Black, Asian Journalists Cite Off-the-Record Stipulation
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
Black, Asian Journalists Cite Off-the-Record Stipulation
Citing the stipulation that the meeting would be off the record, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association and the news service representing 200 black newspapers said Sunday that they would not attend Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s Monday meeting with journalists of color to refine guidelines on dealing with journalists during leak investigations.
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Unity: Journalists for Diversity, Inc., umbrella group have said they would attend.
The Native American Journalists Association, also citing the off-the-record stipulation, has said it would not.
However, NAJA and AAJA would still be represented, since they are members of Unity: Journalists for Diversity, along with the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association and NAHJ. [NLGJA said Monday it would not attend the meeting, citing the off-the-record ground rules.]
And Corey Dade, an NABJ board member and contributor to theRoot.com, said by email that he will attend the meeting, though NABJ will not be officially present. Dade did not elaborate.
George E. Curry, editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service, said he wrote Sunday to the Justice Department:
“This is to notify you that the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA) is hereby declining your invitation to an off-the-record meeting with the Attorney General regarding DOJ guidelines governing investigations that involve the news media.
“While we would welcome an opportunity to interact with Attorney General Holder on a variety of issues, we must decline this specific invitation for two reasons. First, we feel this is an extremely important First Amendment issue that merits on-the-record comments. We see no value in attending a session in which we will not be able to quote the Attorney General or any other participant.
“Second, and equally important, we are aware that Mr. Holder held a previous session with other members of the media. Consequently, we are unwilling to be relegated to second- or third-tier status that forces us to take a back seat to others who have not only attended a meeting with Mr. Holder on this subject, but have also reported on that session. As a news service that represents 200 African-American newspapers with nearly 20 million readers, we value our readers and don’t feel that they should be subjected to receiving news after other news organizations have been allowed to report it beforehand.
“Again, we would welcome an exchange with the Attorney General, but not under these conditions.”
Gregory H. Lee Jr., president of NABJ, said by email, “I asked the board that nabj will not have official reps. If individual board members do attend it will not be under nabj representation. Nabj will not attend in . . . any official capacity.” Lee added by telephone that NABJ believes in freedom of the press and is “not happy with what’s going on at the Justice Department,” as stated in its May 15 statement on the Justice Department’s secret seizure of office and personal telephone records of journalists at The Associated Press.
Current and former Justice Department officials said the initial meeting was held off the record to allow for a candid conversation, Sari Horwitz reported for the Washington Post.
” ‘It’s a policy meeting. If you put it on the record, it would become a press conference, and I’ve never seen a press conference that’s a good forum for making policy,’ said Matthew Miller, a former Holder aide who remains a close friend. ‘If it was on the record, all you would get is posturing from both sides, and that’s not useful for anyone.’ “
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,” Horwitz reported. “The participants, however, reached an agreement with the Justice Department under which they could describe what occurred during the meeting in general terms. . . .”
And in fact, the news organizations that participated wrote stories about it, quoting the journalists who attended.
On Friday, Reuters reversed itself and attended the second day of meetings, Michael Calderone reported for the Huffington Post.
Calderone wrote that Barb Burg, vice president and global head of communications, said Reuters “did attend a meeting today and only because the off the record ground rules were adjusted. . . .”
Hugo Balta, president of NAHJ, said in announcing his attendance that NAHJ would try that approach. “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 . . . , ” he said.
Lee told Journal-isms by telephone, however, that there was “no guarantee that you can go there and change the terms.”
NABJ has participated in off-the-record sessions with others. In February, NABJ leaders attended a closed-door meeting on diversity with new CNN president Jeff Zucker and released only a vague statement about the discussion.
However, Lee said the situations are not the same. “Our meeting with CNN was our standing quarterly meeting. Certain portions of our conversation [were] not appropriate for public consumption due to the sensitive nature of talking specific personnel issues. The off-the-record conversation with CNN does not violate our press freedoms. The Department of Justice’s actions [were] a threat to the media’s constitutional freedoms.”
AAJA said in its statement:
“AAJA appreciates the invitation to meet with the U.S. Department of Justice on media policy. But the association has decided not to attend the meeting.
“We advocate fair and accurate media coverage on behalf of our 1,700 members. An off-the-record conversation, however, would not allow us to inform our full membership. Nor would it promote transparency, which is key to building trust between the news industry, our government and the public.
“Should there be an on-the-record meeting to help shape media policy and diversity in the future, AAJA will gladly join the conversation.”
President Obama has said he wants the results of Holder’s review by July 12.
The journalists of color were not included in the initial talks, although a Justice Department staffer, responding to inquiries from Journal-isms, said Friday that the journalists of color, as well as the lesbian and gay journalists association, the black press and others of color, would be invited to a meeting Monday. The staffer said Holder had intended to include them all along.
Holder’s status as attorney general was a topic on the Sunday talk shows, including “the intense criticism for the way he’s handling leaks of classified information to reporters,” as host Bob Schieffer put it on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation.” Republicans criticized Holder while Democrats defended him.
Also at issue is the Justice Department’s monitoring of James Rosen, a Fox News reporter based in Washington. Rosen allegedly spoke to Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department contractor, for a story about North Korea’s nuclear program.
The Justice Department charged Kim with violating the Espionage Act for his contact with Rosen, whose reporting disclosed that the United States had a source in the Korean leadership. In order to justify its search warrants for Rosen’s private correspondence, the Justice Department labeled Rosen a “co-conspirator” with Kim because he made an arrangement with him about how to get him information, the Washington Post reported.
However, as PBS’ Gwen Ifill noted on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday, no journalist has been prosecuted. “We’re just talking about getting information, secret information, for secret information’s sake. And so journalists have to look at our motives and our accountability in these matters, as well as the administration. . . .” she said.
On NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw said “it’s tough to see” how Holder keeps his job, “but it’s up to the president.” Host David Gregory asked, “Do you think this is a real olive branch to news organizations, an off-the-record meeting to discuss changing the guidelines for how leak investigations are — are pursued?”
“Well, I think the burden is on both the government and the press to work out a more clearer set of guidelines, both for their exchanges with each other and then– so that the public can be involved in this as well,” Brokaw said.
On “Face the Nation,” Schieffer asked Jill Abramson, executive editor of the New York Times, why her organization refused to attend the off-the-record meetings.
“To have this private meeting with the attorney general not be able to share anything about it with our readers didn’t seem to have a point to me,” she said. “But the Times and our readers are quite concerned about the six active criminal leak cases that the Obama administration has pursued. That’s more than all the other administrations combined. And, yeah, we are concerned that the process of news gathering is being criminalized.
“The First Amendment is first for a reason. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison thought it was crucial for our country to have a free and robust press to help keep the government accountable. And that’s the job that Times reporters and other reporters here in Washington are trying so hard to do. . . .”
Schieffer turned to the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, saying, “you know a little something about leaks down through the years. Your editor went to this meeting. What did he find out?”
“Well, I don’t know that you find out anything in a session like that,” Woodward replied. “What you do — and I — I think you have to step back a little bit and say what’s going on here? And this isn’t just a legal issue or a journalism issue. It’s a practical issue for the administration. And what they’re doing here I think is self-defeating that since the Pentagon papers decision, 1971, which said there can be no prior restraint on publication, the media — and I know myself — several dozen times have gone to the White House or the CIA or the Pentagon and said, “I have these details about this operation. What do you think?” And then they make their arguments about what part shouldn’t be published or it shouldn’t be published at all. And it actually helps the government and helps the press, and, if you can say it, helps national security and to chill all of this by saying, oh, if you go, if they find out that you have got some state secret, they’re going to get your phone records, they’re going to sever that relationship.”
Schieffer said to Daniel Klaidman of the Daily Beast, “Dan, you — you actually interviewed the attorney general. And as far as I know you’re the one single reporter who has interviewed him since all of this. What did you come away from the interview? What did you think about it?”
“Well, look, I think he was — wanted to publicly acknowledge that that balance that the Justice Department says it wants to strike between cracking down on national security leaks but at the same time protecting the free flow of information, allowing reporters to do their job of aggressively reporting on the government, that that balance had gotten out of whack,” Klaidman said. “And that he and his department wants to try to recalibrate it, wants to update and— and— and reform the guidelines that cover interactions between the Justice Department and the press. They’ve begun that process. . . .” [Updated June 3.]
- Peter Baker, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Weisman, New York Times: Seeking a Fresh Start, Holder Finds a Fresh Set of Troubles
- Chris Good, ABC News: Attorney General Eric Holder Tells Media Outlets Leak Guidelines Will Change (May 31)
- Bill Keller, New York Times: Secrets and Leaks
- Gail Shister, TVNewser: As Journalists Become the Story, Will the Rules Change? (June 3)
May 31, 2013
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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