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Journal-isms Jan. 13th

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Marjorie Valbrun Says She Believes Dad in Haiti Is Safe

Marcia Slacum Greene Remembered for Making a Difference

Black Columnists Call Reid Controversy Overblown

Obama Gets "A Little Looser" With Black Audience

Poll: Just 30% of Blacks Read Black Press, Web Sites

Mitchell Leaving "Early Show" for Turn as Correspondent

Gerald Boyd Memoir Says He Felt Betrayed

Short Takes

Marjorie Valbrun Says She Believes Dad in Haiti Is Safe

Marjorie Valbrun, a Haitian-American journalist who has worked at the Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer and Baltimore Sun, wrote friends Wednesday night responding to the "no less than 50 phone calls on my home, work and cell phones from friends around the country, not to mention calls from reporter friends wanting quotes for their stories."

"My father is indeed in Haiti, as are countless cousins, uncles and aunts, and friends," she said. "My family here has not been able to contact family there. However, early this morning my father’s best friend in NJ was able to reach a young man in Haiti who watches over our house when my father is in the states. The young man told the friend in NJ that he has not been able to go to my father’s house but had spoken to people from the neighborhood who reported that the house (a well-built and sturdy two-story structure in a neighborhood that has/had decent infrastructure) was partially collapsed and that my father had gotten out safely. Although no one knows where he is and this info is coming to us third-hand, we’re optimistic that he is alright. Even in the best of times communication systems in Haiti are spotty, and second-hand and third-hand communication is the norm and often surprisingly reliable.

"My father is a resilient and headstrong 82-year-old who fancies himself a 50-year-old, with the constitution of a strapping 40-year-old, who is merely trapped in the body of a skinny old man. If he got out, as I believe he did, he is probably in the thick of things acting as a self-appointed coordinator of relief efforts. Two of my closest friends, one a NY Times reporter the other a CNN producer, are heading to Haiti soon and will go looking for him."

Valbrun studied "Haitian-Americans: Their Search for Political Identity in South Florida" while on an Alicia Patterson Fellowship in 2001.

Marcia Slacum Greene Remembered for Making a Difference

By the time the memorial service ended, there was no doubt that Marcia Slacum Greene deserved the standing ovation the 300 or so friends, fellow journalists and others gave her.

The girl from Victoria, Va., who was the only black student on the bus to school – and had her seat spit upon to emphasize the point – grew into a journalist at the Washington Post who was credited by a community leader with doing her job so powerfully that she helped to reduce the city’s homicide rate.

Greene, 57, died Jan. 4 of complications from pancreatic cancer. An early afternoon service Tuesday at Washington’s People’s Congregational United Church of Christ not only honored Greene’s excellence at her craft but her commitment to people in need and her sense of mission as a journalist.

"She would go deeper, and she loved to go deeper," Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb, her friend and colleague both at the Post and earlier in the Tampa Bay area, told the crowd. At a bar and eatery near the Post, Greene would ask, "what is it that we can be doing to make a difference in this world?" Lamb said.

Arthur "Rico" Rich, president of the Alliance of Concerned Men, a Southeast Washington community group, said he called Greene "my rogue dog" because she went to the most dangerous parts of D.C. and won over the gangbangers. She wrote about the former "inner-city war zone" for what became, in 1997, a front-page story. At the service, 13 years later, Rich’s executive director, Tyrone Parker, credited Greene with helping to bring about a recent reduction in the city’s homicide rate.

Others spoke of her personal qualities. Jill Nelson, the New York writer who unflatteringly chronicled her time in the 1980s at the Post in the book "Volunteer Slavery," said Greene was one of the "dream team" of black women she met there. "Marcia was one of those people who made the rest of us possible," Nelson said.

Robert McCartney, a Post columnist who supervised Greene when he was assistant managing editor for Metro, recalled interviewing her for the city editor’s job. He said he told her she didn’t fit his image of a city editor, loud and outgoing.

He said he was impressed by her answer – "she pushed back at me without being argumentative."

She could take stories that others might view as "the pathology of the ghetto" and make them "genuine human interest" stories.

Her effective response to McCartney in the job interview was, "Still waters run deep."

   credit: Tim Jackson

Black Columnists Call Reid Controversy Overblown

African American columnists were reaching a consensus that the attack on Sen. Harry Reid for his 2008 remarks about then-candidate Barack Obama’s election prospects were baffling, silly or overblown at worst.

Contrarian Stanley Crouch of the New York Daily News used the re-emergence of "Negro" to reassert his preference for the term.

Late-night comedian Steve Colbert led his white audience Monday night in a chant of the word "Negro."

"I must tell you: I have not heard one black person say anything critical about Harry Reid on this subject," Juan Williams said Wednesday on National Public Radio. "They say, ‘well, he was inelegant.’ But discussions of skin color and skin tone are common in the black community. I mean, this is an issue going back to days of slavery. And talking about dialects, I think every parent says to their child in the black community, ‘if you’re going to ‚Äî you’re going to have to speak the King’s English if you hope to succeed in this society.’ "

It was disclosed over the weekend that Reid, assessing Obama’s chances, noted that the candidate was a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” The comments appeared in a new book. Reid apologized and Obama accepted the apology.

Democrats refused to denounce Reid, but Republicans said he should resign and the Sunday talk-show moderators and guests ‚Äî none of whom were journalists of color ‚Äî treated Reid’s comments as a grave affront.

"But a second controversy lurks behind," the editors of the Columbia Journalism Review wrote on Tuesday, "did John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, the authors of Game Change, the book reporting the comments, ‘burn’ Senator Reid?"

"It’s a complicated argument—made no clearer by missing information from all of the main participants — stemming from confusion about the terms. While the authors have so far declined to state that their source for the quote was Reid himself, the senator’s office has said that’s the case.

". . . While there’s evidence suggesting some of the fault lies with his staff, even at the highest levels of politics, how far should journalists go to make the terms of their conversations clear to their sources? And what would be the consequences if reporters were more explicit in this regard?"

Rob Capriccioso, writing in Indian Country Today, pointed out "the sometimes divergent ways people think about Native Americans and racism, compared to African Americans and racism.

"Michelle Bernard, a political commentator for MSNBC, hit that point home when discussing Reid’s words on-air Jan. 11.

"Bernard, an African American, discussed the Reid situation, saying she didn‚Äôt think the words he used were completely ‘off the reservation.’

"Ironically, many Native Americans have a problem with the ‘off the reservation’ phrase, saying it‚Äôs disparaging and infers that Indians should be kept in line.

"No MSNBC hosts called Bernard on the irony."

Obama Gets "A Little Looser" With Black Audience

In a discussion on "Tell Me More" on National Public Radio on Wednesday, host Michel Martin recalled that President Obama himself had discussed what she called "code switching" — "when one alters his or her communication style to closer identify with the audience or setting he or she is in at any given moment."

Obama was being interviewed by NPR’s "Morning Edition" host Steve Inskeep for an interview that aired Feb. 28, 2007.

"When you talk about speeches, do you try to talk in the same way to a black audience as a white audience?" Inskeep asked.

"Yeah, I think that the themes are consistent," the then-senator replied. "I think there is a certain black idiom that it’s hard not to slip into when you’re talking to a black audience because of the audience response. It’s the classic call-in response. You know, anybody who has spent time in the black church knows what I mean. And so, you know, you get a [little] looser. It becomes more ‚Äî a little more like jazz and a little less like a set score."

Poll: Just 30% of Blacks Read Black Press, Web Sites

"A majority of blacks say they regularly listen to black news or talk shows on the radio (62%) and a similar percentage say they regularly read black magazines such as Ebony, Essence, Black Enterprise or Jet (60%)," according to a new nationwide Pew Research Center survey on race. "Black newspapers and black-oriented websites and blogs are far less commonly read within the black community; only about three-in-ten blacks say they regularly read a black newspaper (28%) or read black websites and blogs (30%)."

The media findings come in the same report that found that "a year after Barack Obama’s election, blacks’ assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically than at any time in the last quarter century. The poll finds an upbeat set of black views on a wide range of matters, including race relations, local community satisfaction and expectations for future black progress. But at the same time, some views on race show little change. Most blacks still have doubts about the basic racial fairness of American society.

"Despite the upbeat findings from blacks on many fronts, more than eight-in-ten blacks — compared with just more than a third of whites — say the country needs to make more changes to give blacks equal rights with whites. And most remain skeptical that blacks are treated fairly by the police."

The study said that "Patterns of black media consumption among African Americans show few demographic differences.

"Black women are more likely than black men to regularly read black magazines such as Ebony, Essence, Black Enterprise or Jet (65% of women, 54% of men). And, not surprisingly, the relatively young (ages 18-29) are the most likely to frequently read black-oriented websites and blogs (48% do so, compared with only 28% of 30-49 year olds and 22% of older African Americans). Black-oriented blogs are also more frequently read by those with at least some college education than those who have not attended college (36% vs. 26%). Virtually no differences in media consumption are seen across income groups among blacks.

"Although there is little difference in views of most of the major problems facing black families today between those who get news from black media sources and those who do not, the lack of decently-paid jobs is viewed as a big problem by a greater proportion of those who regularly read or listen to black media. More than eight-in-ten black media consumers (82%) see this as a big problem, while substantially fewer of those who do not regularly listen to or read black media sources (65%) express this level of concern. Black media users are also more likely to say that the country needs to continue making changes to give blacks equal rights with whites (84% do so, compared with 68% of blacks who don’t regularly read or listen to black media)."

Mitchell Leaving "Early Show" for Turn as Correspondent

"Russ Mitchell will leave ‘The Early Show’ but will continue to be anchor of the Sunday edition of the ‘CBS Evening News,’ ‚Äù Brian Stelter reported Wednesday for the New York Times.

CBS made the official announcement later in the day, saying Mitchell will become a national correspondent.

"Mr. Mitchell‚Äôs move represents the first change on the show since David Friedman, a longtime NBC producer, was hired as the executive producer of ‘The Early Show’ last month, Stelter wrote.

"But the change was decided before Mr. Friedman arrived, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it.

". . . People come and people go at ‘The Early Show,’ where the average daily audience declined 11 percent last year, to 2.75 million viewers.

"For decades, the program has languished behind ‘Today’ on NBC (with 5.57 million viewers last year) and ‘Good Morning America’ on ABC (4.26 million). The ratings translate to millions of dollars in morning advertising revenue."

Gerald Boyd Memoir Says He Felt Betrayed

"In two weeks, a memoir by Gerald Boyd, the former managing editor of The New York Times who was forced out of the paper along with executive editor Howell Raines in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal, will be published by the small, Chicago-based publisher Lawrence Hill Books," John Koblin wrote Tuesday for the New York Observer.

"Boyd died three years ago from cancer, but before his death, he had written two drafts of his book. Instead of letting them sit in a drawer, his wife, journalist Robin Stone, put the two together, did some editing and created My Times in Black and White. It will hit bookstores on Feb. 1.

"In the book, Boyd also wrote that he felt betrayed by current executive editor Bill Keller when Howell Raines informed him that Mr. Keller was trying to derail his career.

" ‘[Keller] said that no matter whom Sulzberger picked as executive editor, under no circumstances should [Gerald Boyd] become managing editor. Under no circumstances," he said in a reference to Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

In the book, Boyd accuses the current culture editor, Jon Landman, "of being a bully-smug, aggressive, a master of office politics ‚Äî and one of the primary enemies that celebrated his ouster. According to Boyd, Mr. Landman was a man of no ‘decency and integrity,’" Koblin wrote.

"We reached out to both Mr. Landman and Mr. Keller for reaction.

"Mr. Landman said, ‘Nobody should forget that Gerald left a wife and son and many friends who cherish his memory, which I am not about to smudge with a posthumous quarrel. The last word is his.’

"Mr. Keller said, ‘Like a lot of things one hears second- or third-hand, this is inaccurate. I’m sorry that Gerald believed it and was hurt by it.’ "

Boyd, the Times’ first and only black managing editor, expressed milder criticism of Landman¬†in his 2003 address to the National Association of Black Journalists convention, and did not name him.

The book is being serialized in the St. Louis Beacon, published in his hometown.

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