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Frederick Douglass Statue Unveiled in Capitol

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First Journalist of Color, Fourth African American

Non-Newsroom Layoffs Begin at Cleveland’s Plain Dealer

Mexican Journalist, His Family Slain, Wins Asylum in U.S.

Iran, Somalia Again Top List of Nations Journalists Flee

AP Leader Says Justice Dept. Seizure Scared Off Sources

N.Y. Muslims Sue NYPD Over Surveillance

Judge’s Ruling Deals Another Blow to Unpaid Internships

N.Y. Times Calls Marijuana Laws “Tool of Racial Oppression”

Documenting the Lives of New York Latinos

Short Takes

First Journalist of Color, Fourth African American

The first journalist of color to be honored with a statue in the U.S. Capitol was celebrated Wednesday when the likeness of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, publisher of the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper, was unveiled amid pomp and ceremony.

Douglass was much more than a journalist, of course. The statue of the former slave who became an orator and the 19th century’s leading advocate for human rights was in the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall representing the District of Columbia.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said on his website that the speaker “honored Frederick Douglass as a ‘man for all generations’ at a statue dedication ceremony in Emancipation Hall of the United States Capitol. More than 600 guests representing a broad cross-section of Douglass’s life and legacy were on hand for the event, which was live-streamed on speaker.gov/frederickdouglass.”

Ben Pershing of the Washington Post began his story:

“It is just over seven feet tall, a bronze, bearded figure with a determined gaze perched atop a three-foot marble pedestal.

“The combined weight is 1,700 pounds, but the symbolic heft of the Frederick Douglass statue is much greater, as became clear Wednesday when the carving of the famed abolitionist and District advocate found its place inside the halls of Congress after years of delay and debate.

“Before an audience that included Douglass’s descendants, national and local leaders, and representatives of the many places he called home, the first statue chosen to represent the District was unveiled at a ceremony filled with pageantry in the Capitol Visitor Center’s Emancipation Hall.

“Of all the notable figures who have come to live in Washington, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said, ‘none before or since Douglass .  . . has so joined his national prominence and philosophy with the aspirations of the people of the District of Columbia. . . . He refused to separate his life in the District with the equality theme of his courageous life.’

“The statue’s arrival marked the culmination of a fight by Norton and others that has stretched over a decade. . . . “

Emancipation Hall also features statues of Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth and Martin Luther King Jr. Douglass becomes the fourth African American.

Nettie Washington Douglass, Douglass’ great-great-granddaughter, said her forebear “gave his spirit as a birthright to all of us.” Kenneth Morris, Douglass’ great-great-great-grandson, also spoke.

Sidmel Estes, a former president of the National Association of Black Journalists who serves pro bono as media manager for the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives, said the family continues to fight for awareness of modern-day slavery and is urging President Obama to award Douglass the Medal of Freedom.

NABJ’s highest award bears a likeness of Douglass.

The “CBS Evening News” presented a story about Morris Wednesday, noting not only that he is a descendant of Douglass, but also that his grandmother, Nettie Hancock Washington, was Booker T. Washington’s granddaughter. The PBS “NewsHour” closed its show with excerpts from the Douglass ceremony. C-SPAN expects to air the ceremony on July 4, a spokeswoman said.

Obama paid tribute to Douglass on a 2011 trip to Ireland. “He greatly admires Douglass, who like him was 6ft 4in tall. [Obama is generally believed to be 6 foot 1.] Both had one black parent, one white, and both were abandoned by their fathers. Both revolutionised the way the US views African Americans,” Laura Marlowe wrote then for Ireland’s Irish Times.

Non-Newsroom Layoffs Begin at Cleveland’s Plain Dealer

By 8 p.m. Wednesday, employees in several non-newsroom departments of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland were to know whether they would have a job on Thursday, Cleveland journalist Afi-Odelia Scruggs reported on her blog. “All employees received notice of the layoffs, and were told other departments will go through a similar procedure,” she wrote.

“The Plain Dealer layoffs will . . . reduce its newsroom about one-third. Because of the newsroom union’s ‘Save the Plain Dealer’ campaign, those cuts received most of the national attention. However, other departments were at risk for reductions. . . .”  

The Plain Dealer’s owner, Advance Publications, announced in April that it would trim home delivery to three days a week and create a new digital company. The paper is also expected to cut more than a third of its newsroom staff, Christine Haughney of the New York Times reported then.

The Save the Plain Dealer campaign wrote on its Facebook page, “The Save The Plain Dealer campaign has said it before, and will keep repeating: These changes, which are devastating to the paper’s loyal workforce and will diminish the journalism that readers depend on, ARE NOT NECESSARY. Other newspapers are adopting innovative and far less disruptive strategies that allow them to continue to serve their readers and maintain journalistic excellence while confronting the challenges of the digital era. . . .”

Mexican Journalist, His Family Slain, Wins Asylum in U.S.

“A fellow newspaper photographer phoned him and said he had to get right over to his parents’ home because something very bad had happened,” Mike O’Connor reported Wednesday for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “[What] Miguel Angel López remembers seeing when he got there was ‘just blood. You can’t understand that much hatred.’ He was talking about the murders of his mother, his father — a senior editor at the state’s most important newspaper — and his brother, a photographer at the paper. The killings turned out to be the beginning of a war on journalists. . . .”

O’Connor continued, “He fled to the United States, and last week he was given political asylum, according to his attorney. The attorney, Carlos Spector, of El Paso, Texas, told CPJ that he was able to show López had a well-founded fear of being murdered and that the Mexican government could not protect him. Spector said that another client, Alejandro Hernández, was given asylum by the U.S. in 2012. Hernández had been a Mexican news cameraman. The owner of a website in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Jorge Luis Aguirre, got asylum in 2010.

“Spector said he thinks as many as 14 additional Mexican journalists have gotten asylum, but the information is anecdotal. According to Spector, Miguel Angel López will now be a legal resident of the U.S. and eventually could become a citizen. CPJ helped López financially and put him in contact with Spector. But, López had a very rough time beginning the day he found his family murdered. . . .”

Iran, Somalia Again Top List of Nations Journalists Flee

The Committee to Protect Journalists assisted 55 journalists in fleeing their homes over the past 12 months, down slightly from the previous year, the press freedom organization said Wednesday in advance of June 20, World Refugee Day.

“The top countries for exodus were Iran and Somalia, with nine and eight journalists fleeing respectively; Iran and Somalia have topped CPJ’s exile tables for the past five years,” continued the report by Nicole Schilit. “These countries were followed by Ethiopia, Syria, Eritrea, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and 13 others. . . . most of the journalists fled into exile only as a last resort, leaving behind careers, livelihoods, and family to escape forms of intimidation including violence, imprisonment, and threat of death.”

Schilit continued, “This report counts only journalists who fled due to work-related persecution, who remained in exile for at least three months, and whose current whereabouts and activities are known to CPJ. The survey is based solely on cases CPJ has supported, from which it derives global trends. CPJ’s survey does not include the many journalists and media workers who leave their countries for professional opportunities, or to flee general violence, or those who were targeted for activities other than journalism, such as political activism. . . . “

Gary Pruitt, CEO of the Associated Press, said at the National Press Club that the Justice Department had broken its own rules. (Video)

AP Leader Says Justice Dept. Seizure Scared Off Sources

“Associated Press president Gary Pruitt on Wednesday slammed the Department of Justice for acting as ‘judge, jury and executioner’ in the seizure of the news organization’s phone records and he said some of the wire service’s longtime sources have clammed up in fear,” Mackenzie Weinger reported for Politico.

“Pruitt said the department broke its own rules with the seizure, which he said was too broad, and by failing to give the AP notice of the subpoena. Pruitt questioned the DoJ’s actions concerning the subpoena — had the DoJ come to the news organization in advance, ‘we could have helped them narrow the scope of the subpoena’ or a court could have decided, he said.

” ‘There was never that opportunity,’ Pruitt said during a speech at the National Press Club in D.C. ‘Instead the DoJ acted as judge, jury and executioner in private, in secret.’ . . .”

N.Y. Muslims Sue NYPD Over Surveillance

“New York Muslims have filed a federal lawsuit against the New York Police Department over the department’s surveillance of Muslims, which they called invasive and unconstitutional,” Matt Pearce reported Wednesday for the Los Angeles Times.

“The public debate over government surveillance has crescendoed over the last two weeks after a leaker revealed that the federal government had secretly collected detailed phone records, on a massive scale, for years.

“The lawsuit filed Tuesday emerged from a narrower but similar channel of criticism over the growth of surveillance on citizens since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The suit also illustrated the power of the press to bring secret programs not just to light, but also to court.

“Over a series of stories in 2011 and 2012, Associated Press reporters exposed a secret, long-running NYPD program to monitor Muslims across the Northeast using informants and databases in the hopes of spotting radicals.

“Once made aware of the program, Muslim groups and civil liberties advocates were outraged, though a Pulitzer for the AP’s stories notwithstanding, city and police officials persisted in defending the spying as necessary to combat terrorism. . . .”

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