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A Shocking, Undercovered Story of Crime, Class, Race

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African American Abortion Doctor on Trial in Philly

Journalist-Turned-Car Dealer and Other Personal Stories

J-Professor Tracks Gang Legacy of Central America’s Wars

Irish Nanny’s Illegal Status Doesn’t Rate Top Billing

Rand Paul’s Speech at Howard U. Called a Dud

“42” Film Captures the Hero, but Maybe Not the Human

Public Broadcasting Said Underfunded for Covering Gun Violence

Short Takes

African American Abortion Doctor on Trial in Philly

Two years ago, a headline writer wrote this over a story by Lynette Holloway for the Root: “Abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell has been charged with eight counts of murder. Both sides of the abortion debate are having a field day with this case. But what happens to poor women of color facing unwanted pregnancies?”

Holloway wrote, “The grisly murders and gruesome discoveries inside Kermit B. Gosnell’s West Philadelphia abortion clinic leave one wondering what would make mostly poor, minority women so desperate that they would utilize his filthy clinic, where body parts of dead fetuses allegedly were stored in jars that lined the shelves of the macabre scene.”

She included this figure: “Overall, African-American women account for 36.4 percent of all pregnancy terminations in the United States, although blacks make up only 13 percent of the population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Now Gosnell, himself African American, is on trial, and in the last two days the Internet has seen a dramatic rise in commentary asking why the Philadelphia case hasn’t received national media attention.

“Obviously, conservatives believe the media is ignoring this story because it’s about abortion, and the lefties who run our media empires hate stories that put abortion in a bad light,” Kevin Drum wrote Friday for Mother Jones. “Alternatively, it could be because it’s a Philadelphia story, and the national media doesn’t usually give a lot of time to local cases like this. Frankly, I don’t know — though I’ll note that even the conservative media didn’t give it a huge amount of coverage until fairly recently, when Gosnell’s trial started. . . .”

Others say the Gosnell story — and it is a horrifying, grisly one — is also a story about race and the media.

When the case broke in 2011, Jill Filipovic, who blogs as “Jill” on the Feministe site, wrote:

“Gosnell’s clinic hadn’t been reviewed by the Department of Health in 15 years. Members of his staff were unlicensed and not properly trained. And Gosnell knew that he could get away with offering sub-par care to women who he thought were less likely to complain — young women, immigrants, poor women and women of color.”

Filipovic quoted Lori Adelman, who wrote in January 2011 on the Grio, “buried deep in articles describing ‘bloodstained furniture’ and ‘jars packed with severed baby feet,’ is a less gory but equally as horrifying insight that, at Dr. Gosnell’s clinic, ‘white women from the suburbs were ushered into a separate, slightly cleaner area‘ than Gosnell’s regular clientele, which was comprised primarily of poor minority women, including many immigrants. Gosnell reportedly treated these white suburban clients to a more pleasant and sanitary experience because he believed they were ‘more likely to file complaints’ about substandard care.”

Irin Carmon wrote Friday for Salon, “I can’t speak for big news organizations like CNN and the networks, but let’s think about this question another way: How often do such places devote their energies to covering the massive health disparities and poor outcomes that are wrought by our current system? How often are the travails of the women whose vulnerabilities Gosnell exploited — the poor, immigrants and otherwise marginalized people — given wall-to-wall, trial-level coverage? . . . “

On Friday, Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple quoted Post Executive Editor Martin Baron’s second thoughts. “We believe the story is deserving of coverage by our own staff, and we intend to send a reporter for the resumption of the trial next week. In retrospect, we should have sent a reporter sooner,” Baron said.

Journalist-Turned-Car Dealer and Other Personal Stories

Cliff Brunt worked for the Associated Press for seven years when Associated Press Sports Editor Terry Taylor told him he would have to transfer to Indianapolis or take a buyout. He couldn’t move, so he took a buyout. Now Blunt is a used car dealer, and this week he offered readers of the Indy Sports Legends website “the top 10 most important things I’ve learned since April 11, 2012,” the fateful day Taylor called him with the news.

Brunt wasn’t the only journalist of color offering a personal story in the last few days. To help inaugurate “Code Switch,” a new NPR site, Eric Deggans, television critic for the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times, recalled Wednesday how he had to “code switch” between his black boyhood neighborhood in Gary, Ind., and the white-dominated private school he attended outside of it.

” ‘You guys doing anything today?’ ” Deggans began.

“That might sound like an ordinary, even dull question. But in my old neighborhood — mostly poor, entirely black ’70s-era Gary, Ind. — that kind of question was grounds for serious ridicule. Or worse.

“The problem: I had dared use a word none of my partners ever let pass through their lips, unless they were making fun of a white person: ‘guys.’ . . .”

In collaboration with the Huffington Post, Terrell J. Starr, associate editor at NewsOne, wrote Thursday for Facebook, “I Found the Father I Never Knew I Needed On Facebook.“

“Growing up on Detroit’s west side, my neighborhood was rife with gang violence, drug abuse and semi-hopelessness,” Starr wrote. “Manhood was measured by ghetto Darwinism: only the toughest young guns who dared not to fear the pistol-toting bullies, stray bullets or the temptation of the drug game survived.” He had no idea who his father was then, he wrote, “but I knew I wanted him in my life.”

Starr said he “ducked and weaved those travails by doing well in school, participating in after-school sports activities and being a pretty good kid.”

In fact, according to the tagline, “Starr has a bachelor’s degree in English from Philander Smith College and two master’s degrees (M.S. in Editorial Journalism) and (M.A. in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a Fulbright Journalism Scholar (Ukraine 2009-2010) and a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Georgia 2003-2005). He is an expert in African diasporas in the former Soviet Union and lived in the region for four years. He is pursuing opportunities to write a book on his life.”

Brunt listed these as his 10 most important lessons: 1. “Job titles don’t mean much. . . .” 2. “The journalism business as we knew it is dead. . . .” 3. “There are some good people in journalism. . . .” 4. “I can create a website (with a lot of help).. . .” 5. “I’m not good at selling cars. . . .” 6. “I’m not the only one. . . .” 7. “We’re not missing meals, so I have no right to whine. . . .” 8. “Terry Taylor is a good person. . . .” 9. “My readers and the athletes like my writing, even if it’s not for the AP. . . .” 10. “My wife is my biggest fan. . . .”

J-Professor Tracks Gang Legacy of Central America’s Wars

“Donna De Cesare had just walked into the AIDS ward at a public hospital in El Salvador one day in 1989 when a young voice greeted her,” David Gonzalez reported Wednesday for the New York Times’ Lens blog.

” ‘What’s up?’ she recalled hearing. ‘Finally, someone from my country!’

“She was taken aback. The voice was in English, with the rhythmic cadence of Chicano Los Angeles, where the young man had once lived. His name was Franklin Torres. Though he was born in El Salvador, he had fled during its violent civil war to what his mother thought was the safety of Los Angeles. Instead, he found refuge in gangs and drugs. Gangs led to his deportation, and back in El Salvador, drugs would claim his life.

“The unexpected encounter stayed with Ms. De Cesare, who had traveled to Central America to photograph the civil wars wracking the region. She would, in time, document the overlooked legacies of those bloody proxy wars, zeroing in on how witnessing unspeakable violence scarred young minds both in Central America and in the barrios of Los Angeles.

“This month, Ms. De Cesare released ‘Unsettled/Desasosiego’ (University of Texas Press), an urgent and moving work that chronicles those who grew up amid political wars, gang wars or both. It is a look back on lives that were lost, and some who triumphed, during her many years in the region. It is also, for her, a motivation to continue to examine these issues and to push for action through her bilingual Web site, Destiny’s Children.

” ‘We need to consider what we are doing as a society when we abandon so many children,’ said Ms. De Cesare, who is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. ‘We need to see these young people as they truly are — children who have been burdened with so much that is painful from an early age and whose fragile hopes and dreams are being thwarted.’ . . . “

Irish Nanny’s Illegal Status Doesn’t Rate Top Billing

The prominence given immigration status in contrasting stories from the Boston Globe illustrate a bias against one group of unauthorized immigrants, but not another, according to the advocacy group Latino Rebels.

“Irish nanny Aisling Brady McCarthy has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a one-year-old girl she had been caring for in a Cambridge apartment, Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr.’s office said today,” began a story Friday by John R. Ellement.

In the 12th paragraph, readers learn that “Brady, a native of Ireland who has been in the country illegally, faces deportation to Ireland if she is freed from state custody, according to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.”

By contrast, a Globe story by Maria Sacchetti from Sept. 28, 2011, begins, “Scituate police arrested an illegal immigrant from Brazil for motor-vehicle violations three months before he allegedly stabbed his former girlfriend to death in a brutal attack this week, reigniting debate over whether Massachusetts should participate in the federal Secure Communities program.”

Globe editor Brian McGrory did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Latino Rebels also pointed to a 2012 Hill+Knowlton Strategies online survey for the Latino Donor Collaborative that “showed that one-third think that more than half of the country’s Latinos are undocumented and nearly 80% of non-Latino Americans think Latinos are involved in crime and gang activity.”

Hill+Knowlton and the Latino Donor Collaborative tried to interest CNN in exclusively broadcasting the data in May 2012, Latino Rebels said, but CNN said online surveys did not offer the same credibility as those using other methods.

David Iannelli, president, global, of Research+Data Insights, disagrees. In fact, he told Journal-isms Friday by email, “Aside from the approach we take of (using demographically balanced panels, etc.) the methodological benefit of using an online approach for a survey on such a sensitive topic is that it neutralizes the problem of the socially-desirable response bias that tends to occur in telephone interviews where the respondent may offer what they believe is the politically correct response to be seen in a positive light by the interviewer. . . .”

Rand Paul’s Speech at Howard University Called a Dud

“The Republican Party is struggling with its future,” Charles M. Blow wrote Wednesday for the New York Times.

“Will it be a regional, Congressional party fighting a last-gasp battle for a shrinking base in a David and Goliath war against ominously expanding federal government? Or will it become a national, presidential party capable of adapting to a new American reality of diversity and expression in which the government serves an essential function in regulating public safety, providing a safety net and serving as a safeguard against discrimination?

“Senator Rand Paul is trying to find a balance between the two. The same week that a dozen defiant senators threatened to filibuster any new gun control legislation, Paul ventured across Washington to historically black Howard University and gave a speech aimed at outreach and bridge building.

“The man is mulling a presidential run after all.

“The speech was a dud. . . .”

“42” Film Captures the Hero, but Maybe Not the Human

“Whenever it is that an icon passes from being human to being a saint is the point at which it’s probably too late for a good movie,” Wesley Morris, who won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism last year while at the Boston Globe, wrote Thursday for Grantland.

“All you get is the lessons learned and very little of the naturalism or idiosyncrasy or personality that made the person iconic in the first place. Or you get all that courtesy of a great performance, but then there’s no filmmaking or storytelling to support it. You rarely get both acting and an angle, the way you did, say, with Walk the Line and Lincoln. It’s usually that the subjects mean so much to the filmmakers that they can’t bring themselves to take the subjects out of their historical packaging and play with them, lest they lose their value.

“That’s the Jackie Robinson situation. . . .”

Not all shared Morris’ view in reviewing “42,” the Robinson film biography that opened Friday, but many did.

Journalists might have a special interest in the portrayal of Wendell Smith, the legendary African American sportswriter who also helped to desegregate baseball. Smith was inducted posthumously into the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Black Journalists in January. Andre Holland, the actor who plays Smith in the film, was present for the occasion, and La Velle E. Neal III of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, now president of the Baseball Writers Association, accepted the award for Smith.

David Germain wrote for the Associated Press, “The story of black baseball writer Wendell Smith (Andre Holland) parallels Robinson’s, but the film burns up a lot of time trying to establish camaraderie between the two that never quite gels.“

Short Takes

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