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Journalisms Mon Apr 1

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Unity, NAHJ Take Outrage Beyond Journalism

Nearly everyone agrees that Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, was offensive when he used the term “wetback” last week in a radio interview. Young remarked that when he was a boy in California, his father “used to hire 50 to 60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes” on his farm.

Is that a subject for organizations of journalists to become outraged about? Yes, says the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, followed Monday by Unity: Journalists for Diversity.

Both associations issued statements of outrage calling for Young to apologize. The congressman has now done so at least twice. Yet the goals articulated in each organization’s bylaws indicate that journalism and newsrooms are the associations’ stated focus. They don’t say that the associations go beyond those parameters, and if they do say so implicitly, they don’t spell out which offensive comments are deserving of rebuke.

Unity also released a letter Friday calling on Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., to hold hearings on the proposed “Non-Disparagement of Native American Persons and Peoples in Trademark Registration Act of 2013.”

“H.R. 1278 is important legislation because it would strike a public blow against racist stereotypes, which are an anathema to human dignity and diversity,” the Unity letter said. “There is no worse racial epithet used to refer to Native American people than the name of the Washington professional football team. It has heinous origins in the bloody history of commoditization of Native skin and other body parts as bounties and trophies, and these despicable practices trace directly to today’s ‘Native mascots’ that glorifies a savage past.

The letter was signed by Unity President Tom Arviso Jr., a member of the Native American Journalists Association, which has long spoken out against terms offensive to Native Americans. It notes that Unity is “an alliance of four journalism organizations representing more than 4,000 journalists.”

Journal-isms asked Arviso and Hugo Balta, president of NAHJ, whether the news releases on the “wetback” term represent changes in position on commenting on offensive terms apparently uttered outside a journalistic context. And if so, what the guidelines are.

Balta replied by email, “The National Association of Hispanic Journalists champions the fair and accurate representation and coverage of Latinos. Our members are part of the Latino community and as such stand to speak out against issues that affect all of us (not just journalists). Representative Don Young’s insensitive and inaccurate description of migrant workers merits our (NAHJ) response and demand for action. As journalists it is our constitutional right to give voice to the voiceless, hold the powerful accountable and empower the community.”

The NAHJ bylaws, however, don’t quite go that far. They say:

“The goals of the association are:

“To organize and provide mutual support for Hispanics involved in the gathering or dissemination of news.

“To encourage and support the study and practice of journalism and communications by Hispanics.

“To foster and promote a fair treatment of Hispanics by the media.

“To further the employment and career development of Hispanics in the media.

“To foster a greater understanding of Hispanic media professionals’ special cultural identity, interests, and concerns.”

Unity’s mission statement says:

“UNITY: Journalists for Diversity, Inc. is a strategic alliance advocating fair and accurate news coverage about diversity — especially race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation — and aggressively challenging the industry to staff its organizations at all levels to reflect the nation’s diversity. . . . “

And the NAJA statement of purpose says that organization “seeks to develop and to improve communications among Native American people and the Non-Native American public.”

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times produced a story Monday by Marisa Gerber headlined, ” ‘Wetback’ slur has complex translation in Latino community.”

“The slew of apologies that followed news that Alaska’s congressman had used the term during a radio interview last week brought the term wetback into the national debate,” Garber wrote. “But in Latino communities, it also highlighted how the word’s context and power has changed through the generations.

“Everyone seems to agree that the term wetback is highly offensive when outsiders say it. But mojado — which literally means ‘wet’ but is also used to describe illegal immigrants who sneak into the United States — is a different story. . . . “

Coates Says His Blog Is Not Meant to Be Perfect

Ta-Nehisi Coates, the senior editor for the Atlantic who on Monday was named a finalist for a National Magazine Award, says to cut him some slack on his blog posts.

“What I’m doing on my blog is different from what I’m doing for the magazine,” Coates told Journal-isms by telephone on Sunday. “The blog for one is an opportunity to see the work as it’s in progress. It’s somewhere between the world of me talking and the world of me writing.” Facts are not always correct, he said, and can be changed as he receives feedback, for example.

Coates was responding to a Journal-isms item Friday that wondered whether his blog was edited, pointing out grammatical and spelling mistakes. Coates was in Europe, as his blog readers know, and Natalie Raabe, the Atlantic’s communications director, replied that the magazine would correct the errors in the recent postings — and did — and explained, “At the speed at which folks work on the web, things sometimes slip through.”

Coates said he does indeed have editors, but “I am posting at 3 in the morning” sometimes. “There are times when I post without editors. That was part of the freedom of it. I do not always adhere to the system, that’s the honest answer.”

Coates has made no secret of his public school education in the ‘hood of West Baltimore and that he dropped out of Howard University, “failing both British and American literature. Before that, he failed 11th-grade English,” as Jordan Michael Smith wrote in a profile of Coates last month in the New York Observer.

Still, Smith also called Coates “the single best writer on the subject of race in the United States,” a description the writer began the conversation saying is not his. — “That’s not who I am, he said. However, he also said he would not change the grammatical and spelling errors in a 2008 piece on Sarah Palin cited in the Journal-isms item because the piece would then be inauthentic.

The conversation echoes the debates in other venues about the diminishing value accorded copy editors and copy editing; the difference between a blog and a polished piece of writing; the importance, or lack of it, of grammar and spelling; and the role of the schools in teaching those disciplines well.

Coincidentally, the New York Times Sunday Review ran a piece that assumed that some readers do place a high value on grammar. Henry Hitchings, author of three books exploring language and history, held forth on “Those Irritating Verbs-as-Nouns.”

Coates’ National Magazine Award nomination was in the “essays and criticism” category for “Fear of a Black President.” It was an Atlantic magazine piece, not a blog entry.

 

University of Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware’s gruesome compound leg fracture had NCAA Tournament fans glued to the screen, not to mention his teammates and coach in tears as he told them to win the game against Duke Sunday night, ABC News reported. (Video)

Columnist Keeps Focus on Racial Gap in NCAA Graduation Rates

“This is my 17th year of charting graduation rates for basketball tournament and football bowl teams, and a record 25 men’s programs in the 68-team field for the NCAA basketball tournament had black player graduation rates of at least 80 percent,” Derrick Z. Jackson wrote Saturday in the Boston Globe.

“These lofty ranks included former whipping posts of mine such as Nevada Las Vegas and Louisville, whose black players had graduation rates of 14 percent and 25 percent in 2006. Other schools that rose to at least 80 percent from 33 percent or below were Kansas, UCLA, Kansas, Creighton, and St. Mary’s.

“But the very success of those schools has created an even greater chasm between them and the schools that do not even try.”

Jackson noted earlier in his column, “For the third straight year in the 68-team field, 21 teams had black graduation rates below 50 percent. They include Indiana, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Syracuse, Arizona, and the ostensible ‘public Ivy’ California, along with small-school darlings Butler and LaSalle. Florida was at the bottom of the barrel at zero.

“The NCAA is thus far unmoved by the fact that nearly a third of the field is plagued by such poor performance, which is all the more noteworthy because most of those same 21 schools had a 100 percent graduation rate for their white players. . . .”

Jackson concluded, “The NCAA must crack down on the schools that try to get away with chronic disparities. Anything less means that, for all of the progress that has been made, the NCAA still is willing to live with exploitation and tokenism.”

Romona Robinson, Fox Win in Cleveland Musical Chairs

In Cleveland, “Nobody realized it at the time, but when Robin Swoboda jumped from WJW Channel 8 to WKYC Channel 3 in early 2011, it sparked a year of unprecedented volatility in the Cleveland television market,” Mark Dawidziak wrote Monday for the Plain Dealer.

“Since that move, changes have kept coming at a dizzying pace. Indeed, there were more major anchor changes during that one-year span than during the previous 15 years Perhaps the biggest was when Romona Robinson ended her 15-year association with Channel 3 in late 2011, moving over to Channel 19 as the 5, 6 and 11 p.m. co-anchor.”

Dawidziak continued, ” ‘The biggest change, obviously, was the addition of Romona Robinson, and that gave us an immediate bump,’ said Dan Salamone, Channel 19’s news director. ‘And not only has that growth been sustained over the last year, it has spread to other time periods. We’re obviously very pleased with those noon numbers. There’s positive momentum across the board.’ “

In January 2012, Russ Mitchell left CBS-TV, where he was anchor of the “CBS Evening News” weekend editions and “The Early Show” on Saturday, and national correspondent for “CBS News Sunday Morning,” the “CBS Evening News,” and “The Early Show, for WKYC-TV, where he is managing editor of the “Evening News” and lead anchor of the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts.

Dawidziak quoted Brooke Spectorsky, WKYC’s president and general manager: “Our anchors are real reporters, and I think we shine on the big stories,” Spectorsky said. “And even though Russ and Kris have done a great job introducing themselves to viewers, they’re still very new to the market. In a market that doesn’t like change, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy, and we’ve had a tough time getting out of the gate.”

The writer concluded, “So with this year’s February sweeps in the rearview mirror, who benefited from this ongoing game of musical anchor chairs? Data provided by the Nielsen Co. suggest traditional Cleveland news champ Channel 8,” a Fox affiliate, “remains strong in most of the time periods in which it schedules news, and hard-charging WOIO Channel 19 is winning the noon and 11 p.m. news races with the demographic most prized by advertisers, viewers 25 to 54. . . . “

 

Ebony, Slate Among Outlets Examining Gun Violence

“For a city that has long cultivated Black icons and Black excellence — including John H. Johnson and Johnson Publishing Company — Black death and Black pain are far too familiar in Chicago,” Jamilah Lemieux, news and lifestyle editor, digital, wrote Thursday for Ebony magazine. “The recent murder of 6-month-old Jonylah Watkins is but one tragic example. Despite the national headlines and increased interest due to the city’s connection to our current POTUS, Chicagoans know that the recent violence is not a new phenomenon.

“EBONY.com recognizes the need for people across the country to understand the challenges facing Chicago. Our response? ENOUGH: Chicago and the Tragedy of Urban Violence, a year-long series dedicated to examining the causes, effects, and possible solutions to the crisis in our community.

“The series, which launched Wednesday March 13, examines the factors contributing to the situation in Chicago—educational disparities, unemployment, the ever-shifting gang culture, mental health issues, and more. The 17 published stories to date include conversations with current and former illegal gun owners, an interview with St. Sabina’s Father Michael Pfleger and a look at how the ‘gang violence’ that once gripped the city has changed. . . .

Meanwhile, Barb Palser, AJR’s new-media columnist, wrote Friday that, “In the wake of the mass shootings in Colorado and Connecticut last year, and the escalation of America’s debate over gun control, reporters and interactive designers across the country are challenging themselves to shed light and perspective on a highly complex subject.”

The most innovative, she said, was “Gun Deaths in America Since Newtown,” “an interactive presentation on Slate.com that tracks daily reported gun deaths since the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, that left 28 dead. The information comes from news reports gathered by @GunDeaths and followers around the country. . . . “

Asian Americans’ Numbers, Languages Make Polling Difficult

“Periodically our readers ask us why we don’t provide individual data for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders as part of the standard demographic comparisons in our reports,” Aaron Smith, senior researcher at the Pew Internet & American Life Project, wrote Friday.

Smith, who specializes in politics, government, race and ethnicity, continued, “Several years ago we asked our lead pollster, Evans Witt (principal and CEO of Princeton Survey Research Associates International) to provide a survey methodologist’s take on this question. His response hopefully sheds some light on the challenges associated with polling the Asian population in the U.S.:

“ ‘The short answer is that Asian Americans make up a very small slice of the population, 3.7 percent in the 2000 Census (Editor’s note: In the more recent 2010 Census, Asian Americans make up around 5.6 percent of the national population). In addition, for a good portion of that population, there are complex language barriers…and language barriers reduce the number of completes with the non-English speaking minorities (Editor’s note: A recent Pew Research survey found that 64% of all Asian Americans — and 53% of those not originally born in the United States — speak English ‘very well’). The diversity of the Asian American population and the languages they speak makes offering interviews in those native languages very difficult and very, very expensive.’ . . . ”

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