S. Asian Journalists Elect Jigar Mehta of N.Y. Times
Iraqi Plans Denounced as Licensing Journalists
Iraqi in America: So Many Here Are Overweight
Muslims Influence Portrayals on Fox Television
Auto Writer Says Media Gave Toyota a Pass
¬†TV One’s "Washington Watch" Tapes in China
S. Asian Journalists Elect Jigar Mehta of N.Y. Times
Jigar Mehta, a video journalist for The New York Times, was elected president of the South Asian Journalists Association by the SAJA board, the group announced on Thursday. Anusha Shrivastava, a credit markets reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, and two-term secretary of SAJA, was elected vice president.
Prabha Natarajan, also a credit markets reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, was named secretary. John Laxmi, a New Jersey-based freelance writer, continues as treasurer and Sree Sreenivasan, a Columbia University journalism professor and founder of SAJA, continues as the executive committee’s at-large officer.
‘ ‘SAJA is becoming a truly North American journalism organization and we are planning exciting events and programs to reach more members than ever,’ said Mehta, who attended the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a past SAJA scholarship and reporting fellowship recipient. ‘Our industry is constantly evolving and we need to make sure that SAJA evolves to meet the needs of our members.’ ‘
"Before joining the New York Times, Mehta was a documentary filmmaker based in San Francisco where he worked on Jon Else’s film Wonders Are Many, a documentary about the making of opera Doctor Atomic. More recently, he has produced videos that range in topic from small business in Detroit to Olympic snowboarding."
Iraqi Plans Denounced as Licensing Journalists
"An Iraqi government plan to impose restrictive rules on broadcast news media represents an alarming return to authoritarianism, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today," the committee announced. "CPJ denounced the rules and called on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government to abandon their repressive plan.
"CPJ’s review of the plan found rules that fall well short of international standards for freedom of expression and that appear to contravene the Iraqi constitution, which provides for a free press. The new rules would effectively impose government licensing of journalists and media outlets, a tool that authoritarian governments worldwide have long used to censor the news." 
Iraqi in America: So Many Here Are Overweight
"It has been almost nine months since I arrived in the United States. I can’t believe how fast life is moving and how different my family‚Äôs days are now are from the old days‚Äîthat was a beautiful time. Everything is changing now. There’s no simplicity for us anymore," Mudhafar al-Husseini wrote last week for the Committee to Protect Journalists .
al_husseini "worked at The New York Times in Baghdad for two years, reporting news stories and writing blog entries as well as acting as a fixer and translator for other reporters. Before that, from 2004 to 2006, he was a translator for the U.S. Army in Iraq," CPJ said.
"The first thing I noticed in America ‚Äî and the first thing my mom asked me about after she arrived here four months ago ‚Äîs that so many people here are overweight. The main reason, it seemed to me, is that Americans have no time to cook like Iraqis do everyday. There’s not enough time for thinking about a healthy diet, no time for daily cooking, which is the number one priority for Iraqi women."
Muslims Influence Portrayals on Fox Television
Edina Lekovic, communications director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, says she has found a way to make progress influencing the American media.
"What 9/11 did was create a crisis and then create an opportunity for greater understanding," she told Sally Steenland of the Center for American Progress. "It created a level of curiosity — particularly in the entertainment and the news industry— about Muslims. They realized that there were some interesting stories out there. What’s happening in the entertainment industry is very interesting. Post-9/11 we expected that portrayals were going to get worse. But by and large, TV production companies and filmmakers stayed silent on terrorism-related stories for a few years, until they found a way to deal with it intelligently and sensitively.
"There are good examples and bad examples. One of the worst examples was a plotline of ’24’ on Fox that focused on a sleeper-cell family who were obviously Muslim. One of the parents ordered their child to get rid of a friend because they knew too much. The billboards for this were ominous and fear mongering. We reached out to the executive producer of ’24,’ Howard Gordon, and to the diversity development department at Fox television. They agreed to meet with us, although they didn‚Äôt fully understand what we were so up in arms about. But in that meeting, we were able to lay out our concerns and share the outrage and the hurt within our community to be portrayed in this way. After that, producers agreed to run a public service announcement with Kiefer Sutherland, the star of the show, making clear the story was fictional and describing contributions of Muslim Americans to society.
"Out of that crisis, the show has evolved to where the producer attended a Brookings Institution-sponsored U.S. Muslim World Relations forum in Qatar. He has engaged policymakers and think tanks about these issues and brought that back into the show. That’s a success story because the relationship today could not be more different than when we started. We’ve also launched a Hollywood bureau where we go to industry functions and let people know that we’re here not to make sure that only positive stories are told but that authentic and multidimensional stories are told."
Auto Writer Says Media Gave Toyota a Pass
Washington Post automobile writer Warren Brown Friday that Toyota’s quality-control problems, which exploded into public consciousness this week when the company recalled millions of cars to fix sticky gas pedals and loose floor mats, are not news, just ignored by consumers and the news media.
Brown said on National Public Radio’s "Tell Me More," "I am suggesting that in this particular case, as in any other particular cases, the media failed for one thing because the media had anointed Toyota the quality leader because the domestic [automatkers] supposedly messed up so badly. So the media failed. The media, to me, tended not to look at Toyota the same way it would look at General Motors, Ford, Chrysler."
Brown has written about automobiles for the Post since 1982. "There were many reasons, you know, to look at Toyota," he said. "But time and time again, if there was a problem with sludge in tanks, for example, a murmur from the media and it passed. If there were other problems, a murmur from the media, it passed. And there was even a mindset among many Toyota owners and they would call me and say I have problem A, B, and C with my Toyota. What am I doing wrong?
"If someone with a GM or Ford vehicle would call with a similar problem, oh these expletive people, you know, they messed up again. I’m going to sue them, so forth and so on. And so that was, you know, that was the mindset."
- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: Toyota’s payback for stealing fire from the gods
- Cynthia Tucker blog: Toyota: risks of not-enough government
TV One’s "Washington Watch" Tapes in China
"A special edition of ‘Washington Watch with Roland Martin‘ taped in China this week features newsmaker guest National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial and is scheduled to air on TV One Sunday, Feb. 7 at 11 AM ET," TV One announced.
"Host Roland Martin traveled to China this week with a group of business, civil rights, academic and political leaders organized by the National Urban League. The trip was designed to build economic and cultural ties between China, the world’s most populous nation with the world‚Äôs second biggest economy, and the African American community.
"The show will feature an announcement that China has committed to establishing a Confucius Institute at its first HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Xavier University in New Orleans, and will establish three more at HBCUs. Confucius Institute is a non-profit public institute which aims at promoting Chinese language and culture and supporting local Chinese teaching. There are 56 Confucius Institutes in the United States now, mainly affiliated with universities.
"Several other panels will be featured, including a panel on clean economy jobs that includes Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, and Patrick Gusman, senior vice president of innovation and strategy and innovation officer at the National Urban League; a panel on educational opportunities in China with Dorothy Gilliam, founder/director of Prime Movers Media at George Washington University; and Frank Gilliam, dean of the UCLA School of Public Affairs and professor of public policy and political science.
"A journalists’ roundtable includes Dorothy Gilliam who is a former reporter, editor and columnist for The Washington Post; Michelle Miller, CBS News correspondent; Danny Bakewell, Sr., publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel and chairman of the National Newspapers Publishers Association."
Short Takes
- Caesar Andrews, former executive editor of the Detroit Free Press,has been named Paul A. Leonard Distinguished Visiting Chair for Ethics and Writing in Journalism at the Reynolds School of Journalism and Center for Advanced Media Studies, the school announced Thursday. ‘Andrews will teach undergraduate courses in media ethics and multimedia reporting during spring semester. . . Andrews served last semester as the Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at Washington and Lee University in Virginia."
- "Candy Crowley’s appointment as anchor of CNN’s "State of the Union" – she debuts Sunday — has re-ignited that contentious debate. Particularly among women," Gail Shister wrote Friday for Mediabistro. "To wit: Would Crowley have been chosen if she hadn’t dropped major poundage over the past year, or is the fact that she was chosen a sign that networks have moved beyond judging on-air women by their dress size? Crowley, 61, whose credentials and experience are beyond reproach, says she’s not sure." The Minority Writers Seminar, a program of the National Conference of Editorial Writers to increase the pool of skilled opinion writers of color, is accepting applications for its next class until March 8. The sessions take place April 29 to May 2 at the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Lodging and food at the seminar are covered; participants are reimbursed up to $200 for transportation to and from Nashville. Enrollment is limited to 15. More information at: http://www.minoritywritersseminar.org/
