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Sterling Story Related to Whiteness of Press

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Why Wasn’t Owner’s History Given Greater Play Earlier?

Consumer Groups Fear “Fast” and “Slow” Internet Lanes

Journalists of Color at Each Major Fellowship Program

Garry D. Howard Rejoins Former Owner of Sporting News

Judith Cummings, Retired N.Y. Times Writer, Dies at 68

N.C. Station Offers 3 Hours Daily of Black-Targeted News

Short Takes

Why Wasn’t Owner’s History Given Greater Play Earlier?

The saga of Donald Sterling‘s racist remarks, which could cost him ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers, put black commentators in the spotlight in a way rarely seen recently. At least two related the NBA owner’s situation to the low numbers of journalists of color or of reporters covering the “minority affairs” beat.

In one of several television appearances, the New York Times’ William Rhoden said on CNN’s “New Day” on Tuesday:

“Whenever I walk into a press box and I see no black reporters, or when I walk into a newsroom or any corporate office, and I see no black people, essentially the owners are saying the same thing [as Sterling]. They’re just not getting caught. They’re saying ‘we don’t respect you, black people, we’re not gonna hire you.’ One thing I would suggest a lot of the NBA players do, and black NFL players — when you get a chance, walk through your respective team offices and find out how many people that look like you are in the marketing department, in the sales department … You will be stunned. So, let’s not get so carried away by this, what’s kind of like an easy fastball to hit, and really dig down into the systemic racism in your organizations – who, in fact, pay you a lot of money. I think this a great launching pad, but let’s not just stop here at the easy part.”

In sports journalism, “the grade for racial hiring practices for APSE newspapers and websites last year remained a C+, the same as in 2010,” Richard E. Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, reported for Associated Press Sports Editors last year. Lapchick, who is white, also said, “if you look like me, you have a great chance for upward mobility in the sports departments of newspapers and dot-coms in the United States and Canada. If you are a woman or person of color, even in 2013, your chances are extremely limited.”

As John Branch reported for the New York Times, “The National Basketball Association on Tuesday handed a lifetime ban to the longtime Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, an extraordinary step in professional sports and one intended to rid the league of Mr. Sterling after he was recorded making racist comments.

“Commissioner Adam Silver said the N.B.A. would try to force Mr. Sterling to sell the Clippers, fully expecting to get the necessary three-quarters approval from other team owners. It would be a rare, if not unprecedented, move for a North American professional sports league — made even more unusual by the fact that the N.B.A. is punishing Mr. Sterling for comments he made in a private conversation.

“Mr. Sterling was also fined $2.5 million, the largest that league bylaws would allow, but a small percentage of his estimated $1.9 billion fortune. . . .”

On alldigitocracy.org, guest blogger Barry Cooper noted the demise of the minority affairs beat at many news organizations.

“Back in the day, when newspapers had full staffs of local editors and reporters, there was this beat called the ‘minority affairs beat,’ ” Cooper wrote. “Okay, maybe the title sucked, but it was the minority affairs reporter’s job to know what was going on in minority communities.

“The minority affairs reporter would know everybody at the local chapter of the National Urban League, the NAACP, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and so forth. In those days, the L.A. Chapter of the NAACP would not have gotten away with this nonsense of ‘selling’ awards to Donald Sterling.

“An enterprising reporter looking to get a story on the front page of The Los Angeles Times would have sniffed out the payola, given Sterling’s racist reputation, and pitched the story to his city editor. The Times would have outed the L.A. NAACP long before now — and maybe Sterling would have been kicked out of the NBA years ago. . . .”

Leon Jenkins, president of the NAACP’s Los Angeles chapter, resigned Thursday amid the criticism.

Reporting on the Sterling affair also revealed a misunderstanding by many in the media of the term “African American.” When TMZ broke the story of Sterling’s remarks, the excerpts quoted his antipathy toward black people. Many media outlets said Sterling’s remarks were about “African Americans.”

While African Americans are certainly among the world’s black people, it is doubtful that Sterling’s reservations were limited only to those blacks who are American.

Consumer Groups Fear “Fast” and “Slow” Internet Lanes

“Will the Internet become the superhighway of the rich?” columnist Juan Gonzalez asked April 24 in the Daily News in New York.

“Imagine an expensive toll road — one that radically reduces the chances for future Amazon, Google and Netflix outfits — and you’ll get the idea.

“That’s how consumer groups describe the stunning policy reversal by the Obama administration on net neutrality, the [principle] that all Internet content be treated equally.

“Under a proposal announced this week by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, giant broadband providers like Comcast and Verizon will be able to charge more for transmitting the content of some customers at faster speeds. . . .’ “

The activist group Free Press began a campaign to raise $15,000 in 15 days to help defeat Wheeler’s proposal. On Friday, it said it had raised $9,347.34, which is 62 percent of the goal.

Journalists of Color at Each Major Fellowship Program

Seven of the 12 journalists chosen for John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships for 2014-15 at Stanford University are people of color, as are five of the 12 awarded Nieman fellowships at Harvard University, according to spokesmen for those programs.

James G. Bettinger, director of the Stanford program, identified the seven as Zena Barakat, a native of Lebanon; Charla Bear, an enrolled member of Tanana Village, an Alaska Native tribe; Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz, a native of Venezuela; Jeremy Hay, whose mother is Chinese; Yvonne Leow, daughter of Chinese immigrants and a vice president of the Asian American Journalists Association; Beatrice Motamedi, who is of Iranian descent; and Akoto Ofori-Atta, who is African American.

The Knight program, which has outstripped the other fellowship programs in recent years in selecting journalists of color, attracted 139 applicants, Bettinger said, of whom 16 self-identified as African American, 15 as Latino, 25 as Asian (including Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander) and four as Native American or Alaska Native.

Of the 12 American journalists chosen for Nieman fellowships, two are African American, one is Native American, one is Asian American and one is Iranian American, according to Ellen Tuttle, communications officer for the Nieman program. “Additionally our 2014 Visiting Fellows include one African American and one Asian American.” Tuttle said she could not name the journalists of color “due to our confidentiality rules.” However, the list includes black journalists Alicia Stewart of CNN and Dawn Turner Trice of the Chicago Tribune, and Asian American journalist Henry Chu of the Los Angeles Times. Farnaz Fassihi of the Wall Street Journal made a video discussing her Iranian American heritage.

The Knight-Wallace Fellowship program at the University of Michigan also announced its next class, but director Charles Eisendrath did not respond to a request to identify how many are American journalists of color. Those chosen include Tracy Jan, a reporter in the Boston Globe’s Washington bureau who is Asian American.

Meanwhile, the Marquette University College of Communication announced that its next class of journalists for the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism will include veteran Marjorie Valbrun, who is Haitian-American and plans to examine the economic outcomes of welfare reform.

Herbert Lowe, director of Journalism for Social Change at the school, told Journal-isms by email, “This is a new journalism fellowship and our goal is for people to mention in the same breath as Harvard, Michigan and Stanford when it comes to enabling seasoned journalists to spend a year away from their newsroom, only instead of refreshing and rebooting, ours enables the best journalists to return to their newsrooms with a Pulitzer Prize-caliber series of stories.”

In another development, Ann M. Simmons of the Los Angeles Times and Maria Zamudio of the Chicago Reporter were among seven journalists awarded Social Justice Reporting for a Global America fellowships from the International Federation of Journalists.

Simmons said by email, “I plan to travel to Russia to examine ‘The Black Experience in post-Soviet Russia’ by exploring the growing plight of people from Sub-Saharan Africa and assessing the status of Russian-born black citizens.” Zamudio intends to write “about the sexual exploitation Central American migrant women face in Mexico while traveling North to the United States,” according to the announcement.

Also, on Thursday, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism named 10 Knight-Bagehot Fellows in economics and business journalism for the 2014-2015 academic year.

Garry D. Howard Rejoins Former Owner of Sporting News

Garry D. Howard, who left the Sporting News in December after nearly three years as editor-in-chief, has joined the Sporting News’ previous owner, American City Business Journals, as director of corporate initiatives.

“In this newly created position, Howard will be responsible for a number of critical programs across the entire spectrum of ACBJ operating units and corporate departments. His efforts will touch on recruiting and talent development, training, possible content initiatives and similar important programs,” according to an internal note from president and CEO Whitney Shaw. “Howard will report directly to Kirk and me,” a reference to Kirk Shaw, executive vice president and chief financial officer. “A former president of the Associated Press Sports Editors [a]ssociation, Howard left Sporting News several months after ACBJ entered its joint venture with Perform Group. Prior to joining Sporting News in January 2011, he was assistant managing editor/sports of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. . . .”

Howard, 54, told Journal-isms, “This is a wonderful opportunity for me to use all of the skills and experience I have acquired over my journalism career in a strong fashion, while helping to elevate the already high profile of American City Business Journals.” Asked why he was returning to his former employer, Howard referred to Whitney Shaw and messaged Journal-isms, “He was very persuasive and said it would be a great transition for me at this point in my career. He felt he felt I could help immediately with helping to find/attract awesome candidates for hire across all levels.”

Judith Cummings, Retired N.Y. Times Writer, Dies at 68

Judith Cummings, the first black woman to be a domestic bureau chief at the New York Times, died in her sleep Tuesday at her Detroit home, a cousin, Charlene Warner Coleman, told Journal-isms on Friday. She was 68.

Cummings had been sick with a “very bad cold,” and a medical examiner concluded that she died of natural causes, Coleman told Journal-isms by telephone.

Biographical information was not immediately available, but Paul Delaney, a former Times senior editor who worked with Cummings, said his colleague’s biggest accomplishments were covering the New York City financial crisis and becoming bureau chief for the Times in Los Angeles.

“She was a dedicated journalist who would not stop until she got to the center of the story,” her cousin said. Coleman said she expected a memorial service in June, likely in Washington. Cummings grew up in Detroit and returned to the family home after her parents died, Coleman said.

Cummings was also a Journal-isms subscriber.

N.C. Station Offers 3 Hours Daily of Black-Targeted News

“While its past success rate is poor and its viability is uncertain, television news targeted to African-American viewers is an idea that’s being tried — both locally and nationally — once again,” according to the headline above an article Tuesday by Diana Marszalek of TVNewsCheck. “WBTV Charlotte, N.C., is producing three hours a day of news that airs on its Bounce network subchannel. Other diginets, including Soul of the South and the Black Television News Channel are also working on daily national newscasts.”

This columnist is quoted saying, “Journalists of [color] have gotten their hopes up plenty of times when people announce new ventures, and they have learned that the proof is in the pudding. . . .”

Tom Jacobs, news director of Soul of the South, is also quoted. “Technology has made news production cheaper and quicker, he says. What’s more, he adds, ‘there are a whole lot of experienced people who have been downsized out of the business, and many are people of color.

” ‘I am going to give them a home.’ ”

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