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Arrest in Beating of Gay Arts Journalist

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Police Sought “Hispanic” but Arrested a “Black Male”

Charles V. Pittman, Diversity Advocate, to Retire in March

Race Missing From President’s Diagnosis of Inequality

Stand-Alone Unity Convention Ruled Out for 2016

Egypt to Try 20 From Al Jazeera on Terrorism Charges

Sochi Coverage Overlooks Russian Human Rights Abuses

In a Snowy N’awlins, Northern Critics Get Cold Shoulder

FCC Shift Could Nix Armstrong Williams’ Station Purchase

Hispanic Team Anchors English-Language Newscast

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Police Sought “Hispanic,” but Arrested a “Black Male”

Police arrested a Queens, N.Y., man Tuesday in the beating of Randy Gener, an openly gay arts journalist who remained in critical condition after undergoing brain surgery as a result of the attack, New York news media reported.

The suspect, Leighton Jennings, was described by police Wednesday as “24-year-old black male,” although the police were looking for a man they described as Hispanic, illustrating the errors that can occur with police descriptions of crime suspects. Those descriptions are often publicized by the news media.

Friends had raised more that $55,000 by Wednesday night to pay Gener’s medical bills. A fundraising site, started on Tuesday, hopes to bring in $70,000.

WNBC-TV reported, “The 46-year-old suffered head trauma and has been in and out of consciousness since the attack, family members say. Doctors had . . . to remove a portion of his skull to allow his brain to swell, and it could take more than six months for him to recover. . . .”

Bob Fredericks and Natasha Velez of the New York Post also reported on the midtown Manhattan incident, which occurred on Jan. 18 after Gener was leaving a party before 4 a.m. “Police said the victim bumped into the suspect’s girlfriend and the pair argued before Jennings belted Gener,” they wrote.

“The victim, 46, fell to the ground and smacked his head on the pavement after the assault.

“Jennings sped away in a gray, four-door Nissan with Mississippi license plates, police said.”

They also wrote, “Police initially investigated the assault as a possible hate crime but determined Gener’s sexuality had nothing to do with it. . . .”

The Asian American Journalists Association and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association called attention to Gener’s plight this week. He is a member of both organizations, is the U.S. editor of Critical Stages, described as an international journal on global politics and performance, and has written for the New York Times, the Daily News in New York, NPR and other news organizations in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Gener was NGLJA’s 2010 Journalist of the Year and in 2007, when he won a Filipinas Magazine Achievement Award, was described as a writer, playwright and associate editor of American Theater Magazine.

Detectives said Jennings had been seen by witnesses and on surveillance video engaged in a confrontation with the journalist, J. David Goodman reported for the New York Times.

In the Daily News, Caitlin Nolan and Joe Kemp reported that “Jennings’ “stunned mother,”Ellen Wilson, ” said she couldn’t believe Jennings was named a suspect in the vicious attack.”

A police spokeswoman told Journal-isms that the description of the suspect came from a witness. The assailant was described as “Hispanic male, 20s, approximately 6’0″ tall, weighing 160lbs., with short black hair. He was last seen wearing black jeans and a black jacket.” The description also listed the getaway car’s Mississippi license plate.

“Hispanic” describes an ethnicity, not a race.

In 2002, when he was at the Poynter Institute, Keith Woods, now vice president for diversity in news and operations at NPR, wrote, “Racial identifiers do carry information — about geography, about bloodlines, about heritage. But they don’t describe much of anything.

“What, for example, does a Hispanic man look like? Is his skin dark brown? Reddish brown? Pale? Is his hair straight? Curly? Course? Fine? Does he have a flat, curved nose or is it narrow and straight? Telling the public that he’s 5-foot-8, 180 pounds, with a blue shirt and blue jeans says something about the person’s appearance. But what do you add to that picture when you say Latino?”

Moreover, as Gary L. Wells wrote in 2007 on the Nieman Watchdog website, “Mistaken eyewitness identification is the most common cause of the conviction of innocent people.“

“Cross-racial identifications are much less reliable,” Ezekiel R. Edwards, the Mayer Brown Eyewitness Fellow at the Innocence Project, said at the time. He said those who have regular contact with people of other races are better at identification, but too many do not have that kind of interaction.

The lesson for journalists, Edwards told Journal-isms then, is to be skeptical when reporting eyewitness accounts of crimes.

Charles V. Pittman, Diversity Advocate, to Retire in March

Charles V. Pittman, senior vice president for publishing at Schurz Communications and one of the most committed diversity advocates in the news business, announced his retirement on Wednesday.

Pittman said in a brief note to colleagues, “I announced my retirement from Schurz Communications effective March 31st. It has been a great run and I have enjoyed my career thoroughly. I subscribe to the philosophy that it is better to leave too soon than to stay too long. So that is what I am doing. Thanks for allowing me to spend my last 33 years in this business with most of you.”

Schurz, based in Mishawaka, Ind., publishes 11 daily and eight weekly newspapers in medium and small markets with a combined circulation of nearly 225,000. It also publishes shopping publications in California, has 10 television stations, owns 13 radio stations and operates three others, and owns three cable companies, a phone directory and a printing company.

Fewer than a handful of African Americans are at the senior vice president level at mainstream newspaper companies.

In 2008, the Associated Press Managing Editors awarded Pittman its Robert C. McGruder Award for his diversity leadership.

As the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education noted at the time, “Pittman, who won in the over-75,000 circulation category, ‘has been a persistent and influential voice for diversity and industry change, particularly among the people who lead newspaper companies,’ said Jeanne Fox-Alston, vice president of the Newspaper Association of America Foundation. ‘Through actions and words, he has leveraged the access that he has to industry leaders, and at his company has set an example for others to follow.’

“Pittman chairs the diversity committee of the Newspaper Association of America, sits on the Associated Press and American Press Institute boards of directors and will be president of the Inland Daily Press Association in 2010.

“In August, UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc., announced that Schurz is one of only three media companies working with it to increase the number of senior newsroom managers of color through the ‘Ten by 2010’ initiative. Each summer, Schurz Communications newsrooms also host a dozen multimedia journalism interns from the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute. And Schurz filled several full-time positions in recent years with graduates of another Diversity Institute journalism-training program. . . .”

Race Missing From President’s Diagnosis of Inequality

“In what was characterized by Business Week as a jump off for his ‘last chance to get something done,’ President Obama gave a sweeping State of the Union address last night in which the issues of income inequality and economic opportunity took center stage,” Imara Jones wrote Wednesday for Colorlines.

“For more than an hour Obama urged action on the minimum wage, education, manufacturing, small business help, infrastructure and job training which together he said would reverse the trends that have made the United States the most unequal developed country on the planet. Unfortunately, there was a fundamental element missing from the president’s diagnosis of inequality and his prescription for it: race.

“To be fair the president did give some nods in the economic portion of his talk to race. Obama stated that he is ‘reaching out to some of America’s leading foundations and corporations’ as part of unnamed effort ‘to help more men of color…reach their full potential.’ What this meant exactly was unspecified. He singled out Michelle Obama’s College Opportunity Summit whose goal is to ‘reduce inequality in access to higher education.’ Additionally his push for a $10.10 minimum wage if fully implemented by Congress will lift three million people of color out of poverty.

“Yet Obama’s announcement that he will unilaterally raise the minimum wage for all low-wage workers currently employed by companies with government contracts, as The Wall Street Journal points out, will only affect several thousand employees. That’s because it only covers those in new federal contracts, not the 200,000 minimum-wage workers in existing ones.

“But the key issue with Obama’s speech is that it inaccurately attributed growing income inequality and declining economic opportunity to ‘massive shifts in technology and global competition.’ But the truth of the matter is that Washington has changed the economic rules of the road over past 30 years in a way that’s amped up racial inequity and fueled economic disparities. And until we acknowledge the pivotal role that race plays in driving economic inequality, the gap is likely to widen. . . .”

Stand-Alone Unity Convention Ruled Out for 2016

A convention that includes only the remaining members of Unity: Journalists for Diversity — the Asian American Journalists Association, the Native American Journalists Association and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association — has been ruled out as a possibility for 2016, David Steinberg, the Unity president, said Wednesday.

He spoke in a conference call held to answer questions about the alliance from members of the participating associations. 

No decision has been made about 2016, Steinberg said. The coalition is seeking to lay the groundwork for cooperation with other groups and is reaching out to organizations such as the Society for Professional Journalists and the American Society of News Editors.

“Everyone agrees that having [only] the three remaining alliance partners is not the way to go,” Steinberg said. “It probably does not offer as much as partnership with another organization might.”

Leaders of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which each pulled out of Unity citing financial and governance issues, have discussed having a joint convention in 2016.

Attendance at Unity’s 2012 convention, its first without NABJ, was down sharply from previous conferences.

Paul Cheung, AAJA national president, reiterated that “AAJA has no intention of leaving Unity or disbanding Unity” but said AAJA would continue to revisit the question. The call, which began at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, lasted slightly less than half an hour after attracting relatively few callers.

Egypt to Try 20 From Al Jazeera on Terrorism Charges

“Egypt said 20 journalists, including four foreigners, working for Al-Jazeera will face trial on charges of joining or aiding a terrorist group and endangering national security — an escalation that raised fears of a crackdown on freedom of the press,” Sarah El Deeb reported Wednesday for the Associated Press.

“It was the first time authorities have put journalists on trial on terrorism-related charges, suggesting authorities are expanding the reach of a heavy-handed crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood since the military’s ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi on July 3.

“A trial date was not set, and the full list of charges and names of defendants not yet issued. But they are known to include three men working for Al-Jazeera English — acting bureau chief Mohammed Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian, award-winning correspondent Peter Greste of Australia and producer Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian. The three were arrested on Dec. 29 in a raid on the hotel suites in which they were working.

“The charges are based on the government’s designation last month of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Authorities have long depicted the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network as biased toward Morsi and the Brotherhood. . . .”

Sochi Coverage Overlooks Russian Human Rights Abuses

“On October 17, 2013, Roman Kuznetsov, a construction worker from the Russian city Orenburg who had traveled to Sochi to help build the media center for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, sewed up his lips using a needle and black thread, staging a one-man protest against his employer’s failure to pay his wages for months,” Elena Milashina and Nina Ognianova wrote Tuesday in a special report for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “On a blank sheet of paper, Kuznetsov wrote: ‘Please help get the reporters’ attention! I am not from around here.’

“Exploitation of migrant workers is but one abuse that has stained preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi in February, along with corruption, environmental damage, eviction of local residents with little or no compensation, bankruptcy of local businesses, and adoption of laws contrary to the Russian Constitution, local journalists and activists told CPJ.

“According to these sources and the international organization Human Rights Watch, which has done extensive research and advocacy on human rights in Russia ahead of the Games, these violations are known to local law enforcement, the Russian government, the national justice system, and the International Olympic Committee, or IOC — the Lausanne, Switzerland-based organizer and designated custodian of the Olympic principles of equality and human dignity through sports.

“But the abuses have gone largely uncovered by the Russian news media. The majority of news outlets, particularly those controlled directly by the state, prefer to cover Sochi the way they would cover a deceased man: in a positive light or not at all. CPJ research shows that both official repression and self-censorship have restricted coverage of sensitive issues in the run-up to Sochi — the most expensive Games in Olympic history, according to news reports.

“The information vacuum comes amid a generally poor climate for press freedom across Russia. . . .”

FCC Shift Could Nix Armstrong Williams’ Station Purchase

A decision by the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission to review so-called “shared service agreements” — under which stations share such functions as news or advertising — could threaten plans by commentator Armstrong Williams to acquire a third television station.

Williams reported in November that he had won approval from the FCC to buy WEYI-TV, an NBC affiliate in the Flint/Saginaw/Bay City/Midland, Mich., market, and WWMB-TV, a CW affiliate in the Myrtle Beach/Florence, S.C., market, near Williams’ hometown of Marion, S.C.

The stations were acquired by Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., and turned over to Williams under shared service agreements. Opponents see such arrangements as big companies’ end runs around ownership limits.

Williams also plans to acquire WMMP-TV in Charleston, S.C., from Sinclair. 

The arrangements enable Williams to be one of the last African Americans, if not the last, to own a full-power, commercial television station. In December, the Roberts Broadcasting Co. of St. Louis reached a settlement to sell its three remaining television stations.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler addressed the shared-service issue at a conference of opponents of media consolidation this month in Oakland, Calif. “Shared services agreements that allow broadcasters to use sidecar companies to control key aspects of multiple TV stations in the same market will be coming under closer scrutiny at the FCC, Tom Wheeler, the agency’s new chairman, said late Thursday,” Doug Halonen of TVNewsCheck reported on Jan. 10.

Williams’ lawyer, Colby May, told Journal-isms by email Tuesday, “Ch. Wheeler’s decision to closely review all shared service agreements may impact Armstrong’s pending agreement for Charleston, although his previous agreements for Myrtle Beach and Flint are not. They closed months ago and are in effect. Because Armstrong is hands on and produces local Public affairs and community programming — like Town Halls — we are guardedly optimistic even the Charleston deal will be ultimately approved.”

Williams told Journal-isms by telephone that he hopes the FCC realizes that “every arrangement is different” and that “when we make our presentation, the FCC will have no choice but to look at us individually and not all together.”

In his case, the arrangement “really benefits minorities,” Williams said. He said he had already produced 10 or 12 local programs in Myrtle Beach and initiated a community discussion on domestic violence, which is scheduled for a town hall meeting on March 29. A Jan. 20 town hall discussed the Affordable Care Act.

Hispanic Team Anchors English-Language Newscast

“Orlando ABC affiliate WFTV is pairing Nancy Alvarez and Jorge Estevez for its evening newscasts on sister station WRDQ,” Merrill Knox reported Monday for TVSpy.

“Alvarez will join Estevez as co-anchor of WRDQ’s 10 p.m. newscasts Sunday through Thursday. The pair will also anchor WFTV’s 6 and 11 p.m. newscast on Sundays. According to WFTV, they are the first Hispanic team to anchor an English language newscast in Orlando. . . .”

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