Lee Thornton, Pioneer Journalist, Professor, Dies at 71
Desiree Dancy, N.Y. Times Co. Diversity Officer, Resigns
Where’s Explanation of Why We Don’t All Look the Same?
“Digital Divide” Greater Between Whites, Hispanics
For Foreign Correspondents, Kenya Massacre Was Close to Home
NAJA Calls for Newsroom Discussion of Team Names
Lee Thornton, Pioneer Journalist, Professor, Dies at 71
Lee Thornton, a trailblazing and award-winning journalist, news producer and educator, died Wednesday of pancreatic cancer, the University of Maryland reported. She was 71.
“Dr. Thornton served as the inaugural Eaton Chair of Broadcast Journalism and also served as interim dean for a year following the resignation on Tom Kunkel. During the 2012-13 school year, she also served as the ombudsperson for the graduate school,” Dean Lucy Dalglish of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism told colleagues.
The university noted when she was appointed to an earlier position that she was a former CBS News correspondent, was “the first African American female regularly assigned to the White House beat by one of the then three broadcast news networks, and she was the first African American host of National Public Radio’s popular show, All Things Considered.”
“All Things Considered” co-host Robert Siegel delivered a tribute to Thornton on Friday’s edition.
The university also recalled that “While on the faculty at Howard University (before coming to UM in 1997), Dr. Thornton produced and moderated a Channel 32 program called Pro and Con, which dealt directly with diversity issues and featured HU faculty. In 1991, CNN named her senior producer of Both Sides with Jesse Jackson. That program was CNN’s earliest attempt to reach a large minority audience, and it paved the way for many such programs that have followed. In addition, she has lectured widely on women and minorities in the media. . . .”
Dalglish said in a tribute issued by the university, “Lee Thornton was a journalism and communications scholar. She was a broadcast journalist. She excelled at both. And she could move back and forth in those fields seamlessly and be spectacularly good at both things.”
“ ‘Dr. T’ brought her years of experience working for local and Network TV — at CBS, CNN and NPR — to Merrill College in 1997 and quickly became known for her ‘thorough yet caring’ style of teaching. She taught television news reporting and production and documentary filmmaking as well as graduate courses. She overhauled and expanded the student news programs from ten minutes to 30 minutes. Over the years, her Merrill students won in excess of 80 national and regional awards and citations. . . . “
Born Emerita Lee Thornton in Leesburg, Va., Thornton earned a Ph.D. at Northwestern in 1973 and began her journalism career the next year at CBS.
She summarized her career this way in a 2007 interview reported in “Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012” by Stephen Hess:
“I started teaching broadcast journalism at Howard in 1983 and ended up teaching there for 14 years, eight of which were [as an] adjunct. Then I went on tenure track at the associate professor level. The University of Maryland came looking for me to apply for the Richard Eaton Chair in Broadcast News, and I won out over a lot of competition. I’ve been there 10 years. From Howard and Maryland, my students are absolutely everywhere. If I have a legacy, they are it. That’s as good as it gets for a career. It’s amazing . . . “
- A Tribute to Dr. Lee Thornton from Merrill College – UMD on Vimeo.(video)
Desiree Dancy, N.Y. Times Co. Diversity Officer, Resigns
Desiree Dancy, chief diversity officer and vice president for corporate human resources at the New York Times Co., is leaving the organization because, she says, “The Times has reduced its business units and has refocused its operation to a smaller, and more singularly directed company,” changing the nature of her job.
Dancy joined the Times Co. in 2006 as its vice president, diversity and inclusion after an internal committee at the Times had recommended appointment of a senior vice president whose primary responsibilities would be to oversee diversity efforts, warning management in a confidential report that “The Times is a newspaper at risk. If it fails to diversify its work force and to make attendant changes in its corporate culture, the Times will inevitably lose stature.”
Dancy told Journal-isms by email, “When I joined the Times almost seven years ago, my mandate was to create and develop a diversity and inclusion program for the entire New York Times Company. [CEO] Arthur [Sulzberger Jr.] and the Times leadership gave me every opportunity and platform to do so and I am happy to say that I am leaving a legacy that serves as a model to others in many ways. It truly is with mixed emotions that I’ve decided that the time is right for me to explore new opportunities.”
She continued, “As you know, we were the first and perhaps still the only news organization with employee affinity groups,” which were instituted at Time Inc. in 1998 and nearly 30 years ago NBCUniversal. “We’ve built on them since inception, growing from 5 to 8 during my tenure. They are active internally and externally, raising awareness around diversity, partnering with minority professional organization to support recruiting, as well as providing development opportunities for their members. The affinity groups also provide volunteer opportunities for employees who wish to serve the community by working with local non-profits.
“In our newsroom and on the business side we have diversity councils that focuses on key issues and develops strategies with New York Times leadership.
“Why now? The Times has reduced its business units and has refocused its operation to a smaller, and more singularly directed company. I feel that while The Times’s diversity and inclusion program will continue, my job has changed as the program has also been refocused. I love what I and want to continue to do that in an organization whose needs are focused in that direction.”
The Times Co. “has been offloading holdings like About.com and The Boston Globe in order to focus on its core brand: The New York Times and the International New York Times (formerly the International Herald Tribune),” as Politico has reported.
Where’s Explanation of Why We Don’t All Look the Same?
“Chinese-American TV personality Julie Chen reveals she had plastic surgery to make her eyes look less ‘Asian’ to advance her career,” Maureen Pao reported for NPR’s “Code Switch” blog. “Korean women are getting surgeries for permanent smiles. In Venezuela, breast augmentation is so widespread, it’s a popular coming-of-age gift for quinceañera, or 15th-birthday celebrations.
“What century are we in, anyway? Around the world, women continue to go to extreme measures in pursuit of ‘beauty.’
“That women subject themselves to these complicated and bizarre, not to mention dangerous, procedures got me thinking about these notions of physical beauty — and who gets to define them. And what struck me is the irony that what’s considered ‘beautiful’ or desirable in one culture is often the exact opposite in another.
“Take skin color, for instance. In the West, women expose their skin to harmful radiation and buy self-tanning products in pursuit of skin that’s ‘sun-kissed’ and glowing.
“And just as the tanning industry caters to Western ideas of beauty, there’s a booming business analogue in the rest of the world. In India alone, sales of skin-whitening creams are . Mostly they are modern-day snake oils; but in some cases, toxic products have led to serious, long-term damage and even death. . . .”
Pao also wrote, “This prize of ‘white skin’ is directly related to social status and hierarchies — and the legacy of slavery — around the world. . . .”
What’s missing in such pieces are explanations of why the world’s people weren’t intended all to have the same features, given varying climates and geography.
- Kat Chow, “Code Switch,” NPR: Why Do We Describe Asian Eyes As ‘Almond-Shaped’? (Sept. 16)
- Andrew Lam, New America Media: Nina Davuluri Is America’s Future (Sept. 18)
“Digital Divide” Greater Between Whites, Hispanics
The “digital divide” between whites and African Americans has been eliminated, but not so the divide between whites and Hispanics, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
Reporting on the percentage of adults 18 and over who do not use the Internet or email, the center found the figure to be 14 percent among non-Hispanic whites, 15 percent among non-Hispanic blacks, and 24 percent among English- and Spanish-speaking Hispanics.
Overall:
- “34% of non-internet users think the internet is just not relevant to them, saying they are not interested, do not want to use it, or have no need for it.
- “32% of non-internet users cite reasons tied to their sense that the internet is not very easy to use. These non-users say it is difficult or frustrating to go online, they are physically unable, or they are worried about other issues such as spam, spyware, and hackers. This figure is considerably higher than in earlier surveys.
- “19% of non-internet users cite the expense of owning a computer or paying for an internet connection.
- “7% of non-users cited a physical lack of availability or access to the internet.”
The findings were based on data from telephone interviews conducted l from April 17 to May 19 among a sample of 2,252 adults ages 18 and older. The sample included 1,571 whites, 252 blacks and 249 Hispanics.
For Foreign Correspondents, Kenya Massacre Was Close to Home
“Covering Westgate was challenging for everyone, including foreign correspondents with years of war coverage experience,” Tom Rhodes wrote Friday for the Committee to Protect Journalists, referring to the bloody assault that left a reported 67 dead in the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
” ‘Over the past two decades, I have found myself in numerous war zones in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. I survived bombing in Baghdad, mortar attacks and street battles in Liberia, Libya and Yemen,’ Washington Post East Africa Bureau Chief Sudarsan Raghavan wrote in a blog. ‘But what unfolded Saturday felt markedly different.The war on terrorism had hit uncomfortably close to home […] the interviews with victims felt more personal than other tragedies I have covered.’
“Local and foreign photographers alike, such as Nation’s William Oeri and New York Times’ Tyler Hicks, have risked life and limb venturing inside the shopping centre to cover the three day tragedy. ‘I had a clear view in there,’ recalled Hicks in a blog after taking incredible shots of the tragedy, ‘I could see that there were multiple bodies lying dead in the mall, some lying together just next to where they were having lunch at a café. It seemed everywhere you turned there was another body.’
“Journalists with Somali backgrounds are particularly affected by Saturday’s raid. Senior Editor for Radio Bar Kulan, Abdirahman Hussein, lost a friend, a Somali national named Yasin Hersi, who worked for a local non-governmental organization, he told me. Hussein had covered events at Westgate Mall until Al-Shabaab announced responsibility for the attack.
” ‘That’s when more fear came to the Somali community here in Nairobi,’ he said. The UN- backed Somali news station Bar Kulan reduced staffing at the station as a precaution, Hussein said, fearing reprisal attacks against Somalis by an angry Kenyan public. The predominantly Somali Eastleigh region of Nairobi is gradually becoming a ghost town, he added. Residents are locking themselves indoors, fearing retribution from citizens and police . . .”
Short Takes
- “Tribune Co., parent of the Los Angeles Times, is reviewing operations in an effort that will likely result in staff reductions at the company’s daily newspapers,” Meg James reported Thursday for the Times. “Tribune announced in July that it planned to separate its newspapers from the company’s other assets. The new owners of Tribune intend to focus on the more profitable television and Internet properties and spin off its eight daily newspapers into a stand-alone company. . . . ”
- “Oprah Winfrey has secured TV rights to her latest acting vehicle, Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” Michael O’Connell reported Thursday for the Hollywood Reporter. “The Weinstein Company drama, which has passed $100 million at the box office and has awards season buzz, will get its first broadcast airing on OWN in 2017 — after its debut on pay cable. . . .”
- “CNN is getting back on the bus,” Chris Ariens reported Thursday for TVNewser. “Six years after it debuted the Election Express, the network has rechristened the bus, for now, as the ‘CNN Health Care Express.’ Beginning Monday, Dr. Sanjay Gupta will take the Health Care Express through Greenville, South Carolina, Lexington, Kentucky and Baltimore with live reports on how the Affordable Care Act is affecting people in those cities. Obamacare, as it’s also known, takes partial effect on Tuesday. . . .”
- “Latino USA social media producer Brenda Salinas steps away from Twitter and into the recording booth to talk to Maria Hinojosa” on the latest episode of NPR’s “Latino USA.” “They discuss how social media has reacted to the PBS series ‘Latino Americans.’ [Podcast]
- ” Underscoring the challenges facing journalists in Egypt, International Press Institute (IPI) Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie today called on U.S. leaders to pressure the Egyptian government to live up to its international commitments to press freedom,” IPI reported on Friday. “Egypt must release all detained reporters and editors, and lift its ban on broadcasts of national and international media, Bethel McKenzie said. . . .” Bethel McKenzie spoke at the National Press Club in Washington with Bethel McKenzie at a news conference also attended by Abderrahim Foukara, Al Jazeera Washington bureau chief.
- “When WBLS/New York GM Deon Levingston speaks, what rolls off his tongue is nothing but honesty,” RadioInk reported Thursday. And he let it roll Thursday at an audio forum during Advertising Week. “Levingston was interviewed by Arbitron’s Bill Rose . . . . Rose asked Levingston, if he could change one thing about the industry, what that would be. Levingston said, ‘The industry is challenged right now in getting accurate numbers. We have to have accurate and reliable cross-platform measurement. We’re not getting the numbers right. The numbers would be amazing. It’s hurting us with the client.’ ”
- “TV One, which aims to entertain, inform and inspire black adults, has named TV vet Donna Wilson as the new Executive Producer of his live one-hour, weekday morning news program News One Now,” Betsy Rothstein reported for FishbowlDC. “The show will provide a three-screen experience on radio, TV, and online with Roland Martin as host. . . .”
- “Pilar Guzmán continues to remake Condé Nast Traveler to fit her vision,” Chris O’Shea reported Thursday for FishbowlNY. “The downside of that is when you don’t suit that new version, you’re shown the door. According to The New York Post the latest staffers to find the exit are executive editor Kevin Doyle and senior editors Alison Humes and Dinda Elliott. . . .”
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In Charlotte, N.C., “After eight years at WBTV (Channel 3) news, Sarah Batista is nervously fitting into her dream job – documentary producer,” Mark Washburn reported last month for the Charlotte Observer, in a dispatch picked up this week by the EFE news service. “Batista, 33, has started her own company, Stories to Inspire, aimed at creating videos for Charlotte nonprofits. Eventually she hopes it will take her into full-time documentary work. . . .”
- Hugh Douglas, the former NFL player who lost his job as an ESPN analyst after a confrontation with his co-host at this summer’s National Association of Black Journalists Convention, was arrested in Connecticut Sunday at the Hartford Marriott Downtown and charged with second-degree strangulation and third-degree assault, Christine Dempsey and Kelly Glista reported Wednesday for the Hartford Courant. He was charged with a violent weekend assault on his girlfriend.
- In the Gambia, West Africa, “A State TV broadcaster and celebrated show host, Ms. Fatou Camara, has been languishing in custody at the headquarters of the dreaded National Intelligence Agency (NIA), since her arrest on September 17, 2013,” according to the Media Foundation for West Africa. The report added “According to the sources, Camara’s arrest is linked to allegations from the State House that she has been passing information to the international media, particularly a US-based newspaper, Freedom Newspaper, which is critical of President Jammeh.”
