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Michelle Obama, Top Cover Girl

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Unbroken String of Successful Magazine Images

Israelis Take Out Frustration on Foreign Correspondents

Israel, Hamas Jostle to Control Social Media Narrative

Anchor Swims Rio Grande to Make Immigration Point

Race and Policing, Urban Violence Endure as Issues

Kenneth B. Noble, Former N.Y. Times Reporter, Dies at 60

Twitter Joins in Disclosing Low Numbers of Blacks, Latinos 

Photographer’s Forceful Images Prompt Internet Rage

Smith, Bayless in Shoutfest Over Gay Player

Short Takes

Unbroken String of Successful Magazine Images

“Michelle Obama has become a top magazine cover celebrity, arguably the top celebrity in terms of breadth and frequency of appearance,” Robert Newman wrote last week for Folio:, which covers the magazine industry.

“I can’t think of anyone else who makes such a stylish splash every time she appears on a cover, and who also appears on so many different types of covers. I’m sure Baby Boomers who still adore Jackie Kennedy will disagree, but for my money Obama is by far the all-time leading First Lady in terms of iconic magazine cover appearances.”

Newman, most recently creative director of Reader’s Digest, was analyzing the Obama portrait on the cover of the August issue of Essence.

He also wrote, “I was part of a team that photographed her for the cover of Reader’s Digest back in 2011. I’ve talked with a number of art directors who have photographed her for covers, and their experience seems to be universal. You get the option of setting up in a handful of rooms in the White House, including the First Lady’s office.

“There’s no advance notice of what she is going to wear, and her personal team handles her styling and makeup. No one gets more than a half hour with her (and often less). In fact, during the Reader’s Digest shoot I kept a stopwatch running on my phone that I kept flashing at her assistant every time they tried to wrap up the shoot before our promised half hour.

“Still, within those parameters she’s a gracious, cooperative subject who definitely knows how to work the camera and create brilliant cover images. That’s one of the big reasons she’s had so many smart and diverse magazine cover shoots. Obama’s list of magazine covers in the past five years includes Vogue (twice), People, Reader’s Digest, Parade, Parents, Good Housekeeping, AARP, Condé Nast Traveler, More, Glamour, Ladies’ Home Journal, Prevention, Ebony and Better Homes and Gardens. The list is nearly endless. She’s even been illustrated on the cover of The New Yorker. And she rarely seems to repeat the same clothing designer, which is quite a feat! “

Newman also wrote, “Obama has mastered the art of creating iconic magazine cover images. There’s not another person in politics who conveys such a sense of power, style, grace, beauty, intelligence and sex appeal, except of course, her husband Barack. While Barack Obama, as with other Presidents, has aged considerably with the job, Michelle looks even better and more energetic than she did in 2008. I would go so far as to say that I don’t see any celebrities of any kind who have been able to create such a powerful set of cover images in such a short period of time.

“Obama has dozens of solo magazine covers to her credit, and that doesn’t even include the ones she’s been on with Barack, or teamed up with other people, including her mother and Jill Biden. Even more impressive is that this unbroken string of successful covers has come during a time of fierce and heated political opposition to the politics of the Obama Administration, and by extension, to Michelle Obama. This cover shows, once again, that no one commands a magazine cover like Michelle Obama.”

Israelis Take Out Frustration on Foreign Correspondents

“As the death toll mounts and passions spike, the Foreign Press Association in Israel condemned on Wednesday what it called ‘deliberate official and unofficial incitement against journalists’ who are reporting on the fighting in Gaza,” Robert Mackey reported Wednesday for the New York Times. “That includes ‘forcible attempts to prevent journalists and TV crews from carrying out their news assignments,’ the association said.

“The statement was released as some Israelis, apparently incensed by what they see as reporting on the Israeli offensive in Gaza that is overly sympathetic to Palestinians, have started to take their frustration out directly on foreign correspondents.

“One example cited by the press association was an assault Tuesday on a reporter for BBC Arabic, Firas Khatib, who was shoved during a live report from the city of Ashkelon, a frequent target of rockets fired from Gaza.

“The irate Israeli man who burst into the live shot called Mr. Khatib a ‘son of a whore’ during the assault. A BBC spokesman said in an email, ‘Firas was unharmed and will continue reporting as normal.’ . . .”

Israel, Hamas Jostle to Control Social Media Narrative

“Within minutes, videos from the front lines in Gaza have made it onto Facebook . . . and Twitter . . . streams shared around the world, with Israel and Hamas jostling to control the conflict’s social narrative,” Orr Hirschauge, Nicholas Casey and Lisa Fleisher wrote Wednesday for the Wall Street Journal.

“Both sides have long used media — and in recent conflicts, social media — in increasingly sophisticated [ways] as part of a strategy to sway outside opinion. In the current conflict, Israel is using a ballooning staff of professional public-relations officers skilled in social media and a near-real-time war zone video center. The Israeli Defense Force’s main Twitter account has more than 327,000 followers.

“Hamas has been honing its own message on Twitter, while increasingly bringing responsibility for the effort in-house, instead of relying on outside activist groups to get its message across. Both the military and political arms of the organization operate accounts. The Arabic account of the military arm has attracted more than 58,000 followers.

“The group has also learned some of the flexibility that goes along with social campaigns. In one well-publicized instance, an Israeli woman responded to a Hamas tweet in Hebrew, correcting its grammar. Hamas wrote back to explain how the mistake was made and thanked her. Hamas now posts reports of civilian casualties on Web pages, Twitter and Facebook pages in English, Arabic and Hebrew.

” ‘It’s not just about taking pictures of dead people,’ said [Ihab al-Ghussein], a longtime Hamas member and now a spokesman in the Gaza government. ‘We’re now telling [the story of] this family, and how they were eating breakfast when they were killed.’

“The conflict has rivaled the World Cup for traffic on Twitter, according to statistics from Twtrland, an Israel-based startup . . .”

Anchor Swims Rio Grande to Make Immigration Point

“Television news anchor Jorge Ramos has a well-documented talent for cutting through the clutter — and for luring the spotlight to his handsome, silver-haired, voluble self,” Lloyd Grove wrote Tuesday for the Daily Beast.

“So it’s hardly surprising that on tonight’s installment of America with Jorge Ramos — his 10 p.m. weeknight program on the eight-month-old Fusion cable channel, a joint venture of ABC News and Univision, where he also co-anchors the Spanish-language nightly news and hosts a Sunday public affairs program — he’ll be shown swimming the muddy, sewage- and garbage-filled Rio Grande between the Texas city of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo on the Mexican side.

” ‘This is a crisis that won’t go away,’ Ramos told The Daily Beast, explaining why he took the plunge to bring attention to the issue of immigration reform and the thousands of unaccompanied Central American children who’ve been making their away across the United States border with Mexico, often at night in the turbid river, where 33 people have drowned since October. ‘Eventually we will find out who shot down the plane. Eventually — there’s no doubt about it — there has to be a truce between the Palestinians and Israelis. But the immigration crisis will stay with us.”

The stunt did not meet with unanimous acclaim. “Rebeldes” wrote Wednesday for the Latino Rebels site under the headline, “We Watched Jorge Ramos Swim Across Río Grande & We Still Don’t Get Why He Did It.” The critique said, “The whole segment felt wrong and unnecessary. It belittled the harrowing experiences migrants —especially young migrants from Central America— face every day. . . .”

Race and Policing, Urban Violence Endure as Issues

“The past few days have brought a whole lot of important (and pretty sobering) news around race and policing,” Gene Demby wrote Wednesday for NPR’s “Code Switch” blog.

“Here are some of the biggest stories that have landed on our radar.

“Three-quarters of all stops by Newark police deemed unconstitutional.

“The tensions between residents and the police in Newark, N.J., are long-running. Like a bunch of other big cities in New Jersey, Newark has laid off a big chunk of its police force in recent years, and violent crimes, like carjackings, have been climbing. Some police say they are overworked. But many civilians have complained that they are regularly subjected to police harassment and mistreatment. . . .

“A video of a fatal encounter goes viral and inflames old tensions

“A seven-minute video that captured the death of Eric Garner, a New York City man who died after a confrontation with the police, was wildly shared over the Internet over the past week, and reignited old debates about race and police brutality in the city.

“The cellphone video, which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, shows Garner arguing with police officers. One of the officers who attempted to subdue Garner appeared to put him in a chokehold, before several other officers wrestled Garner to the ground. Garner can be heard yelling, ”I can’t breathe!’ over and over, before he eventually falls silent. (You can see the video of the encounter here. Fair warning: It is very disturbing.) . . .

“Study finds federal ‘fake’ anti-drug ratings focus on minorities . . .“

Meanwhile, media outlets began to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the racial rioting of 1964, set off in many cases by clashes with the police. Riot locations included New York; Philadelphia; Rochester, N.Y.; Elizabeth, Paterson and Jersey City, N.J.; the Chicago suburb of Dixmoor, Ill.; and Philadelphia.

Kenneth B. Noble, Former N.Y. Times Reporter, Dies at 60

“Kenneth B. Noble, a New York Times reporter who covered business and finance in Washington and civil war in Africa, and who headed the newspaper’s Los Angeles bureau during the O. J. Simpson trial, died on Thursday in Gainesville, Fla.,” Paul Vitello reported Wednesday for the New York Times. “He was 60.

“The cause was congestive heart failure, his wife, Dr. Lorna McFarland, said. Noble told Journal-isms a year ago that he had been diagnosed with terminal heart problems.

“Mr. Noble graduated from Yale in 1975 and from the University of Southern California Law School in 1979, but he had no journalism experience when he was selected by The Times in 1980 to be trained in its minority internship program.

“After two years in the New York headquarters, Mr. Noble was sent to Washington, where he covered financial and economic news and soon developed a specialty in articles on finance and law. He wrote about commodities fraud, insider trading and the savings and loan crisis, and about the government regulators who caught — or had overlooked — the wrongdoing.

“Mr. Noble, who had attended a segregated grade school in Gainesville, Fla., told family and friends that the most deeply affecting assignment of his career was the Africa beat. As head of the West Africa bureau of The Times from 1989 to 1994, he covered the two dozen countries along the continent’s west coast, including Ghana, the country from which he believed his ancestors were probably taken by slave traders in the 18th or 19th century. . . .”

“After leaving The Times in 1997, Mr. Noble taught journalism at the University of Southern California and at the University of California, Berkeley. About four years ago, he returned to Gainesville from Los Angeles, where he had lived for many years. . . .”

Richard Carnell, a childhood friend, told Journal-isms by telephone that there likely would not be a memorial service until Noble’s son Eric, who is leaving for South Africa, returns in a year. However, condolences may be sent to Noble’s wife, Dr. Lorna McFarland, at her office, 2840 Long Beach Blvd., Suite 315, Long Beach, CA 90806.

Twitter Joins in Disclosing Low Numbers of Blacks, Latinos

“Twitter on Wednesday joined a growing number of technology companies in upping transparency and issuing a diversity report on employees,” Nick Statt reported Wednesday for CNET. “The outlook: predominantly white males, as to be expected in an industry grappling with deeply rooted gender and ethnicity imbalances.

“Twitter is 70 percent male overall, yet 90 percent of ‘tech’ jobs are filled by males. The male-female split for non-tech jobs is 50-50. Twitter leadership is 79 percent male.

“By tech jobs, Twitter is referring mostly to engineering, while non-tech jobs refer to marketing and public relations, human resources, sales, and other roles not requiring traditional computer science skills or programming chops.

“As for ethnicity breakdown, Twitter is mostly white and Asian, at 59 percent and 29 percent respectively. That ratio is mirrored across tech, non-tech, and leadership roles almost uniformly. Hispanic and Latino employees make up only three percent of Twitter’s workforce and for black employees, only two percent.”

On Thursday, ColorOfChange.org, which calls itself the nation’s largest online civil rights group, joined with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition to demand that Twitter publicly disclose its demographic data and hold a forum to discuss Silicon Valley’s diversity problem.

Janet Van Huysse, Twitter’s vice president of diversity and inclusion, wrote Wednesday, “We are keenly aware that Twitter is part of an industry that is marked by dramatic imbalances in diversity — and we are no exception. By becoming more transparent with our employee data, open in dialogue throughout the company and rigorous in our recruiting, hiring and promotion practices, we are making diversity an important business issue for ourselves.’ . . .”

Meanwhile, Andrew Zaleski wrote Tuesday for Fortune about Code2040, a program in which forging connections between college undergrads and Silicon Valley tech firms is central to its mission.

Zaleski cited one key reason: “To even be considered for its summer fellowship program, a student must be black or Hispanic, two demographics vastly underrepresented in the high-tech industry. . . .”

Smith, Bayless in Shoutfest Over Gay Player

“Sports talk shows have the capacity to be just as inane as cable news,” Tina Nguyen wrote Tuesday for Mediaite, “and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith just hit a new one: he and Skip Bayless fell into a heated debate about Tony Dungy’s comments about gay NFL draftee Michael Sam.

“Smith argued that Sam’s sexuality was a problem, one which could impact the success of the St. Louis Rams, while Michael Vick, whose return to the NFL after being convicted for dogfighting cause massive controversy, was just a ‘nuisance.’

” ‘Whether it’s a religious perspective, or taking his quote verbatim, [Dungy] happens to be right!’ Smith said. ‘Somebody going to jail for a dogfighting scandal, serving his time in a prison, and then being in an NFL locker room, is not necessarily something that will cause a distraction in the eyes of players, compared to somebody that is gay in a locker room. We don’t like to say that, but it’s just the truth.’ . . .” [video]

Short Takes

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