Bashir Resigns from MSNBC Over Palin Comments
“Following a firestorm over his recent comments about Sarah Palin, the MSNBC host Martin Bashir resigned on Wednesday, citing what he called his ‘ill-judged comments’,” Bill Carter reported Wednesday for the New York Times.
“Mr. Bashir had been listed as being on vacation while the network faced heated criticism for not taking disciplinary action against him.
“The decision was prompted by a commentary Mr. Bashir directed last month against Ms. Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential nominee, in which he criticized her for statements comparing American debt to slavery, saying she deserved the same kind of humiliating and degrading treatment that some slaves faced.
“Mr. Bashir later issued an apology on the air for the commentary. He then left for what was called a vacation. . . .”
Jack Mirkinson added for the Huffington Post: “Bashir’s departure leaves a hole in MSNBC’s afternoon lineup. Leading candidates for the slot include MSNBC contributor and guest host Joy Reid, along with the recently hired Ronan Farrow. For the time being, Reid will fill in as a guest host.”
- Jason Easley, politicsusa.com: Martin Bashir Lost His Job For What Rush Limbaugh Gets Away With Every Day
- Josh Feldman, mediaite.com: Networks That Went to Town on Limbaugh for Slut Remark Said Nothing About Bashir, Study Finds
- MSNBC: A statement by Martin Bashir
Detroit Crisis Prompts $500,000 in Grants to Media Groups
“Detroit may have filed for bankruptcy, but public-service reporting efforts there and in Michigan just got a big boost,” Dru Sefton reported Wednesday for Current.org.
“The Knight Foundation and the Ford Foundation announced Tuesday $500,000 in support to two projects, the Detroit Journalism Cooperative and the Michigan Reporting Institute.
“The cooperative consists of five nonprofit media organizations that will receive $250,000 from Knight to focus on the city’s financial straits and engage citizens in the search for innovative solutions. The convening partner is Center for Michigan, a ‘think and do tank’ advocating for citizen involvement in policy issues, along with pubcasters WDET-FM, Michigan Radio and Detroit Public Television, as well as New Michigan Media, a network of ethnic and minority-oriented news operations.
“The Michigan Reporting Institute will receive the remainder of the grant from Ford for Zero Divide, a social-impact consultancy using technology to tackle issues of health, economic opportunities and civic engagement in underserved communities. . . .”
- Stephen Henderson, Detroit Free Press: Bankruptcy ruling is the start of help Detroit needs
- John S. & James L. Knight Foundation: Two new projects win funding to support news in the public interest: The Detroit Journalism Cooperative and The Michigan Reporting Initiative
- Eric Newton, Knight Foundation: How public media can help the recovery of Detroit
- Rochelle Riley, Detroit Free Press: Detroit firefighter’s widow wants Orr to remember the families
- Ashley Woods, HuffPost BlackVoices: Detroit After Bankruptcy Ruling — What Happens Next?
Battling Cancer, Sambolin Leaving CNN, Early Morning Show
Zoraida Sambolin, who joined CNN two years ago from WMAQ in Chicago as one of CNN’s few visible Hispanic journalists, is leaving the network and returning to Chicago, Chris Ariens reported Wednesday for TVNewser.
Sambolin is co-host of “Early Start,” which airs from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. Eastern Time. She said battling cancer this year put life in perspective, Ariens wrote. “I love my job and the gifted and committed people I’ve had an opportunity to work with but life is beckoning me back to Chicago,” Sambolin wrote to the staff.
“Zoraida Sambolin is one of the best journalists in the business,” a CNN spokesperson told TVNewser. “Her insightful reporting, kind nature, strength and resilience are universally admired. Although we will miss her, we understand and support her decision and wish her and her family only the best.”
Ariens also wrote, “Sambolin, a mother of two, was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year and in May underwent a double mastectomy. She returned to CNN in August. Her final day with the network is next Friday. . . .”
. . . CNN’s Zucker Planning Less News, Shakeup in Prime Time
“After almost a year of tinkering, CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker has concluded that a news channel cannot subsist on news alone,” Mike Allen and Alex Weprin wrote Tuesday for capitalnewyork.com.
“So he is planning much broader changes for the network—including a prime-time shakeup that’s likely to make CNN traditionalists cringe.
“Once, CNN’s vanilla coverage was a point of pride. Now, the boss boasts about the ratings for his unscripted series, and documentaries like the Sea World-slamming film Blackfish. Zucker, in his first one-on-one interview since taking control of CNN last January, told Capital he wants news coverage ‘that is just not being so obvious.’ ”
“Instead, he wants more of ‘an attitude and a take’ ” . . .
ESPN’S Cross to Be News Anchor at TV One’s “News One Now”
“TV One has hired ESPN.com editor Shannon Cross as news anchor for its live daily news program, News One Now, network officials said Wednesday,” R. Thomas Umstead reported Wednesday for Multichannel News.
“Cross will serve as a contributing voice of the daily morning news broadcast, narrating both breaking news briefs and lengthier feature segments beginning Dec. 9, said the network. Additionally, Cross will join News One host Roland Martin in his analysis of the day’s headlines, discussions with on-set panelists, Skype-net interviews, social media integration and standing segments.
“Cross most recently served as an editor, reporter and on-air personality for ESPN and associate editor for ESPN.com. . . .”
Film Critics Raising Money to Bury Colleague Eric Harrison
The family of Eric Harrison, the former Houston Chronicle film critic who died last month at 57, doesn’t have the $6,000 to provide for a proper burial, his Chronicle colleague Clifford Pugh wrote Wednesday for the Chronicle. Friends and colleagues are being asked to join in, Pugh wrote.
“Joshua Starnes, president of the Houston Film Critics Society, of which Harrison was a founding member, located the crowd-sourcing site Funeral Fund as a place where anyone can donate. In less than a day, 19 people have chipped in $1,190,” Pugh wrote. By 9 p.m. Tuesday, the fund had reached $2,490.
The site says, “On November 17, after several days without contact, a neighbor asked police to look in on Eric’s apartment where he was discovered to have recently passed due to a brain aneurysm. He left no life insurance behind and his family are struggling to come up with the money for his funeral services. As his friends and colleagues the Houston Film Critics Society is asking for any who can to help us lay our friend and colleague to rest with the dignity he deserves. . . .”
Pugh wrote, “Organizers have until Dec. 17 to reach the goal. If the total amount isn’t raised by then, Eric will likely be buried by the county as a pauper.”
Journalists, Fellows Produce “Black Student’s Guide to Law Schools”
“You’ve undoubtedly read recent stories in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times regarding the crisis in legal education, but missing from these news stories is the disproportionate impact higher student loan debt, diminished job prospects, and industry biases have on black law students,” according to Yolanda Young, CEO and publisher of On Being a Black Lawyer.
“Lawyers Of Color’s veteran journalists and legal media fellows have compiled months of interviews and data collection into this year’s ‘Black Student’s Guide to Law Schools,’ ” Young told Journal-isms by email.
“Inside we report on the low black enrollment at flagship law schools in states that have disallowed race as a factor in admissions and reveal that some HBCU [historically black colleges and universities] law schools are no longer majority black. We also point out how both President Obama and Chief Justice [John] Roberts have suggested the need for law school reform. Finally, we rank the best law schools for black students using objective criteria like job placement rates, black student and faculty percentages, and costs and eschew traditional subjective measures like ‘reputation’ that tend to undervalue a school like Howard Law, which places as many black graduates in large law firms as do Ivy League law schools. . . .”
These schools led the list of the “Top 25 National Law Schools for Black Students”: Harvard Law School, Stanford University Law School, University of Chicago Law School, Howard University Law School and Yale Law School.
North Carolina Central School of Law (48.9 percent black) and Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law (44.8 percent) were listed among law schools at historically black universities that are no longer majority black.
A free digital version is available for review and download on the Lawyers of Color website: http://www.onbeingablacklawyer.com/wordpress/black-students-guide-to-law-schools-2014 .
Short Takes
- “The union representing the Chicago Sun-Times photographers who lost their jobs when the entire photography staff was fired this year says the paper’s publisher has agreed to rehire four of them,” the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
- “Don Lemon, the highly controversial news anchor, volunteered his neck to Rabbi Gary Moskowitz, aka the ‘black-belt rabbi,’ to demonstrate how helpless victims can defend themselves against rabble-rousers who prey on unsuspecting people in the ‘knockout game,’ ” Stephen A. Crockett Jr. reported Wednesday for the Root. BuzzFeed posted the “Insane CNN Segment Featuring A Rabbi With A Black Belt Shows You How To Survive The ‘Knockout Game’” Josmar Trujillo, writing Tuesday for Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, wrote that “Largely lost in the debate over whether the ‘knockout’ game is a ‘trend’ or a ‘myth’ is the possibility that media’s obsession with the game might actually be itself inspiring copycat cases. . .”
- Uptown Ventures Group, parent company of Uptown Magazine, acquired Hype Hair magazine, an African American women’s hair care brand, and announced the formation of U Brands, an investment vehicle focused on acquiring and licensing similar niche brands. , Arti Patel reported Nov. 27 for Folio:.
- Eric Mays, a Flint, Mich., city councilman elected last month in the journalism fail in which the felony on his record went unreported, won a recount by eight votes, Jake May reported Tuesday for mlive.com.
- The Asian American Journalists Association and Investigative Reporters and Editors have agreed that members of both organizations may take advantage of the training offered at three national events in 2014: IRE’s Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference in Baltimore in late February, IRE’s annual conference in San Francisco in June and the AAJA National Convention in Washington D.C. in August. “Members of each organization can use their existing membership to register for any of these events, meaning AAJA members don’t need to purchase IRE memberships, and IRE members won’t be required to join AAJA,” they said in a Nov. 26 announcement to members.
- Univision announced a one-hour documentary-style special, “¿Y Ahora Que?… ¿Como pago mis estudios superiores?” (Now what?… How do I pay for higher education?),”which will address the financial aid options available to students to cover the cost of their post-secondary studies, as part of the company’s comprehensive, multiplatform education initiative, Univision Educación.” It is to air nationally on Saturday at 5 p.m. EST (4 p.m. CST).
- “Amid skyrocketing inflation and shortages of basic goods, Venezuelan authorities claim that an ‘economic war’ is being waged against the socialist government of President Nicolás Maduro. The government is striking back by forcing stores to discount prices, by arresting business owners accused of hoarding — and by targeting journalists trying to cover the grim economic news,” John Otis reported Tuesday for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
- “Kenya’s Editors Guild and the Kenya Correspondents’ Association organized peaceful demonstrations across the country to protest a media bill currently under parliamentary review. Protests were held in every county in the country, according to William Janak, chairman of the correspondents’ association,” Tom Rhodes reported Tuesday for the Committee to Protect Journalists. Rhodes also wrote, “Originally passed in record time by Parliament on October 31, the bill would remove the self-regulating media body and replace it with a government-controlled ombudsman and introduce hefty fines and stringent advertising and programming regulations. Hopes of reform under a presidential veto were quashed last week after Kenyatta made small amendments to the original draft but ignored the majority of concerns raised by the media, said David Ohito, deputy director of the Editors’ Guild. . . .”
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