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ABC News Moves on Diversifying Decision Makers

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Five of Color on Track to Green-Light Stories, Ideas

Recovering From Beating, Arts Journalist Sees Hate Crime

Online News Outlets Said to Create 5,000 Jobs

FCC Chair Says His Plan Means More Minority  Ownership

Indian Country Scoffs at Team Owner’s Announcement of Foundation

Jack Marsh to Retire After Career at Gannett, Freedom Forum

Paula Madison Meets, Films Chinese Part of Her Family

Short Takes

Five of Color on Track to Green-Light Stories, Ideas

ABC News, responding to the need to diversify its executive ranks, has completed the first year of a fellowship program in which three journalists of color learned producer skills, has three others in the program and is preparing for its third year, according to a spokeswoman for the program.

The network is satisfied that the on-air ranks are diverse, but that the executive ranks need work, Sarah J. Hodd, a producer in the talent and development operation at the network, told Journal-isms on Wednesday. “Ultimately, these are the people who are green-lighting,” Hodd said. “We definitely aim to expand it. we can only see bright things for the future.”

Jim Avila, senior national correspondent at ABC News and White House correspondent for Fusion, the ABC/Univision joint venture, noted the network’s progress in a forum Monday night at International House in New York, “What’s Not Being Covered by the Media . . . and Why?”

“Up to about a year and half ago, you could go into any of those rooms” where decisions are made, Avila said, and “there would be all white males.”

A study of network decision-makers released in 2008 by the National Association of Black Journalists found that of the executive producers at ABC, six were white, two were Asian American and none was African American, Native American or Hispanic.

CBS had eight white executive producers, one Hispanic, and no African Americans, Asian Americans or Native Americans.

NBC had seven white executive producers, and no African American, Hispanic, Asian American or Native Americans at that level.

“The NABJ study showed little diversity among an elite group of managers (executive producers) who oversee news from sunrise until prime-time,” NABJ said.

Hodd said those in the year-long ABC News Fellows program rotate among four places at ABC News per year, depending on the individual fellow. The idea is “to give them all the skills they need,” she said. Hodd would not name the journalists, saying she did not want the competition to poach them. However, she said that in the first year, one was Latina and two were African American, and the second- year the fellows were an Arab American woman, an African American man and an African American woman. Applications are still being accepted for the third year.

“That’s where the power is,” Avila said of the producer ranks. Of the first three participants, one is now a digital reporter in Washington, a second is on the production staff of “20/20” and a third left the company. The two who remained were recent journalism school graduates, Hodd said.

As he has previously, Avila cited “the Faceless Victims of the California Fires,” describing the plight of undocumented farmworkers in the path of wildfires that burned thousands of acres around San Diego, as an example of what it can mean to have diversity among decision makers. “It became a fine line they had to walk between staying safe from smoke and flames, keeping their field jobs and steering clear of border patrol while in search of food and safety,” the National Association of Hispanic Journalists said of farmworkers in honoring Avila’s piece in 2008. Avila said the farmworkers’ plight was explored “because there [was] a Hispanic in the room,” referring to himself.

“It’s not that they don’t want to do these stories, they just don’t think of them,” Avila said. ABC’s coverage went on to win two national Emmy Awards that year.

Avila said then that then-ABC News President David Westin and Executive Vice President Robert Murphy acknowledged the lack of diversity in the top producer ranks —- “largely white and largely male” — at a meeting with the network’s journalists of color at the 2008 Unity: Journalists of Color convention. The executives agreed then to set up the mentor program, he said.

In other discussion, Kathy Chow, executive director of the Asian American Journalists Association, said that the Heartland Project, a joint initiative led by AAJA, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association and the University of Nebraska to increase media coverage of minorities and lesbian, gay, bisexual people in Nebraska, has been able to call attention to uncovered stories. Chow said 104 languages are spoken in Nebraska, and that while elsewhere Bhutanese sustain high suicide rates, “in Nebraska, the rates are low. What is Nebraska doing?”

Chow also said the project was welcomed by a Nebraska newsroom manager whom she did not name. The manager said no one in his newsroom spoke Spanish and thus reporters were reluctant to do stories involving the growing Latino community. “”I really need you to push,” the manager said. “They’re not pushing themselves out of their comfort zone.”

Janine Jackson, program director for Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, said that many social justice stories go uncovered because reporters view them as depressing and because they fear being dismissed as advocates, among other reasons. “The issue is one of framing,” Jackson said. Too many such issues are placed in a partisan context and there is too little emphasis on reporting on solutions when the problem is examined.

Dean Baquet, managing editor of the New York Times, pointed to that paper’s recent “Invisible Child” series on Dasani, an 11-year-old homeless girl, to say that news organizations can find sophisticated ways to cover poverty that go beyond simply stating that it exists.

Baquet also challenged the notion that Americans don’t care about foreign news, pointing to coverage of the missing Malaysian airliner and the invasion of Crimea as examples.

The event was moderated by Calvin Sims, president of International House, formerly program officer at the Ford Foundation who helped to fund journalism organizations concerned with diversity.

Recovering From Beating, Arts Journalist Sees Hate Crime

Randy Gener says “Hate is the only thing that comes to mind” as the motive for his assault.(video)

“In a fundraiser at a Filipino restaurant in Brooklyn, Randy Gener made his first public appearance after his brutal attack in Midtown Manhattan nearly two months ago ,” Don Tagala of the Philippines’ ABS-CBN North America Bureau wrote from Brooklyn, N.Y., on Tuesday.

“ ‘I’m okay, convalescing, recovering,‘ Gener said. ‘It’s been about two weeks almost since getting out of the second hospital.’

“The award-winning Filipino-American writer, editor, and artist was found lying on the ground unconscious just a block away from his home. He was left for dead after he was reportedly assaulted by a suspect identified by the police as 24-year-old Leighton Jenning of Queens, N.Y.

“Jennings was arrested, arraigned on misdemeanor assault charges and was later released on his own recognizance.

“After undergoing a couple of brain surgeries, the scars on Gener’s head are now visible reminders of the severe head trauma he suffered on the reported assault last Jan. 18.

“ ‘Broke my head, this thing here flew, my brain [swelled],’ Gener said. ‘They put something back to repair me, sewed me back on, and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt like I was a Maori Aborigines who could have starred opposite Mel Gibson or be the daughter or son of Tina Turner in Madmax Beyond Thunderdome because that’s what I felt like. That’s what I look like.’

“While investigators have ruled that the alleged attack on Gener is not a hate crime, Gener believes otherwise.

“ ‘Why would he do this?’ he asked. ‘I have no idea. I never worked with him, I never appreciated [what] he’s ever written, or whatever he does. It was completely random. I was going home, and next thing you know he attacked me. So hate is the only thing that comes to mind.’

“Gener says his insurance does not cover all of his medical expenses.

“So far, an online campaign has raised more than $71,500 with a goal of raising $85,000 to pay for the rest of Gener’s medical bills. . . .”

 

Online News Outlets Said to Create 5,000 Jobs

“How many reporting jobs have new online news organizations created?,” Brian Stelter asked Wednesday on CNN.com.

“Pew Research Center has tried to put a number on it: 5,000.

“The center’s annual State of the News Media report, released on Wednesday, includes a first-of-its-kind tally of jobs at 30 big websites, like Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post, and 438 smaller startups.

” ‘In a significant shift in the editorial ecosystem, most of these jobs have been created in the past half dozen years, and many have materialized within the last year alone,” write the authors of the 2014 report, who credit the startups with bringing ‘a level of energy to the news industry not seen for a long time.’

“The Pew report cites hiring sprees at digitally-oriented companies like Gawker, Business Insider, First Look Media, Vox Media, and Vice Media. But it emphasizes that ‘the growth in new digital full-time journalism jobs seems to have compensated for only a modest percentage of the lost legacy jobs in newspaper newsrooms alone in the past decade.’

” ‘The vast majority of bodies producing original reporting still lie within the newspaper industry,’ the authors write. ‘But those newspaper jobs are far from secure.’ While reliable data for 2013 is not yet available, the report says that full-time newsroom employment dipped by 6.4% in 2012, ‘with more losses expected for 2013.’

The report noted, “Dramatic changes under way in the makeup of the American population will undoubtedly have an impact on news in the U.S, and in one of the fastest growing demographic groups – Hispanics – we are already seeing shifts,” but Pew said it would address people of color in more detail in separate reports.

Overall, Amy Mitchell wrote in her overview, “In many ways, 2013 and early 2014 brought a level of energy to the news industry not seen for a long time. Even as challenges of the past several years continue and new ones emerge, the activities this year have created a new sense of optimism – or perhaps hope – for the future of American journalism. . . .”

 

FCC Chair Says His Plan Means More Minority Ownership

“FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told federal lawmakers Tuesday that his proposal to crack down on joint sales agreements is likely to result in more minority station ownership in the United States because it will lower the prices of TV stations currently held in JSAs,” Doug Halonen reported Tuesday for TVNewsCheck.

Joint sales agreements are arrangements in which one station sells advertising time for another station in the same market.

“ ‘One of the results [of the proposed JSA crackdown] … will be the opening up of broadcast licenses for minorities, women, small entrepreneurs, because they’re currently being sucked off the market,’ Wheeler said.

John Eggerton added for Broadcasting & Cable, “When commissioner [Ajit] “Pai offered up anecdotal evidence of JSA’s benefitting the public interest by allowing a station to deliver the only Spanish-language newscast in his home state of Kansas, Wheeler said bad actors had been hiding behind the skirts of good ones, and that nothing in his proposal would prevent that sort of beneficial sharing arrangement.

“Wheeler said that limiting the JSAs would increase diverse ownership opportunities currently being ‘sucked off the market’ by sharing arrangements, while Pai said it would decrease it. It couldn’t decrease it much, however, since there are only four African American-owned TV stations, a point they both concede. . . .”

In the Pew Research Center’s “State of the Media 2014” report released Wednesday, Deborah Potter of Newslab and Katerina Eva Matsa reported on growing media consolidation, a trend opposed by the journalist associations of color as costing newsroom jobs.

“Many of the 290 TV station purchases in 2013 occurred as group acquisitions by some of the largest owners, building their portfolios of stations even more. The Tribune Co. emerged from bankruptcy to make the richest single deal, spending $2.73 billion to acquire 19 stations from Local TV Holdings. Gannett completed a $2.2 billion transaction to buy 17 stations from Belo Corp., almost doubling Gannett’s TV holdings and giving it national reach.12 Twelve stations changed hands when Media General merged with New Young Broadcasting.

Potter and Matsa added in a different summary, ” More than one out of four U.S. television stations that run local news get it from someone else . But the majority of those stations, 175 from the 2012 analysis, never produced their own news. That list includes stations affiliated with networks like CW and MyNetworkTV, and about 60% of all Fox affiliates that carry local news. If not for shared service agreements, these stations would air no local news. . . .”

 

Indian Country Scoffs at Team Owner’s Announcement of Foundation

“With a four-page letter released late in the day on Monday, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder has taken his stubborn defense of the team’s name to a new level,” the Indian Country Today Media Network reported on Tuesday.

“The early reaction from Indian country: We’re not buying it.

“The campaign to quell controversy over the name of the Washington Redskins football team has in recent months included photo ops with Navajo code talkers and a highly suspect Native pro-Redskins grassroots campaign. Now Snyder has announced the creation of the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation.

“Snyder’s letter begins by affirming that he has no intention of ever changing his team’s problematic name, referring to a letter he wrote to fans in the fall: ‘I wrote then–and believe even more firmly now–that our team name captures the best of who we are and who we can be, by staying true to our history and honoring the deep and enduring values our name represents.’

“The Redskins owner then describes his campaign of outreach to American Indian communities, and cites facts about poverty, health, and standard of living in Native communities that everyone in Indian country is all too familiar with.

“Snyder’s conclusion: Clinging to his team’s racial-slur name is a noble gesture, but isn’t enough to solve Indian country’s problems. Or as he puts it: ‘It’s not enough to celebrate the values and heritage of Native Americans. We must do more.’ . . .”

Meanwhile, the NPR news department reacted to a March 18 suggestion from ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos that the “Redskins” name “should be avoided in Web headlines and used only infrequently in stories.”

“Here’s the current guideline,” spokesman Emerson Brown told Journal-isms. “NPR News does not plan to prohibit the use of the full team name in its sports reporting or in its coverage of the controversy over the name ‘Redskins.’ The team’s name is the name and the organization’s job is to report on the world as it is, not to take a position or become part of the story.”

Jack Marsh to Retire After Career at Gannett, Freedom Forum

Jack Marsh, a diversity and First Amendment advocate as a journalist and executive at Gannett Co., Inc., and the Freedom Forum, announced his retirement in a message to Facebook message on Monday.

“Grateful,” Marsh wrote. “That best captures my feelings today as I conclude a rewarding and fulfilling 43-year media and journalism career. This is my last day of work for the Freedom Forum and in my final assignment as president of the Al Neuharth Media Center. I’ll take a few weeks of vacation, mark my 65th birthday and officially retire on April 30.

“It’s been a privilege to join with other champions of journalism excellence, believers in the First Amendment and passionate evangelists for the truth, fairness, inclusion and diversity. I’m grateful to many and especially to Al Neuharth, who set the lofty standards for the only two companies of my career: Gannett and the Freedom Forum. Thanks to Al and thanks to all of you for the opportunities, the inspiration and the affirmations. Continue the fight. Never forget your dreams.”

Marsh has been reporter, editor and publisher for Gannett newspapers in New York, New Jersey and South Dakota, including executive editor of the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader, president and chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute, Inc., and president and chief operating officer of the Al Neuharth Media Center at the University of South Dakota.

He wrote on Feb. 26, “In appreciation for an abundance of opportunities we’ve enjoyed since moving to our adopted state of South Dakota, Betty and I have committed $50,000 to launch the Jack Marsh Scholarship and Opportunity Fund administered by the University of South Dakota Foundation. With the help of other like-minded folks, we hope to raise about $250,000 over the next five years to continue and build on the great work inspired by Al Neuharth at his alma mater. Donations will grown an endowment at USD, where I was my privilege to be founding director and eventually president of the Al Neuharth Media Center.” Neuharth, former CEO of the Gannett Co., died last year at age 89.

Kevin Abourezk, higher education reporter at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal-Star, wrote on Facebook: “With the retirement of Jack Marsh today from the Freedom Forum, I feel a great burden placed on my shoulders. It’s a feeling every Native, Hispanic and black journalist he mentored and lifted up should feel, knowing one of our greatest advocates and champions is leaving his post. It’s up to us now to find and mentor other minority journalists trying to navigate the world of journalism. We can’t depend on Jack to connect us to training opportunities, job opportunities and other minority journalists. We must depend on each other now. Thank you so much Jack for all you have done to open the doors for countless minority journalists over your long and fruitful career. Happy retirement!”

Short Takes

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