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NBC Returning the Grio to Original Owners

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Revamp to Feature Breaking News Video, Tie to Social Media

Blacks, Whites Divided on Significance of Ferguson

. . . Police Continue to Threaten Journalists

. . . Author Rebuked as He Uses Ferguson to Plug Book

“Black People Don’t Work for Politico”

Asian American Journalists Form Sports Task Force

Short Takes

Revamp to Feature Breaking News Video, Tie to Social Media

NBC is selling the Grio, its African American-oriented website, to its original owners and will create its own “vertical” on NBCNews.com targeting African Americans, according to David A. Wilson, the Grio’s co-creator and founder, and MSNBC spokeswoman Diana Rocco.

Neither would disclose the purchase price. Wilson said by telephone that he would expand the Grio into a video-centric, social media-oriented site while maintaining its ties with NBC News. “I think this is something you’re going to be impressed by,” Wilson said.

Launched in 2009, the Grio was one of the first sites that targeted African Americans and was sponsored by a major media corporation. It followed The Root, which the Washington Post Co. debuted in January 2008. Huffington Post purchased Black Voices and other AOL properties in 2011.

The Grio recorded 18,494,000 U.S. unique visitors in 2013, according to the comScore, Inc., research company, placing it behind WorldStarHipHop.com, BET Networks, HuffPost BlackVoices, MediaTakeOut.com, Bossip.com, and Madamenoire.com among black-oriented websites but ahead of The Root, NewsOne.com and Essence.com.

It is distinguished by its ties to NBC. Joy Reid, now an MSNBC anchor, was Grio managing editor.

Video was always one of its features. The website says, “TheGrio.com is the first video-centric news community site devoted to providing African Americans with stories and perspectives that appeal to them but are underrepresented in existing national news outlets. . . .”

Wilson told Journal-isms that he plans to take that further. His goal is to cover the news via video and distribute it through social media and Grio platforms. “The idea is to get video to the users first,” he said. The videos can be embedded into social media. “It’s the type of video we’re going to create” that will distinguish it, Wilson said, emphasizing “type.” Many news items on social media are not covered by the mainstream media, and the Grio plans to provide that video coverage, Wilson said. He said that he is still lining up investors and that the site will reflect the new vision next year.

A “significant portion” of the Grio’s nine employees, who are not all full-time, will remain, he said. They will relocate from NBC offices but remain in Manhattan. There will “definitely” be job openings for journalists and producers, he said.

“David and Dan wanted to take the site in a broader direction to focus on entertainment and viral video,” Rocco said by email, referring to Dan Woolsey, the Grio’s co-founder and director of operations.

“MSNBC and The Grio will continue to have an editorial partnership centered on breaking news, politics, and business. Later this summer, NBCNews.com will introduce a new vertical with reporting and analysis relevant to the African American community (the site currently features successful verticals for the Latino and Asian Pacific American communities).”

She added, “There will be more to come on the new vertical closer to the launch so please stay tuned.”

The sale is expected to take place next week, Wilson said. News of the impending sale was first reported Thursday by TVNewser.

Blacks, Whites Divided on Significance of Ferguson

Blacks and whites have sharply different reactions to the police shooting of an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Mo., as well as to the protests and violence that followed, according to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center, the center reported on Monday.

“Blacks are about twice as likely as whites to say that the shooting of Michael Brown ‘raises important issues about race that need to be discussed.’ Brown ‘raises important issues about race that need to be discussed.’ Wide racial differences also are evident in opinions about of whether local police went too far in the aftermath of Brown’s death, and in confidence in the investigations into the
shooting.

“The new national survey, conducted August 14-17 among 1,000 adults, finds that the public overall is divided over whether Brown’s shooting raises important issues about race or whether the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves: 44% think the case does raise important issues about race that require discussion, while 40% say the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves.

“By about four-to-one (80% to 18%), blacks say the shooting in Ferguson raises important issues about race that merit discussion. By contrast, whites, by 47% to 37%, say the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves.

“Fully 65% of African Americans say the police have gone too far in responding to the shooting. Whites are divided: 33% say the police have gone too far, 32% say the police response has been about right, while 35% offer no response.

“Whites also are nearly three times as likely as blacks to express at least a fair amount of confidence in the investigations into the shooting. About half of whites (52%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the investigations, compared with just 18 percent of blacks. Roughly three-quarters (76%) of blacks have little or no confidence, with 45% saying they have no confidence at all. . . .”

. . . Police Continue to Threaten Journalists

“Police in Ferguson, Missouri have once again clashed with reporters covering the aftermath of the Michael Brown shooting,” Chris O’Shea reported Monday for TVNewser. “One cop, who was being filmed by local radio journalist Mustafa Hussein, threatened to shoot Hussein if he didn’t stop.

“The cop can be heard yelling ‘Get the fuck out of here! You get that light off or you’re getting shot with this!’

“MSNBC’s Chris Hayes was also threatened by an officer who said ‘Get back! Or next time you’re gonna be the one maced.’

“Three other journalists — Sports Illustrated’s Robert Klemko, The Telegraph’s Rob Crilly and The Financial Times’ Neil Munshi — tweeted that they had been briefly arrested and then released. . . .”

Meanwhile, a St. Louis television station angered police Saturday by showing the home of Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown.” KSDK immediately felt using that video was a mistake and pulled the video of the home from future newscasts and from our web site. We have not used the video since then and do not intend to do so. We apologize to our audience, to the surrounding neighborhoods, to the greater St. Louis community and to the officer for our mistake,” the station said.

. . . Author Rebuked as He Uses Ferguson to Plug Book

For Jason L. Riley, the African American member of the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page, the crisis created by the killing of a black man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., presents an opportunity to plug his new book, “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.”

But Riley is being called on making the connection.

Here’s how the conversation went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday:

“ANDREA MITCHELL: Before we go, I want to ask you about Ferguson, because you’ve written a whole book, ‘Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.’ What we’re seeing in Ferguson certainly shows the disengagement between the local police force and the community.

“JASON RILEY: You could say that. I don’t want to litigate this in the press. But the officer used excessive force. I think he should be prosecuted. But at the same time, let’s not pretend that our morgues and cemeteries are full of young black men because cops are shooting them.

“The reality is that it’s because other black people are shooting them. And we need to talk about black criminality. Blacks are only 13% of the population. But they’re 50% of homicide victims in this country. And 90% of those victims are killed by other black people. We have to talk about that.

“ANDREA MITCHELL: We certainly saw that, the blacks were the victims of the looting as well.

“JASON RILEY: At the same time, the same weekend that this went down in Ferguson, we’ve had 26 shootings in Chicago. But Al Sharpton didn’t head to Chicago. He headed to Saint Louis, because he has an entirely different agenda.

“JANE HARMAN: “Well, he has—

(OFF-MIC CONVERSATION)

“JASON RILEY: — whites —

“JANE HARMAN: “But that is —

“(OVERTALK)

“JANE HARMAN: Obviously he’s talking to everyone.

“ANDREA MITCHELL: “Because he’s actually there on a peace mission today.

“But before I go, I just want to say a word about Mo’ne Davis, because she is showing that throwing like a girl is a great thing to do . . . “

Riley’s name came up again last week when Michael Meyers, president and executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, wrote on Wednesday to the producer of “The Kelly File” on Fox News Channel to complain about its treatment of the “civil rights” aspects of the Justice Department investigation into Brown’s killing.

” . . . the second interview with Jason Riley on the segment was, to say the least, beside the point and quite irrelevant to the subject at hand,” wrote Meyers, who is black. “The interview with Jason turned into another plug for his book — Stop Helping Us — a book that I consider uninformed and misinforming as to ‘black culture’. In the context of a sober discussion about the causes and incidents of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, it was off putting and a crass switching of the topic from that of a victim of police fire to the trite topic and stereotypical treatment of black youths as thugs and louts, they who wear their pants too low.

“Indeed — Jason made that very point on your show as to how these ‘black teens’ ought to dress and behave — as if whites, and Asians and Hispanic youths do not also wear their pants in the same manner. It is a youth thing, not a ‘black thing’ — by the way, assuming that how some teens wear their pants is germane to a sober discussion of unrest over the killing of Michael Brown (by the still unnamed police officer of Ferguson, Missouri).

“It was not germane.”

Meyers was not finished. “This is not the first time ‘The Kelly File’ and other shows on Fox News Channel — such as ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ — has explored and harped on supposed ‘black-on-black’ crime in a diversionary fashion. But, this was surely not the context for such a wild-eyed discussion of ‘black crime.’ Comparing a victim of a police shooting to garden-variety crimes in any community is just ignorant and illogical. I dare say that it is ludicrous.”

At the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates responded Friday to a similar argument about crime advanced Thursday by Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post.

Politico hosted a discussion with journalists and pollsters last month on the 2014 midterm elections and the implications for the 2016 presidential election campaign.(video)

“Black People Don’t Work for Politico”

“Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery said ‘black people don’t work for Politico ,'” Tracie Powell wrote Monday for alldigitocracy.org. “He wasn’t wrong.

“Between dodging rubber bullets, tear gas and arrests in Ferguson, Missouri, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery also made time to take MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to task and later called out Politico for its lack of diversity.

“Politico’s Dylan Byers — a media reporter who has spoken inarticulately about racial and ethnic newsroom diversity — and Kenneth P. Vogel — who covers the confluence of money, politics and influence – were quick to condemn the tweet . . .

“Rather than engage in a Twitter fight, Vogel and Byers should stop acting like there isn’t a diversity problem inside their newsroom. In fact, it’s worse than it was two years ago in that the number of black journalists working at Politico has dropped by half. . . .”

Powell also wrote that when she and Editor-in-Chief John Harris talked in 2012, “six black journalists worked in his newsroom. Now, that number is down to three in a staff of nearly 200. They include: copy editor Robin Turner as well as Darius Dixon and LaRonda Peterson, who both work for Politico Pro, the organization’s premium policy news service. This means there are no black reporters working for the country’s paywall-free premier news service covering Beltway policy and politics. . . .”

Harris did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, but later promised a response. Beth Frerking, an assistant managing editor who handled recruiting and was a liaison to journalist of color groups, left last year to become editor in chief of the National Law Journal and Legal Times.

When Journal-isms asked Harris in November who would assume Frerking’s role, he replied by email, “We have not yet figured out how we are going to divvy up Beth’s responsibilities, including her role in recruiting generally and diversity recruiting specifically, other than that we will have someone owning this important responsibility.”

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists also expressed concern about Politico’s lack of diversity, according to Julio Ricardo Varela, writing Monday for his Latino Rebels site.

New NAHJ President Mekahlo Medina told Latino Rebels by email that “NAHJ is launching a ‘leadership council’ initiative that aims to connect news operation leaders with Latino journalists to fill management roles. It’s those roles that are pivotal in diversifying a newsroom.”

Medina invited Politico to join the initiative and cited a Harris statement that “There’s a particular type of journalist who seems to thrive at our publication….”

“Journalists of color [know] that is code for ‘you are not one of us,’ ” Medina said.

Asian American Journalists Form Sports Task Force

About 25 members of the Asian American Journalists Association formed a Sports Task Force at last week’s AAJA convention in Washington. The group also has a Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Carolyn Hong, coordinating producer of ESPN’s Enterprise Unit, explained by email:

“At the past few conventions, there has been no sports programming — no panels that addressed topics that would interest sports journalists. A group of us started discussing how we could change this. Last year, ESPN’s Director of Diversity and Inclusion (Jackson Davis) — along with some AAJA members (Carolyn Hong, Victoria Lim and Howard Chen) — met with AAJA president Paul Cheung and executive director Kathy Chow to discuss how we could meet the growing interest in sports journalism within our organization.

“After a few discussions, a group of AAJA sports journalists decided to launch the sports task force.” Referring to the National Association of Black Journalists, Hong continued, “I was fortunate enough to connect with members of NABJ’s sports task force, which is a well-established group, and gain their support for our efforts.

“Our mission statement:

“Our mission is to provide a network/forum/voice for Asian-American sports journalists, to develop future sports journalists across multiple platforms through mentorship and scholarship opportunities and to support AAJA by sharing our extensive sports and journalism expertise.

“The task force meeting was held on Friday morning, and the keynote speaker was SportsCenter host Kevin Negandhi. It was a well-attended session, with veteran and up-and-coming sports journalists from across the country and across platforms (TV, print, digital) expressing happiness that there was finally an outlet for them . . .”

In Saturday developments at the AAJA convention:

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