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Does TMZ Deserve Kudos After Rice Suspension?

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Debate Over Who Was Gutless and Who Unethical

Huffington Post M.E. Leaves Amid Harassment Investigation

Pam Oliver Says Age Might Have Been Factor in Her Removal

AP Finds Gap Between Latino Communities, Number of Latino Cops

Why Blacks Are Still Obama’s Most Faithful Supporters

La Opinión Blasts Obama Delay on Immigration

Days, New Haven Register Honored for Diversity Leadership

Donte Stallworth Explains Interest in National Security

Short Takes

Debate Over Who Was Gutless and Who Unethical

“Running back Ray Rice was cut by the Baltimore Ravens Monday and suspended indefinitely by the NFL after TMZ Sports released a video of him hitting his then-fiance (now wife) Janay Palmer in February,” as Jonathan Kuperberg reported for Broadcasting & Cable. In addition to raising questions about domestic violence and the NFL’s tardiness in acting decisively, Monday’s actions sparked commentary contrasting TMZ with its more traditional counterparts.

“When the first video of Ray Rice dragging his then-fiancee off a casino elevator like a slab of meat appeared, I thought, ‘God bless TMZ,‘ ” television critic David Zurawik wrote for the Baltimore Sun.

“With TMZ’s release of video today showing him punching Janay Palmer twice and knocking her to the floor, I say, God bless TMZ again and again.

“You can read what I wrote in February here under the headline: ‘Ray Rice and how TMZ counters the great American hype machine.’ “

Zurawik did not stop there, adding Monday, “TMZ did the job the mainstream sports media failed to do in showing us the ugliness of this incident. And don’t talk to me about paying for video. Everybody does it in one form or another today, from the networks to the cable channels to the biggest mainstream web outlets in the world.

“I wonder how all the fine Baltimore fans who gave Rice a standing ovation when he ran on the field at M&T Bank Stadium before an exhibition game against the San Francisco 49ers last month are now feeling about their actions in the wake of this video?

“I wonder how all the local hosts on sports radio and newscasters on local TV affiliates who swallowed the Ravens shameless spin all summer and reproduced it on their shows are feeling today. Was it worth it to compromise yourselves this way so as to not have Ravens management glaring at you when you came over to cover the team?

“I wonder how Ravens management is feeling today. I wonder if there is anyone in that organization who tried to minimize or bury what Rice did who can now look the women in his or her life in the eye and not feel a need to apologize. And this goes from Steve Bisciotti, Ozzie Newsome and John Harbaugh on down.

“Forget Roger Goodell. He’s pathetic. The national media did to him what we didn’t do here in Baltimore: Publicly shame him for the joke two-game suspension he levied against Rice. If Goodell has any shame, it’s time for him to think about an exit strategy.

“There is a ton of sociology packed into what happened on that elevator. Domestic violence, women’s rights, gender and power are at the top of the list. That’s not my beat.

“But the way in which the media contribute to our slavish worship and adolescent emulation of the men who play and run professional football is my concern as a media critic. So is the role media can play in public shaming.

“I think members of the local media need to all look in the mirror today and do a gut check on how they reported and analyzed the Rice story. Really, if you have any integrity, you need to do it — especially if your station or you are somehow financially connected to the Ravens. . . .”

It was just in April that TMZ broke the story of the racist rant by Donald Sterling that led to the NBA forcing him to give up ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers. TMZ posted an audiotape then showing Sterling urging his now-former girlfriend not to bring black people to the games, not to be seen with blacks and not to post pictures of herself with such African Americans as Magic Johnson.

Yet despite these coups, few in the mainstream media are rushing to embrace TMZ’s newsgathering tactics.

The Sports Task Force of the National Association of Black Journalists held a panel at its recent convention that asked, “It is no longer enough to just cover your beat. Sports stars are pop culture celebrities and, in a few cases, pop culture superstars. What are the lines by which we define the new normal? How does a site such as TMZ Sports change perspective on what it means to cover athletes off the court?”

The task force might have added, who are TMZ’s most ardent fans? In December, TMZ posted a video in which hip-hop entrepreneur Suge Knight said he liked the N-word better than “African American,” and in early results from its informal online poll, the website’s viewers agreed with Knight.

Kim Kardashian called out TMZ for being racist against her and Kanye West as an interracial couple,” recalled student journalists at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif. They added, “In 2012, TMZ interviewed the Mexican rock group Mana and asked them a racist question, ‘American rock bands get underwear thrown at them; do you get underwear thrown at you or Tapatio packets?’ . . .”

Media critic Howard Kurtz wrote after the Sterling exclusive, “I’m not always a fan of TMZ’s methods. The site makes a practice of checkbook journalism. If it paid for this tape, as it has for other scoops, that’s unethical. But it has caused such an explosion — an NBA investigation, denunciation by Magic, Michael Jordan, LeBron James and others, the withdrawal of a planned NAACP award — that few are likely to care. And I admire the news-slash-gossip machine that Harvey Levin has built.”

Levin, TMZ founder, has not disclosed how TMZ obtained the Rice elevator tape. But in a 2013 story in Broadcasting & Cable, members of Levin’s team say they simply work harder.

” ‘When everyone else stops at making 10 phone calls, we make 100,’ says executive producer Evan Rosenblum. ‘We just keep digging and digging.’

“As for the common accusation that TMZ pays for tips, ‘I have no problem paying for tips,’ shrugs Levin, ‘but we hardly do it at all. If someone calls and says, ‘I have gone through court files in a certain city and there’s a big lawsuit in which you’d be interested,’ I don’t mind paying them for their work. But we have to verify every story that we do.

” ‘We absolutely will not pay for interviews, however,’ he continues. ‘When you pay for an interview, you are telling someone to goose it, to say something salacious, even if what they are saying is not true. A lot of traditional network news operations will pay someone $100,000 for things like a picture or a photo album, but what they are really paying for is an interview. When you do that, how do you know what’s coming out of their mouth is true?’ . . . ”

The Baltimore Sun editorialized Monday that despite the TMZ scoop in the Rice case, it shouldn’t have taken TMZ to get Rice out of the game.

The Sun editorial began, “What did the Ravens see and when did they see it?” Those are the central questions now that they have released Ray Rice from his contract hours after a video showing the 206-pound running back punching then-fiancée, now wife, Janay Palmer with his left fist so forcefully that it knocked her off her feet, into the handrail at the side of the elevator they were riding, and then to the floor.

“Had team officials seen that video before Monday morning? An NFL official said the league had not seen it before Commissioner Roger Goodell handed down a laughable two-game suspension against Mr. Rice, though it is hard to believe that the website tmz.com was able to get the footage and the NFL was not. The Ravens, so far, aren’t saying. But the answer is important, not because it will tell us how just was the Ravens’ reaction but how cynical it was.

“The video does not provide us with any new facts about this incident. . . . Yet until today, the league, the Ravens and many fans were willing to suspend their good judgment about what we must have known intuitively to be true. . . .”

Huffington Post M.E. Leaves Amid Harassment Investigation

“In May, The Huffington Post announced that 29-year-old managing editor Jimmy Soni would step down to focus on launching the progressive website’s India edition in New Delhi,” J.K. Trotter wrote Thursday for gawker.com. “As of last month, however, he was no longer employed by the company. What happened?

“A Huffington Post spokesperson recently told Capital New York that Soni had left the site to write a book about the mathematician Claude Shannon and consult for his former employer on the side. But two current HuffPost staffers and six former ones tell us a very different story: Prior to his sudden departure, Soni found himself under investigation by lawyers from HuffPost’s corporate parent AOL for sexually harassing young female employees.

“Rumors concerning Soni’s behavior toward staffers have been traded among media circles since he came onboard the site in early 2012. His impressive résumé — Duke, McKinsey, a stint as Arianna Huffington’s ‘chief of staff’ — only accelerated their spread.

“Those rumors gained new traction when, in April of this year, AOL lawyers began arranging interviews with employees in New York City, according to several staffers with knowledge of the inquiry. The topic of discussion: Whether they had seen Soni display inappropriate and sometimes harassing behavior toward certain female staffers. . . .”

Soni could not be reached for comment. Huffington Post spokeswoman Lena Auerbuch told Journal-isms by email, “As a matter of policy, we do not discuss personnel matters.”

Pam Oliver Says Age Might Have Been Factor in Her Removal

In a first-person essay co-written with Essence Magazine, Fox Sports broadcaster Pam Oliver said she knew her standing as the network’s top NFL sideline reporter was at risk when management brought in Erin Andrews from ESPN two years ago,” Richard Deitsch wrote Thursday for Sports Illustrated.

” ‘Even before my bosses told me what was going on, there had been rumblings that my days as a sideline reporter were coming to an end,’ Oliver wrote in an essay with Jeannine Amber. ‘Two years earlier, Fox Sports had hired Erin Andrews, a high-profile sideline reporter from ESPN, and I knew they hadn’t brought her on just to be a benchwarmer. Colleagues, and even coaches and players, would come up to me and say things like, ‘Boy, you’re handling this well. You’re really a class act.’ But I let the rumors roll off my back. Without official confirmation about a change in my position, I decided I was going to do my work like I always had. Still, I was humiliated.’

“In July SI.com broke the news that Oliver was moving to the network’s No. 2 team (with Kevin Burkhardt and John Lynch) for her 20th NFL broadcasting season. As SI reported, last April, Fox Sports executives traveled to Atlanta, where Oliver is based, to tell her in person that she would no longer hold the job that has been her professional life for two decades. Oliver said that while she respected Fox Sports president Eric Shanks and executive vice president of production John Entz delivering the news in person, she was stunned when they initially informed her that not only was she being removed from Fox’s No. 1 NFL team, but also that she was being taken off the NFL sidelines completely in 2014. . . .”

Deitsch also wrote, “While Oliver said she did not think her demotion was race-based, she did tell Essence and SI.com that age might have been a factor. She turned 53 last March. ‘The business is very demographic-oriented,’ Oliver wrote. . . .”

AP Finds Gap Between Latino Communities, Number of Latino Cops

“The killing of an unarmed black 18-year-old by an officer in a nearly all-white police department in suburban St. Louis refocused the country on the racial balance between police forces and the communities they protect,” Eileen Sullivan and Jack Gillum reported Sunday for the Associated Press.

“But an analysis by The Associated Press found that the racial gap between black police officers and the communities where they work has narrowed over the last generation, particularly in departments that once were the least diverse.

“A much larger disparity, however, is now seen in the low number of Hispanic officers in police departments. In Waco, Texas, for example, the community is more than 30 percent Hispanic, but the police department of 231 full-time sworn officers has only 27 Hispanics.

“Across the United States, there are police departments that still look like Ferguson, Missouri, a largely white police force protecting a mostly black community. . . .”

The story also said, “The AP compared Census Bureau data about a community’s racial and ethnic makeup with staffing surveys by the Justice Department for more than 1,400 police departments from 1987 and 2007, the most recent year for which the data are available. The AP then analyzed how different a department’s racial makeup was from the population it served.

“The AP found that since 1987, black representation on police forces has improved, such as in New Orleans and in East Orange and Plainfield, New Jersey.

“At least 49 departments had a majority Hispanic population, yet more than half of the police department was white. That’s nearly five times as many departments than in 1987, when the largest disparities disproportionately involved black police officers and residents. . . .”

Why Blacks Are Still Obama’s Most Faithful Supporters

“Our president was in town on Labor Day,” Eugene Kane wrote for Sunday’s print edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “As usual, his most faithful supporters were excited to see him.

“I said ‘our president’ because he’s the guy who was elected twice to the White House, handily winning Wisconsin both times. For much of America, an official visit from the sitting U.S. president always has been considered something special whether you voted for him or not.

“These days, with this particular president, though, nothing seems typical.

“Some Republicans in Wisconsin took the opportunity to suggest Barack Obama‘s appearance was purely political in nature while also suggesting Democratic candidate for governor Mary Burke was deliberately avoiding being seen in public with him because of his low approval ratings.

“(Reportedly, Obama will return to the state and campaign with Burke sometime before November.)

“In Wisconsin, Obama’s approval rating as president (48%) dipped below 50% for the first time during his term in office. But that kind of poll likely didn’t reflect the feelings of the largest and most passionate segment of his constituency, the one group that likely will never view him in a negative light regardless what he does the remainder of his term.

“I’m talking about the African-American voters who approve of Obama’s performance in office and, due to his unique role in their lives, probably always will.

“Contrary to what some conservatives — both white and black — say derisively about Obama’s widespread support from black voters, it’s not about seeing him as a savior or a magician who can improve their lives with a simple wave of his hand. The main problems facing the black community — unemployment, crime, dysfunctional families, lack of economic opportunity — remain the same after Obama took office, often to the same degree of seriousness.

“The difference: This time the guy in charge was one of ‘us.’ . . .”

Kane also wrote, “When it’s time to celebrate the first female president or the first Hispanic-American, Asian-American or first openly gay president, I suspect more people will ‘get’ what’s so special about Obama for black folks. . . .”

La Opinión Blasts Obama Delay on Immigration

“President Obama’s decision to put off any executive action on immigration until after the November elections, write editors of La Opinión, reflects a victory by nativist Republicans in politicizing the immigration debate and shows that in Washington, undocumented immigrants are seen as expendable,” New America Media reported in an editor’s note on Sunday.

“At this point, editors write, it is hard to believe that there will be any executive action after the election.”

The La Opinión editorial begins, “In the end, it is another promise followed by disappointment that will cost about 70,000 deportations, and that is in the best of cases. That’s if the new deadline is met for President Obama to take executive action on immigration to ease deportations after the legislative elections.

“The rationale for the new delay is explained as an action to prevent politicizing the issue prior to the November elections. Unfortunately, it is too late to fulfill that objective.

“The decision’s delay by the White House is already a Republican victory in politicizing the immigration issue. The Democratic president who last June assured the public that by the end of the summer he would adopt ‘recommendations without further delay’ in what would be an executive order on immigration, yesterday announced through anonymous sources that there would be yet another delay.

“It is hard to say which is worse: the delay or the way it was announced. . . .”

La Opinión is based in Los Angeles.

Donte Stallworth Explains Interest in National Security

“Donte Stallworth, the former NFL player hired to a fellowship at the Huffington Post, says that journalists Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald ‘catapulted’ his interest in national security reporting,” Erik Wemple wrote Thursday for the Washington Post.

” ‘I befriended Glenn, and we’ve been pretty close for a year now and same thing with Jeremy Scahill.’ Last year, Stallworth, whose playing career spanned 11 years with teams such as the New Orleans Saints and the Cleveland Browns, last year co-hosted the Miami premiere of Scahill’s film ‘Dirty Wars.’

“Now Stallworth will be working the beat for the Huffington Post, though he’s not sure what topics he’ll focus on. ‘As I start to do some projects and start working with the guys and gals over there at Huffington Post, then we’ll get down to some specifics,’ he says.

“As for Stallworth’s experience in writing stories, he cited two pieces that he’d done for the lefty website Think Progress — one on Michael Sam and NFL ‘distractions’ and another on Robert Griffin III. According to Stallworth, that’s the extent of his published archive.

“But that doesn’t include Twitter, of course, a platform on which Stallworth has been prolific — perhaps too prolific. . . .”

Short Takes

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