In Reversal, Google Pledges to Disclose Diversity Figures
“Prodded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Google said Wednesday that it will reverse a long-held stance and reveal publicly how many minority workers are employed by the giant Internet company, in a report next month,” Brandon Bailey reported for the San Jose Mercury news.
” ‘We’re working very hard. We’re not doing enough and we can do better,’ said David Drummond, the company’s chief legal officer, after Jackson attended Google’s annual shareholder meeting and urged top executives to provide more opportunities for blacks, Latinos and other minorities. . . .”
Bailey also wrote, “Google has three female directors, and Drummond, the company’s fourth-highest paid officer, is black. Drummond said Google is working with historically black colleges to improve their computer-science programs, but he acknowledged, “we need to do a lot more.”
“Along with other valley companies, Google has balked at divulging its minority hiring statistics, arguing that the information is a competitive secret. ‘We’ve come to the conclusion that we’re wrong about that,’ Drummond said. . . .”
Google held a “day-long summit with media industry leaders” on Thursday at the Newseum in Washington. Co-sponsors included the Online News Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, International Center for Journalists, National Association of Black Journalists and Asian American Journalists Association.
Next on Net Neutrality: Contentious Sitdown Expected
“Following the Federal Communications Commission’s vote to move ahead with new open Internet rules that could allow for some companies to pay for faster delivery of their content online, calls of protest have sprouted from Internet companies and activists alike,” Alex Wilhelm reported Friday for TechCrunch.
“What’s next? FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will head to [Congress] on May 20 for a sitdown that should prove contentious. When it first became known that Wheeler would testify in front of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, it was before it was clear what the proposed net neutrality rules would be and when they would be voted on. . . .”
The New York Times’ Edward Wyatt wrote of the FCC’s 3-2 decision, “While the rules are meant to prevent Internet providers from knowingly slowing data, they would allow content providers to pay for a guaranteed fast lane of service. Some opponents of the plan, those considered net neutrality purists, argue that allowing some content to be sent along a fast lane would essentially discriminate against other content. . . .”
- Wayne Bennett, the Field Negro: Goodbye “net neutrality, and more craziness from Florida.
- David Carr, New York Times: Warnings Along F.C.C.’s Fast Lane
- Free Press: The Fight to Save the Internet Is ON F.C.C. Backs Opening Net Rules for Debate
MTV Finds Youth Lack Historical Perspective on Race
“One oft-employed generalization about The Kids These Days is that they’ve grown up free from the legalized discrimination and racial neuroses of older generations, and they will live in a more multicultural world with less racism. But do we even know if that’s true?,” Gene Demby wrote Thursday for NPR’s “Code Switch” blog.
“MTV, that reliable weather vane of popular youth culture, wanted to find out. It polled a nationally representative sample of people ages 14 to 24 about their views on bias and identity.
” ‘The first thing we wanted to just find out was how much our audience knew about bias, talked about bias and cared about bias,’ Luke Hales, the lead researcher on the survey, told me. The poll was conducted ahead of MTV’s Look Different project, which is meant to help young people deal with bias and discrimination in their daily lives.
“What the pollsters found is that many values are shared across all racial groups, like a strong sense of the importance of equality. But they also found that the respondents seemed to lack historical perspective, which might not be too surprising because of their ages. Another reason they may not have much historical perspective? Race isn’t something they talk about very much. (More on that in a minute.) . . .”
- Lewis W. Diuguid, Kansas City Star: Continued segregation is failure of Brown ruling
- Meagan Hatcher-Mays, Media Matters for America: As 60th Anniversary of Brown Approaches, Right-Wing Media Undermine And Distort Its Legacy
- Shereen Marisol Meraji, NPR “Code Switch”: Before ‘Brown V. Board,’ Mendez Fought California’s Segregated Schools
- Noah Rothman, mediaite.com: Melissa Harris-Perry: ‘You’re Not Getting a Full Education’ in a Single-Race Classroom
- Amanda Zamora, ProPublica: Discussion: School Resegregation 60 Years After Brown v. Board
Michael Sam Panned for Agreeing to Oprah Reality Show
“Michael Sam becoming the first openly gay player to get drafted into the NFL was a big deal,” Jason Hughes wrote Thursday for the Wrap. “It became an even bigger one when he signed with Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network to film a reality show that follows him through training camp as he tries to get a spot on the St. Louis Rams team. Perhaps too big. . . .”
Hughes also wrote, “OWN cameras were already rolling at Michael Sam’s house when he received the call that he’d been selected in the seventh round by the St. Louis Rams. His agent, Cameron Weiss, admitted on ‘NFL Live’ that the Rams didn’t know about the planned documentary before they drafted Sam. . . .” Columnists were disapproving of Sam’s move.
- Jenice Armstrong, Philadelphia Daily News: World didn’t end with Michael Sam’s celebratory kiss
- James Causey, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The kiss heard around the NFL
- Mike Huguenin, NFL.com: Michael Sam documentary won’t be shot at Rams facility
- Drew Magary, Deadspin: Michael Sam Is Doing A Reality Show, And That Sucks
- Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe: Michael Sam’s reality show circus
- Rick Sanchez, Fox News Latino: Rick Sanchez: Michael Sam’s Behavior Was An Affront To The NFL Culture
- Jason Whitlock, ESPN.com: The right message
Photo Editor Harry Walker Confirms End of His McClatchy Job
Harry E. Walker, who as photo director of the McClatchy-Tribune Photo Service is the highest ranking black journalist at the McClatchy-Tribune News Service, confirmed Friday that he will be leaving when Tribune Publishing, which owned 50 percent of the service, takes full ownership.
“As part of the acquisition, Washington, D.C.-based MCT will consolidate operations in Chicago and become part of Tribune Content Agency, a syndication and licensing business operated by Tribune Co. since 1918,” Robert Channick wrote last week for the Chicago Tribune.
But Walker told Journal-isms by email, “No, myself nor anyone from my photo staff will be going to Chicago. To go to Chicago, you must reapply for new photo positions. No relocation assistance will be offered either.
“Most of the photo staff’s last day at MCT will be July 3rd, with one editor remaining until August 1.
“One photo editor that already worked for Tribune Company in the Los Angeles bureau will remain with the company. He will be the sole remaining photo staff member once the transition takes place.”
Who is remaining in the bureau? “Who is remaining?
“Only 4 people from our innovations department. Approximately 40 others are being laid off, which is the remaining staff,” Walker wrote.
As for his own hopes, “I would like to continue in photo editing as Director of Photography at major to mid-sized daily newspaper. Second choice would be to work in public relations or as a media coordinator,” Walker wrote.
The Tribune acquisition put the jobs of five journalists of color at risk.
Secrecy Over Executions Could Be First Amendment Issue
“Clayton Lockett didn’t do what he was supposed to do: die quickly and quietly,” Jonathan Peters wrote Monday for Columbia Journalism Review.
“Lockett was the Oklahoma death-row inmate scheduled to be executed April 29. But when the execution began, something went wrong: After being declared unconscious, Lockett moved his head from side to side, lifted his head and feet off the gurney, tried to say something, groaned and mumbled while writhing, opened his eyes, and attempted to get up, all before dying of an apparent heart attack less than 30 minutes later, in the execution chamber.
“Lockett’s gruesome death occurred in the full glare of a media spotlight — in part because of concerns that Oklahoma had impeded oversight and threatened certain constitutional rights by shrouding in secrecy, like an increasing number of states, key parts of its capital punishment system.
“The spectacle prompted Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin to postpone a second execution scheduled for the same night, that of Charles Warner, who subsequently asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to put off his execution “until evidence can be provided … [that] Oklahoma can carry out a humane, constitutional execution.” The state agreed last week to a six-month delay. Meanwhile, the state public safety commissioner is conducting an (independent?) investigation of Lockett’s cause of death, focusing on whether the execution team complied with protocols and how to improve those protocols.
“While Oklahoma reviews its practices, I’ll offer a suggestion to the Sooner State: Be less secretive about how you kill people. The state has been unwilling to answer even basic questions about the source of the lethal-injection cocktail used in Lockett’s execution. But when the government is mum about how it exercises what the legal scholar Vincent Blasi called its ‘unique capacity to employ legitimized violence,’ it’s not only a shameful failure of government transparency — it may actually violate the First Amendment. . . .”
- Charles M. Blow, New York Times: Eye-for-an-Eye Incivility (May 4)
- Jarvis DeBerry, NOLA.com | the Times-Picayune: Murder suspects at least deserve competent lawyers
- Deron Lee, Columbia Journalism Review: How the First Amendment challenge to lethal-injection secrecy came together
- Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Firing squads are better than this (May 7
- Mary Sanchez, Kansas City Star: Botched execution should be death knell of capital punishment (May 2)
- Barry Saunders, News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.: 135 years ago, NC had its own ‘clumsy execution’
- DeWayne Wickham, USA Today: Crass murder shifts my view on executions (May 6)
Short Takes
- “CBS is in the ‘early stages’ of developing a 24-hour digital news network, CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves says,” Chris Ariens reported Thursday for TVNewser. “Appearing on Bloomberg today, Moonves told Trish Regan the digital channel will be ‘an exciting alternative to cable news.’ BuzzFeed first reported in October that CBS was considering the idea of an all-news network. . . . CBS News president David Rhodes, who is a veteran of Fox News and Bloomberg TV, is heading up the effort. . . .”
- “For weeks we’ve been writing about the legacy of Barbara Walters,” Chris Ariens wrote Thursday for TVNewser. “This afternoon, that legacy came to life in the finale of her final “The View,” taped at ABC’s West Side studios, and airing tomorrow. TVNewser was there as more than two dozen women TV news anchors packed the stage, each introduced by Oprah Winfrey, among the guests on Walters’ final show. One by one, they greeted a stunned Walters, beginning with Diane Sawyer.” Among the women were Robin Roberts, Elizabeth Vargas, Deborah Roberts, Natalie Morales, Gayle King, Juju Chang, Lisa Ling, Tamron Hall and Connie Chung. “You’ll never see this again, folks,” Whoppi Goldberg said as the show wound down. “Only for Barbara.”
- “This week, the big broadcast networks announced their schedules for the 2014-15 TV season during the industry’s ‘upfront’ presentations to advertisers,” Eric Deggans wrote Friday for NPR. “And there are 10 new series featuring non-white characters and/or show creators — numbers we haven’t seen since the days when everybody was trying to clone The Cosby Show. . . . I’ve got some ideas for how network TV can avoid fumbling away its progress by getting diversity on television right. . . .”
- Filmmaker Annabel Park reads a passage about the Los Angeles riots as part of “One Nation With News for All,” an exhibit on ethnic media that opened Friday at the Newseum in Washington. .” Others reading on film from historic newspapers are Donna Walker, Gregg Deal, Brandon A. Benevides and Richard Prince (video).
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, national correspondent for the Atlantic and blogger for its website, has written the cover story for the magazine’s June issue on the case for reparations. He previewed the article Friday on his blog.
- “Lawyers defending three al-Jazeera journalists on trial in Egypt have been asked to pay more than £100,000 [$168,170] to access secret video evidence on which the prosecution’s case depends, the court heard on Thursday,” Patrick Kingsley reported Thursday for Britain’s Guardian. “In a separate development, it emerged that a fourth al-Jazeera journalist jailed in a second case has been sent to solitary confinement despite his health failing due to an ongoing 114-day hunger strike. . . .”
In Austin, Texas, “Hema Mullur will join Walt Maciborski, Chikage Windler, and Bob Ballou as anchor of the KEYE News 5pm, 6pm, and 10pm weekday newscasts,” KEYE-TV announced on Tuesday. “Hema (Hey-ma) Mullur comes to KEYE from KDVR in Denver where she anchored the 10 p.m. Fox news as well as the 7 p.m. on CW for the past three years. . . .” “I am of Indian (South Asian) origin,” Muller told Journal-isms by email.
- Kent Harrell, news director for the past 20 months at WFRV-TV in Green Bay, Wis., told FTVLive he turned in his notice week and is headed to an news director job in Springfield, Ill., Scott Jones reported Thursday.
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