing at all.’
“Roker is already a fixture on the first three hours, he does another morning show, ‘Wake up with Al,’ on Weather Channel and he has his own production company that churns out shows for multiple networks. Still, you should expect to see more Al Roker. . . . “
- David Bauder, Associated Press: NBC’s Wallace: ‘We’re Not Replacing Lauer’
- Marisa Guthrie, Hollywood Reporter: NBC: Anderson Cooper Not Approached for Matt Lauer Job
- Brian Stelter, New York Times: Entreaty to Cooper Suggests Shake-Up at ‘Today’
Environmental Websites Looking for Freelancers
The Washington Post’s Darryl Fears wrote Sunday of the nation’s large environmental organizations, “the level of diversity, both in leadership and staff, of groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is more like that of the Republican Party they so often criticize for its positions on the environment than that of the multiethnic Democratic Party they have thrown their support behind. . . .”
Peter Dykstra, publisher of Environmental Health News and its sister site, the Daily Climate, says the same thing is true of the environmental press.
“Science and environmental journalism is not a very diverse place,” Dykstra told Journal-isms by telephone Wednesday. The former CNN executive producer for science, environment, weather and technology coverage encourages “capable freelancers” to contact his staff after studying the sites to see what they publish.
Staff members work from home. Also available are entry-level jobs aggregating the 200 stories the sites collect daily, he said. Dykstra notes proudly that Environmental Health News won honorable mention in the Oakes Awards, bestowed by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for a 10-part series, “Pollution, Poverty, People of Color.”
Interested writers should contact Douglas Fischer, editor of the Daily Climate, or Marla Cone, editor of Environmental Health News, or Paul Haynes for the entry-level jobs. Contact information is on this page.
Short Takes
- “By reaffirming the autonomy and independence of the regional human rights system and rejecting attempts to neutralize the work of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and its special rapporteur for freedom of expression, the Organization of American States (OAS) chose last week to discard proposals that would have made citizens throughout the hemisphere more vulnerable to abuses,” Carlos Lauría reported Tuesday for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
- “After seven tumultuous years for Gannett, Arthur Harper is leaving the 10-member board of directors, effective with the annual shareholders’ meeting in May,” Jim Hopkins reported Wednesday for his Gannett Blog. “Corporate quietly disclosed his planned retirement last month, without giving a reason or saying whether he will be replaced. Harper, who is African-American, may well be Gannett’s lone minority director at a time when corporate boards everywhere are pressed to diversify even more.. . .”
- “Former ESPN anchor and current Good Morning America host Robin Roberts will be honored with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2013 ESPYS in Los Angeles on July 17,” Marcus Vanderberg reported Tuesday for FishbowlLA. “The award is presented annually to ‘individuals whose contributions transcend sports,’ and Roberts definitely fits the bill. In the past six years, Roberts has battled and defeated not only breast cancer but myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a rare blood disorder. . . . ”
- “Carlos Sanchez, the managing editor of NOLA Media Group’s new Baton Rouge bureau, has resigned after less than six months on the job, multiple sources within the company have told Gambit,” Kevin Allman reported Tuesday for the New Orleans alternative newspaper. “A memo co-signed by editor Jim Amoss and the director of state news and sports, James O’Byrne, went out to NOLA Media Group staffers in the last two hours, saying Sanchez was resigning for family reasons and returning to Texas, where he wrote about politics for the Austin American-Statesman and served as editor of the Waco Tribune-Herald for several years before being let go in a Trib-Herald companywide layoff in 2011. . . .”
- The South Asian Journalists Association exceeded its $10,000 fundraising goal for its Broadcast Challenge, SAJA President Sovy Azhath and Vice President Sharaf Mowjood wrote Monday on the SAJA Web page. “Because we reached our goal of raising $10K, this will be matched dollar-to-dollar by some of the top South Asian broadcast journalists from around the country. All the funds we receive go directly back to SAJA, as it will help us fund more for scholarships, internships, reporting fellowship grants, workshops for mid-career reporters and a variety of other events for our members across the U.S. and Canada,” the two said.
- “The UK journalism industry workforce is lacking in ethnic diversity and continues to be heavily influenced by social classes, according to a report published by the National Council for the Training of Journalists,” Angela Haggerty reported Tuesday for Britain’s the Drum. “The Journalists at Work report, last conducted in 2002, showed there had been little change in these factors, with 94 per cent of journalists in the country of a white ethnic background, a drop of only two per cent in 10 years, despite more than half of all journalists working in London and the south-east, one of the most diverse areas of the country. . . .”
- The National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which reversed a ban on tweeting from its board meetings last summer on a narrow vote, will be tweeting itself this weekend. “We welcome NAHJ members to our board meeting at the Anaheim Marriott on Saturday, March 30th,” President Hugo Balta wrote Monday. “The meeting starts at 8:30 a.m. Follow us on Twitter. We will be tweeting from our board meeting to keep our members informed on what we are discussing. . . .”
- “Kathryn C. Lee, a matriarch and businesswoman who opened doors to opportunities for African Americans as a co-founder of the Sacramento Observer newspaper, died Monday of pneumonia, her family said. She was 77,” Robert D. Dávila reported Wednesday for the Sacramento Bee. “Mrs. Lee helped start a newspaper to cover stories in the African American community that were ignored by the mainstream press, including The Bee and the Sacramento Union. . . . ”
- The New York Times’ Sunday “T” style magazine, under fire for a lack of diversity in its editorial and advertising images, increased the number of people of color in the “America & Beyond” travel issue published Sunday. But the Times is not forthcoming about the diversity of the magazine’s staff. Referring to the American Society of News Editor, spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told Journal-isms on Wednesday, “We report our diversity stats through ASNE at the macro level — our news gathering staff. We just don’t break it down to this level of detail.” The Times most recently reported an editorial staff 0.1 percent American Indian, 6.8 percent Asian American, 7.6 percent black and 3.9 percent Hispanic, for a total of 18.4 percent people of color.
- In New York, “Cops arrested four teens for the attack in Yonkers that sent a News12 reporter to the hospital Wednesday,” Karl de Vries reported March 20 for Newsday. “CeFaan Kim, 31, was attacked on Odell Avenue near the Greystone train station shortly before 9 a.m., authorities said. The teens hit him about 30 times before fleeing.” De Vries added, “A general assignment reporter for News12 since October, Kim worked for NY1 News for 10 years, covering Queens, according to his LinkedIn page.”
- In Orlando, “Traffic reporter Jessica Sanchez is documenting her cancer battle through a blog called ‘Let’s Be Honest’ on the WKMG-Channel 6 website,” Hal Boedeker wrote Tuesday for the Orlando Sentinel. ” ‘She’s laying it all out there with class and humor,’ WKMG General Manager Skip Valet said Tuesday. ‘I think she’ll be very public in this fight. It’s her decision. She says it’s therapeutic to write about it.’ . . . ”
- Black America Web, the Tom Joyner-sponsored web site, is now running self-acknowledged rumors in its news space. “But again, these are just RUMORS currently circulating on the web,” read an item Wednesday on the site about ABC’s Robin Roberts. The story was credited to EURWeb.com.
- “At a time when the ranks of news ombudsmen are thinning in the US (I was dismayed to read about the most recent casualty at The Washington Post), it’s exciting to be part of a trend in the opposite direction in many countries in the developing world,” Karen Rothmyer, the Kenya Star’s public editor, wrote Wednesday for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “At the annual gathering last year of the Organization of News Ombudsmen, in Copenhagen, I talked with ombudsmen from India and Bangladesh who, like me, were working for relatively new newspapers. There were also people from several countries in Latin America, which according to Jeffrey Dvorkin, head of the organization, is the fastest-growing region for ombudsmen. He attributes this largely to a belief in countries once under dictatorial rule that ombudsmen play an important role in strengthening democratic institutions. . . . ”
- “The government of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi continues to escalate its offensive against journalists,” Sherif Mansour wrote Wednesday for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “Details of the most recent case, in which an arrest warrant was issued for blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah for inciting “aggression” against members of the Muslim Brotherhood, show how low the government is willing to go in order to silence its critics. . . .”
- “At least two news outlets were raided in the Central African Republic on Sunday when rebel groups ousted the president from power, according to news reports and local press freedom groups,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported on Tuesday. “Rebel groups known as Seleka ousted President François Bozizé from power in the capital, Bangui, according to local and international news reports. Seleka leader Michel Djotodia proclaimed himself the new head of state. . . .”
