“It Was Always His Plan,” a Staffer Says; Native Americans Decline Invitation
Amid “Toxic and Unkind Spirit,” Sun-Times Shuts Photo Dept.
Founders Exit Grio; MSNBC Takes Over From NBC News
WorldStarHipHop Outdraws Black News, Celebrity Sites
Who Are the Great Political Reporters in Each State?
Slain Driver Was “NewsHour” Family Member, Ifill Says
Ex-Reporter Apologizes Nine Years After Gary Webb Suicide
Fired White Male Anchor Alleges Black Woman Was Favored
Men of Huffington Post Step Forward
“It Was Always His Plan,” a Staffer Says of the Outreach; Native Americans Decline, Want Session on Record
The Justice Department, having met with white representatives of the news media Thursday and Friday, is reaching out to the journalist of color associations, the black press and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. reviews guidelines governing leak investigations.
The invitations began arriving Friday afternoon for an off-the-record meeting scheduled for Monday at 5 p.m. Eastern time.
Hugo Balta, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, said he would be present. Rhonda LeValdo, president of the Native American Journalists Association, said NAJA would decline because the session was off the record.
Gregory H. Lee Jr., president of the National Association of Black Journalists, and Walt Swanston, interim director of Unity: Journalists for Diversity, said they had not seen an invitation. Kathy Chow, executive director of the Asian American Journalists Association, said AAJA was invited, but she did not respond when asked whether AAJA would attend.
[Swanston said on Saturday that she would attend the session representing Unity.]
“It was always his plan to meet with journalists of color,” a Justice Department staffer, referring to Holder, told Journal-isms on Friday. The staffer was not authorized to go on the record on the subject, the staffer said.
NABJ, NAHJ and Unity: Journalists for Diversity are among the journalism groups that issued statements this month disapproving of the Justice Department’s secret seizure of office and personal telephone records of journalists at the Associated Press.
But neither those journalist groups, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, which represents black community newspapers, nor Univision were invited to discuss the issue with Holder after the Justice Department said it would review department procedures with “diverse” news media representatives.
That changed on Friday. Balta told Journal-isms by email, “On behalf of NAHJ, I’ve accepted the Attorney General’s invitation to discuss the Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve the news media. NAHJ will push for the meeting to be on-the-record because the content of the discussion can impact a journalist’s ability to do their work. NAHJ has been critical of the DOJ secretly obtaining the Associated Press reporter and editor phone records. When journalists can’t effectively do their job, democracy is at risk.”
Lee said by email, “At this time, NABJ has not received an invitation to my knowledge. If the meeting is this weekend or on Monday, I will not be able to attend due to my commitment with my students of the Sports Journalism Institute. If NABJ does get a late invite, we may consider sending a board member. But nothing has been decided.”
LeValdo said she wrote Holder, “Thank you for your email and for reaching out to the Native American Journalists Association. We are declining your invitation to the Attorney General’s off-the-record policy meeting next week with media and other organizations.
“NAJA is an organization that has advocated for a free press and open government on the tribal, local and national levels. We believe the meeting Monday should be on the record as the public has a right to be informed of and understand the Justice Department’s policy discussions with journalists and others on government investigations involving the news media. . . .”
Amid the uproar from media groups, and buffeted as well by controversies involving the Internal Revenue Service and the killing last year of U.S. personnel in Benghazi, Libya, President Obama ordered a review last week of the department’s procedures for legal investigations involving reporters. Obama said “that he was ‘troubled’ that multiple inquiries into national security leaks could chill investigative reporting,” as Mark Landler reported for the New York Times on May 23. Obama instructed Holder to report back to him by July 12.
In addition to the seizure of the AP phone records, the Justice Department monitored the e-mails and whereabouts of Fox News reporter James Rosen, it was disclosed in a separate leak investigation. A warrant application from Holder’s team labeled Rosen a criminal co-conspirator.
Holder’s first meeting with media groups took place Thursday, “attended by a small group of journalists after several news organizations objected to the Justice Department’s insistence that it be held off the record,” Sari Horwitz reported for the Washington Post. “The participants, however, reached an agreement with the Justice Department under which they could describe what occurred during the meeting in general terms. The Justice Department is expected to meet with other news organizations and media lawyers in coming days.
“Holder and aides ‘completely endorsed the president’s statement that reporters should not be at legal risk for doing their job,’ said Martin Baron, The Washington Post’s executive editor, who was among the participants. ‘They acknowledged the need for changes in their own guidelines and the need to have a more rigorous internal review.’ “
Dylan Byers, reporting for Politico, added, ” ‘The guidelines require a balance between law enforcement and freedom of the press, and we all argued that the balance was out of kilter, with the national security and law enforcement interests basically overwhelming the public’s right to get information,’ one journalist at the meeting said. ‘The language concerning “aiding and abetting” comes out of the Privacy [Protection] Act, and they discussed trying to revise that language so that reporters don’t need to be defined as co-conspirators in order to execute search warrants.’ “
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| President Obama said last week at National Defense University, “I’m troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable.” (video) |
More administration officials than journalists were present at the Thursday meeting, according to Byers’ story.
The five journalists were John Harris, Politico editor-in-chief; Baron; Gerald Seib, the Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau chief; Jane Mayer, staff writer for the New Yorker; and Jim Warren, Washington bureau chief for the Daily News in New York. Byers listed nine administration officials.
Ken Strickland, a black journalist who is NBC Washington Bureau chief, would have been at the meeting, but NBC News joined the New York Times, the AP and others who boycotted because they would not agree to the off-the-record terms.
“Reuters, which was among nine news outlets planning not to go to an off-the-record meeting this week with Attorney General Eric Holder, appeared at one held Friday,” Michael Calderone reported for the Huffington Post, crediting Byers for tweeting the news first.
Calderone said that Barb Burg, vice president and global head of communications, told the Huffington Post that Reuters “did attend a meeting today and only because the off the record ground rules were adjusted. We did not attend yesterday’s off the record meeting.”
A Justice Department spokeswoman identified these journalists present at the second meeting, held at 11 a.m. Friday: Marilyn Thompson, Thomson-Reuters Washington D.C. Bureau Chief; Stuart Karle, Thomson-Reuters chief operation officer; Robin Sproul, ABC News vice president and Washington bureau chief; and John Zucker, senior vice president, law and regulation, ABC.
Attending the third meeting, held at 3 p.m. Friday, were Susan Goldberg, executive editor of federal, state and local news, Bloomberg; Thomas Golden, attorney, Willkie Farr & Gallagher; David Lauter, Washington bureau chief, Tribune Co.; Lee Levine, attorney, Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz; Susan Page, Washington bureau chief, USA Today; and Barbara Wall, vice president and senior associate general counsel, Gannett Co., Inc.
In arguing for such sessions to be on the record, the National Journal’s Ron Fournier wrote, “The public’s trust in media is already at an all-time low. Among the many reasons for the justified lack of faith is the perception that journalists curry favor with the elites rather than hold them ruthlessly accountable. A private meeting with the attorney general can’t help the lap-dog reputation. It would also fuel paranoia of conservatives who are convinced that the media is ‘in the tank’ for Obama.”
On the other hand, “Asked why the news executives decided to participate, Baron said people in the press frequently have off-the-record discussions,” Pete Yost reported for the Associated Press.
” ‘We feel very strongly about the issues here,’ said Baron. ‘This was an opportunity for us to share our views with people at the highest level of the Justice Department.’ “
Even the announcement that the journalist of color organizations would be invited was not completely on the record. It was delivered “on background,” meaning the name of the source could not be reported.
It said, “Attorney General Eric Holder will hold a series of meetings with media organizations over the coming weeks as part of the review of existing Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists. This review, which was announced by President Obama last Thursday, is consistent with the Attorney General’s long standing belief that protecting and defending the First Amendment is essential to our democracy. In these meetings, the Attorney General will engage with a diverse and representative group of news media organizations, including print, wires, radio, television, online media and news and trade associations. Further discussions will include news media executives and general counsels as well as government experts in intelligence and investigative agencies.”
The administration officials at Thursday’s meeting were Holder; Deputy Attorney General James Cole; Margaret Richardson, chief of staff to the attorney general; Jenny Mosier, deputy chief of staff and counsel to the attorney general; David O’Neil, chief of staff to the deputy attorney general; Stuart Goldberg, principal associate deputy attorney general; Paul O’Brien, deputy assistant attorney general, Criminal Division; Deborah Sorkin, chief of the Policy and Statutory Enforcement Unit, Office of Enforcement Operations, Criminal Division; and Nanda Chitre, acting director, Office of Public Affairs, Byers reported for Politico. They returned for the Friday meetings, adding Nanda Chitre, acting director, Office of Public Affairs. [Updated June 1.]
- Matthew Cooper, the Atlantic: Why a Media Shield Law Isn’t Enough to Save Journalists
- Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Huffington Post: The Never-ending War on Eric Holder
Amid “Toxic, Unkind Spirit,” Sun-Times Shuts Photo Dept.
“John White’s 44-year career at The Chicago Sun-Times has been rooted in faith and professionalism. It’s a career he refers to as ‘an assignment from God,’ ” Kenneth Irby, director of community relations and diversity programs at the Poynter Institute, wrote Friday for Poynter.
“Earlier this week, that career came to an end on what some photographers have called the darkest day in Sun-Times photojournalism history. The paper announced Thursday that it had laid off its entire photojournalism staff and would rely on freelance photographers and reporters instead.
“White — who has seen the paper go through many owners and changes — says he never imagined that his and his colleagues’ careers would end so abruptly.
“In a phone interview, the 1982 Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist and teacher recalled a day that he is still ‘trying to make sense of.’
” ‘This is what I remember hearing: “As you know we are going forward into multimedia and video, and that is going to be our focus. So we are eliminating the photography department.’ Then they turned it over to HR,’ White recounted.
“White said it all began with an email alert on Wednesday evening directing the staff to attend a 9:30 am meeting on Thursday — which White said was ‘only the second meeting with the new managers.’ He called the meeting ‘intimidating’ and said ‘there was a toxic and unkind spirit in the office.’
“White said the 28 full-time photography department staffers who received the news seemed shocked: ‘It was as if they pushed a button and deleted a whole culture of photojournalism.’
“Those being laid off were asked to return company equipment, White said, and their access badges were demagnetized while they were receiving their layoff packages.
“The Sun-Times plans to rely on reporters to take photos and videos and has begun mandatory ‘iPhone photography basics.’ Its decision is just the latest example of a disconcerting trend in American media: professional photojournalism is being downsized and devalued, with news organizations increasingly turning to wire services, citizen-submitted content and independent/freelance contributions. . . .”
White is among the photographers on display in “Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project” at the National Archives in Washington. One hundred eighty of his photos of Chicago life during the 1970s are posted on this Flickr site.
- Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke, New York Observer: A Sun-Times Vet on the Paper Laying Off Its Photo Department
- Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune: Chicago Sun-Times lays off all photographers
- Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune: The Idiocy of Eliminating a Photo Staff
- Cord Jefferson, Gawker: A Sad Shot of Photojournalists Learning They’d Been Laid Off
- Lynne Marek, Crain’s Chicago Business: Chicago Sun-Times cuts entire photography staff
- Whet Moser, Chicago magazine: Black Chicago in the 1970s, Through the Lens of John H. White
Founders Exit Grio; MSNBC Takes Over From NBC News
TheGrio, NBC’s news site targeting African Americans, is being moved from the bailiwick of NBC News to that of MSNBC, with co-founders David Wilson and Dan Woolsey leaving to start another entrepreneurial venture, Wilson told Journal-isms on Friday.
Wilson, 36, told Journal-isms he expected theGrio, which he co-founded in 2009 and sold to NBC in 2010, to reflect more of MSNBC’s “sensibility” with the switch. While NBC News does middle-of-the-road reporting, Wilson said by telephone, “MSNBC has a more progressive lean to it.” MSNBC is by far African Americans’ favorite cable news channel.
He said his new project would be created for the “digital entertainment space for African Americans,” and would be “something that no one else is doing.” Wilson called himself an entrepreneur at heart.
TheGrio recorded 1,413,000 visitors during April, according to the comScore, Inc. research company, behind such competitors as HuffPost BlackVoices and the Root but ahead of others such as NewsOne and Black America Web.
“TheGrio will be managed by MSNBC going forward, with Yvette continuing to report to Phil. Vivian’s team at NBC News Digital will support the site’s operations and technology. Under MSNBC, theGrio will be able to further build on its existing position of strength as a community for smart and engaging dialogue, opinions and perspectives, and continue to be an incubator for great stories and ideas for the entire NBCUniversal News Group. . . .”
WorldStarHipHop Outdraws Black News, Celebrity Sites
WorldStarHipHop, a website featuring outrageous videos captured on cell phones, records twice as many unique visitors as MediaTakeOut, another site targeting African Americans by appealing to the lowest common denominator, April rankings by comScore, Inc. research company show.
WorldStarHipHop recorded 5,096,000 unique visitors, compared with MediaTakeOut’s 2,736,000. MediaTakeOut specializes in celebrity gossip and lurid headlines.
According to figures provided to Journal-isms for selected sites, the more mainstream HuffPost BlackVoices, BET Networks and the Root also registered more than 2 million unique visitors: 2,692,000 for HuffPost BlackVoices; 2,572,000 for BET Networks and 2,062,000 for the Root.
They were followed by MadamNoire.com, 1,823,000; Bossip.com, 1,662,000; theGrio.com, 1,413,000; Essence, 880,000; NewsOne.com, 876,000; BlackPlanet.com, 651,000; theybf.com, 613,000.
Also, hellobeautiful.com, 589,000; blackenterprise.com, 346,000; EURWeb.com, 283,000; blackamericaweb.com, 279,000; clutchmagazine.com, 232,000; ebony, 178,000; and concreteloop.com, 153,000.
In a story on WorldStarHipHop Tuesday for American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” Noel King reported, “The subjects of many WorldStar videos are African-American and critics say they perpetuate the ugliest stereotypes about life in urban communities.” However, Lee “Q” O’Denat, the founder of WorldStarHipHop, argued that one can find the same videos on YouTube.
- Bryan Cain-Jackson, HuffPost BlackVoices: A Conversation With the Founder of Media TakeOut (May 24)
Who Are the Great Political Reporters in Each State?
“In every state, there is at least one — and often many more than one — great political reporters, the one person that EVERY politico in the state reads,” Chris Cillizza, “The Fix” political columnist for the Washington Post, wrote Thursday.
“But, who is that person (or persons) in all 50 states? We wanted to know — and we asked the Fix community for help. And, you responded! After weeks of sorting and such — done by the incomparable Lindsey Cook, Rachel Weiner and Wilson Andrews — we are ready to unveil our 2013 list of the best state-based political reporters in each of the 50 states. (A reminder: These names are gathered from nominations we received via the blog, Twitter and Facebook.)
“Inevitably when conducting a project like this, people get left off. This is an organic project that is MEANT to be improved on. So, let us have it — figuratively, not literally — by offering your own suggestions for who we missed in the comment section. . . .”
Political reporting is one of the least diverse fields in journalism, but the list included black journalists Kurtis Lee of the Denver Post; Phillip Bailey of WFPL-FM in Louisville, Ky.; and Gromer Jeffers of the Dallas Morning News.
Slain Driver Was “NewsHour” Family Member, Ifill Says
“Julian was family to you. He was to us, as well,” Gwen Ifill of the “PBS NewsHour” said Friday at a funeral service for Julian Dawkins.
Dawkins, a driver for the “NewsHour” since 2010, was shot and killed in Alexandria, Va., on May 22.
Craig Patterson, a 44-year-old off-duty sheriff’s deputy in Arlington, Va., was charged in the killing after family and friends protested that no one had been held accountable.
“The two men argued, then parted ways,” Matt Zapotosky wrote Friday for the Washington Post. “But one of them, an off-duty Arlington sheriff’s deputy, came back — this time with his gun, handcuffs and badge, prosecutors said Friday.
“Deputy Craig Patterson shot Julian Dawkins, 22, in the chest, the prosecutors said. As the young man lay dying in an Alexandria yard early May 22, Patterson called 911 and said Dawkins had come at him with a knife.
“But that couldn’t have been true, according to prosecutors. Dawkins, a driver for the ‘PBS NewsHour,’ was carrying a knife, but it was folded and clipped in his pocket. . . . “
Ifill told the mourners, “I wish I could capture for you the outpouring of emotion that greeted the news of his passing. There were tears, yes. But there was also regret, and anger and fond memory. . . .”
- Editorial, Washington Post: Alexandria residents, Julian Dawkins’s family need answers
- Gwen Ifill, “Washington Week” blog: Gwen’s Take: The Chasm Close to Home
- Adrienne Washington, Washington Afro-American: Julian Dawkins: A Local “Trayvon Martin Case”
- Clarence Williams, Washington Post: Arlington deputy sheriff charged with murder in Alexandria shooting of shuttle driver
Short Takes
- “For the second time since its debut 20 months ago, ESPN’s afternoon TV show, Numbers Never Lie, is making a change. Two ESPN sources tell me the network has added Jemele Hill to the show as a co-host, effective sometime after the NBA Finals are complete,” Big Lead Sports, edited by Jason McIntyre, reported last week. McIntyre continued, “Hill, who recently started a podcast with colleague Michael Smith, will now co-host NNL with him. . . .” On Thursday, an ESPN spokeswoman confirmed the appointment in a tweet.
- “Alina Machado joins CNN as an Atlanta-based correspondent. She comes from WTVD in Raleigh-Durham, where she was a reporter,” Merrill Knox reported Wednesday for TVSpy.
- “After 13 years with KINT Univision 26 El Paso, Karla Mariscal has decided to leave the company. Her last day as co-anchor of the weekday prime time newscast Noticias 26 is June 15,” Veronica Villafañe reported for her Media Moves site. Mariscal told Villafañe, “Right now I don’t have any further professional plans. I’m going to take a break from my career, and devote more time to my family.”
- In St. Louis, KMOV-TV hired former KTVI sportscaster Maurice Drummond to lead its sports department, the first new St. Louis television sports director in nine years, Dan Caesar reported for the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
- Public radio station WBUR-FM in Boston has hired Richard Chacón as executive director of news content, Dru Sefton reported Wednesday for Current.org. “Chacón, who starts on June 10, takes a newly created position with responsibility for managing all local news content produced for radio and the web. This is his second stint at WBUR: Chacón began his career there in 1984 as an undergraduate at Boston University. He spent more than a decade at the Boston Globe in positions including ombudsman, deputy foreign desk editor, Latin America bureau chief and general assignment reporter. . . .”
- “Louis Cook, a longtime host and producer for North Country Public Radio in Canton, N.Y., and a mentor to Native American broadcasters, died May 13 in Pine Ridge, S.D., of complications from a car accident,” Andrew Lapin reported Wednesday for Current.org. He was 66. “Cook worked for NCPR from the mid-’70s through 1992 as the host of the late-night program Jazz Waves and as producer of You Are On Indian Land, a culture and public affairs series that covered the local Native American community. . . .”
- “At once provincial and cosmopolitan, the Village Voice of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s was Jewish the way New York City was Jewish — or the way the local beatniks, hippies, radical activists and miscellaneous members of the luftmensch intelligentsia were Jewish,” J. Hoberman recalled Friday for the Jewish Daily Forward. He continued, “Later there were Latinos and Latinas (also largely local) as well as Asians. But most impressive in the 1980s and ’90s were the number of African-American writers and editors. These included Hilton Als, Carol Cooper, Stanley Crouch, Gary Dauphin, Thulani Davis, Nelson George, James Hannaham, Lisa Jones, Lisa Kennedy, Greg Tate, Colson Whitehead, Joe Wood and Ta-Nehisi Coates — a most impressive and variegated list. . . .” Hoberman said the paper’s firing of its last remaining signature writers signaled the end of an era.
- “Female and minority broadcasters do not appear concerned about one owner controlling newspapers, radio and TV stations in the same market, according to a study released Thursday as federal regulators review such media cross-ownership rules, Reuters reported, referring to a study from the nonprofit Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. The advocacy group Free Press disagreed. Policy Director Mike Wood said, “Study after study has shown that consolidation limits opportunities for diversity on the airwaves. . . . ”
- In New York, “One Albany watcher observed that the Legislative Correspondents Association has been largely devoid of black or Hispanic journalists since the departures of Errol Cockfield (Newsday) and Erin Billups (NY1),” former Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, D-Bronx, wrote for City & State. “He believes that reporters of color can often check the biases of their white colleagues. While I agree that the absence of black and Hispanic reporters is troubling, so is the absence of the Spanish-language and black-owned media in condemning minority elected officials. Too often they act as cheerleaders instead of news organizations, propping up minority officeholders who should instead be held to account. Too often, critical articles about those deserving of them only come after the mainstream media have broken a story. . . .”
- “Knowing that tech-related entrepreneurship is hot and news-related innovation is cool,” 30 Detroit-area eighth-graders were to pitch their information app ideas to a panel of start-up experts and news executives on Friday, the Asian American Journalists Association announced. It continued, “The Pitchfest is the culmination of a three-year digital literacy project called The Living Textbook. Launched by the Asian American Journalists Association, and supported by the McCormick and Ford Foundations, the project focuses on Arab American middle school students telling the stories of their lives in a post 9/11 world. . . .”
- Sarah Garrecht Gassen, opinion writer for the Arizona Daily Star, plugged the New York Times Student Journalism Institute program Thursday. The institute trained 23 students for two weeks this month in Tucson, Ariz., in conjunction with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “These young journalists are launching into the so-called real world, but many are already there,” Gassen wrote. “They’ve had to figure out how to pay for college while holding a job or raising a family — or both. How to get hands-on journalism experience while not going broke at unpaid internships, how to navigate a quickly changing media world. . . .”
- “Meteorologist Dontae Jones is joining WNCT, the CBS affiliate in Greenville, N.C. Jones will appear on the morning and noon newscasts,” Merrill Knox reported Wednesday for TVSpy. “Jones, a graduate of Ohio State University, joins WNCT from The Ohio News Network, where he was the weekend morning meteorologist. . . .”
- “The U.S. Embassy in Santiago is holding Chile’s inaugural citizen journalist competition to mark Freedom of Expression Month this May,” Ryan Johnson reported Tuesday for the Santiago Times. The contest, which runs until June 14, calls on Chileans aged 14 to 25 to film a “reality that should make the news.” The international human rights group Freedom House this month ranked Chile as “partly-free,” after dropping down from its 2011 ranking of “free,” due in part to repression of journalists at protests, controversial new security laws and concentration of media ownership.
- In Uganda, “Two Kampala-based dailies, the Daily Monitor and Red Pepper, and two radio stations – KFM Radio and Ddembe FM – that broadcast from the headquarters of the company that owns the Daily Monitor, Monitor Publications Limited (MPL), resumed operating yesterday after being closed and occupied by the police for 11 days,” Reporters Without Borders reported on Friday.
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