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An “Angry Black Woman” Firestorm

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Questionable Framing of Story on “Scandal” Creator

3 Journalists Among 8 Killed by Ebola-Frightened Villagers

Goodell Promises to Punish Players Who Commit Abuse

Latino Group Ranks NBC First Among Networks on Inclusion

Lighter Asian Americans, Latinos More Likely to Back GOP

Islamic State Video Features Kidnapped Journalist

Solution Offered on Off-the-Record White House Briefings

Whitaker Didn’t Ask Cosby About Sexual Assault Accusations

Short Takes

Questionable Framing of Story on “Scandal” Creator

It was just three weeks ago that the New York Times was vilified over a story calling the slain 18-year-old Michael Brown “no angel,” a mistake partly attributed to insensitive editing. On Friday, critics paid and unpaid leaped on a Times story in which the error was not just about one phrase, but about a mindset that had many wondering why it was still being given a forum.

The offender was Alessandra Stanley, the Times’ television critic, whose premise in a feature on Shonda Rhimes, producer of ABC’s “Scandal,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and the new “How to Get Away with Murder,” was that Rhimes was an “angry black woman.”

As Todd Leopold reported for CNN, ” ‘When Shonda Rhimes writes her autobiography, it should be called “How to Get Away With Being an Angry Black Woman,” ‘ Stanley wrote. “The story later observed, ‘Ms. Rhimes has embraced the trite but persistent caricature of the Angry Black Woman, recast it in her own image and made it enviable.’

“Immediately, the Internet reacted, led by a bemused Rhimes, who observed that she didn’t create ‘How to Get Away with Murder.’

” ‘Confused why @nytimes critic doesn’t know identity of CREATOR of show she’s reviewing,’ she tweeted in response to a tweet from Pete Nowalk, who did create the series. (Incidentally, Nowalk — a former ‘Grey’s’ staffer — is a white male.)

“Rhimes was just getting started.

” ‘Apparently we can be “angry black women” together, because I didn’t know I was one either! @petenowa #LearnSomethingNewEveryday,’ she continued.

“And, noting that Stanley had highlighted a rant from ‘Scandal’s’ Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) as illustrative of Rhimes’ own perceived anger, she wondered why other rants by white characters don’t get the same attention.

” ‘Final thing: (then I am gonna do some yoga): how come I am not “an angry black woman” the many times Meredith (or Addison!) rants? @nytimes,’ ” she tweeted.

” ‘Grey’s’ star Ellen Pompeo, who plays Meredith Grey on ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ agreed.

” ‘Didn’t Meredith Grey (Medusa) and Christina Yang also terrify and intimidate medical students?’ she tweeted. . . .”

Asked whether the Times had any comment on the firestorm, Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy passed along a quote from Stanley: “The whole point of the piece — once you read past the first 140 characters — is to praise Shonda Rhimes for pushing back so successfully on a tiresome but insidious stereotype.”

Murphy did not respond when asked whether that was also the response of Times management.

Critics asked why it was necessary to define Rhimes as an “angry black woman” in the first place, regardless of the objective. “When a TV critic watching black actresses emote on screen sees ‘angry black women,’ that’s an example of unwitting prejudice that is so innate that it isn’t easily recognized — not by the critic, anyway,” Sonali Kohli wrote in Quartz. “Does the same critic have a similar reaction when white women from different shows get angry? Do these characters become ‘angry white women?. . .’ “

Others wondered whether they were watching the same shows. Lauren Williams of vox.com was struck by Stanley’s description of the Clair Huxtable character on “The Cosby Show” as “benign and reassuring.”

“This made me wonder if Stanley had ever even seen The Cosby Show, let alone Scandal,” Williams wrote. “Clair Huxtable was not benign and reassuring. She was a badass partner in a law firm! And she taught a million young women (admittedly, through the unrealistic lens of a network sitcom) that pursuing such a demanding career and having a family were not mutually exclusive.

“She taught me about feminism before I knew what it was. . . .”

Under the headline “There Are Just So Many Things Wrong With the New York Times’ Shonda Rhimes Article,” Margaret Lyons of vulture.com deconstructed Stanley’s article paragraph by paragraph and concluded it was “inaccurate, tone-deaf, muddled, and racist.” The activist group colorofchange.org started a petition demanding an apology and a retraction.

On Facebook, Sabrina Miller, a Chicago communications professional and cultural critic, quoted this passage from Stanley’s story: “‘As Annalise, Ms. [Viola] Davis, 49, is sexual and even sexy, in a slightly menacing way, but the actress doesn’t look at all like the typical star of a network drama. Ignoring the narrow beauty standards some African-American women are held to, Ms. Rhimes chose a performer who is older, darker-skinned and less classically beautiful than Ms.[Kerry] Washington, or for that matter Halle Berry, who played an astronaut on the summer mini-series ‘Extant.’ ?!?!?! A white woman calling a dark-skinned black actress ‘less classically beautiful’ than two lighter skinned black actresses…I can’t.”

The piece by Stanley, as the Times’ television critic, is to appear in Sunday’s print edition but was posted online Thursday. In journalism circles, Stanley is known by many for the number of errors she has committed.

In 2009, Clark Hoyt, then the Times’ public editor, wrote, “For all her skills as a critic, Stanley was the cause of so many corrections in 2005 that she was assigned a single copy editor responsible for checking her facts. Her error rate dropped precipitously and stayed down after the editor was promoted and the arrangement was discontinued. . . . She was not even in the top 20 among reporters and editors most responsible for corrections this year. Now, she has jumped to No. 4 and will again get special editing attention. . . .”

As Michelle Dean wrote Friday for Gawker.com. “Why, you might be wondering, does a television critic who screws up this much (and so often) continue to occupy so high a post as ‘television critic at the New York Times‘? As an empirical matter of why her bosses continue to employ her, it is a mysterious question. At this point it is obvious to everyone paying attention to the byline how many errors she makes. . . .”

Writing in the Daily Beast last year, Lloyd Grove listed Stanley among the “close friends” of then-top editor Jill Abramson.

Abramson was ousted this year after a highly publicized clash with Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. and replaced by managing editor Dean Baquet, who became the first African American in the top job.

Grove wrote of the new top editor this week, “Baquet, who left Columbia University without a degree to take a job as a reporter (though he boasts a couple of honorary doctorates if not a B.A.), hasn’t avoided the unpleasant encounters with law enforcement authorities, the frustrations of trying to flag down a vacant taxi and other indignities inflicted by white folks, especially in the South, that are common to black males of a certain age.

” ‘I’m sure that’s why I became an investigative reporter,’ he says. ‘I’m sure that not growing up as part of the power structure makes me want to question the power structure. Sure, it influences the way I look at the world. It’s one of a lot of things that influence the way I look at the world. It’s part of who I am.’ “

Many will be watching to see what Baquet will do about a power structure in his own newsroom that sometimes puts inaccuracy born of racial tone deafness on open display.

3 Journalists Among 8 Killed by Ebola-Frightened Villagers

The International Press Institute said Friday it was “saddened by news of the death of three journalists in the West African nation of Guinea. According to the BBC, the journalists’ bodies were found in a septic tank along with five other bodies believed to be health workers.

“The journalists had disappeared last Tuesday, along with three doctors, after being attacked with stones by locals in the small town of Wome, located near to where the Ebola outbreak was first spotted earliest this year, the BBC reported today.

“A spokesman for the Guinean government, Albert Damantang Camara, told the BBC that the victims had been ‘killed in cold blood by the villagers.’ “

Boubacar Diallo added for the Associated Press from Conakry, the capital, “The team of health officials accompanied by journalists came to the village to educate people about how to avoid contracting Ebola. Instead, a group of local residents turned on their would-be benefactors, attacking them with knives and rocks and killing eight of them, witnesses say. . . . Guinea’s government said in a statement Friday that six people have been arrested in connection with the attack . . .

“The horrific violence in the village . . . underscores the mistrust and fear that remains in the area nearly nine months after the first person here died from what was later discovered to be Ebola. The disease that can cause bleeding from the eyes, mouth and ears had never before sickened people in this forested corner of Africa. And when it did, villagers immediately feared that outsiders had brought it here. . . .”

Alison Bethel McKenzie, executive director of the International Press Institute, said, “Our sympathies go out to the families of the slain journalists as well as the health and government workers. The violent deaths of these three brave reporters represent the danger journalists face everyday across the world, particularly when covering delicate issues such as a health outbreak of this magnitude.

“We count on the media to provide information — sometimes lifesaving information — to citizens in times of crisis, and we call on residents to respect reporters and photojournalists and allow them to do their work unharmed.”

Goodell Promises to Punish Players Who Commit Abuse

“NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell laid out his most sweeping response yet to a wave of domestic violence scandals on Friday, promising to punish players who commit domestic abuse and touting a new partnership with two leading advocacy groups for abuse victims,” Justin Worland reported Friday for Time.

” ‘At our best the NFL sets an example that makes a positive difference,’ Goodell told reporters in New York City. ‘Unfortunately over the past several weeks we’ve seen all too much of the NFL doing wrong. That starts with me.’

“Goodell’s remarks followed weeks of controversy surrounding the NFL’s handling of domestic violence that has placed the commissioner in the national spotlight and led some to call for his resignation. . . .”

The NFL controversy has put the spotlight on domestic violence and, to many, has cast African American men in a negative light.

Meanwhile, Don Van Natta Jr. and Kevin Van Valkenburg of ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” reported on their investigation of the February incident in which Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocked out his then-fiancée with a left hook at the Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J.

” ‘Outside the Lines’ interviewed more than 20 sources over the past 11 days — team officials, current and former league officials, NFL Players Association representatives and associates, advisers and friends of Rice — and found a pattern of misinformation and misdirection employed by the Ravens and the NFL since that February night,” they wrote.

Latino Group Ranks NBC First Among Networks on Inclusion

“Like a progressive public school from the ’70s, the National Latino Media Council this year dropped A-F grades it has been giving broadcast networks for Latino inclusion efforts in front of and behind the camera, opting instead for a grading scale of Good, Mediocre or Bad,” Lisa de Moraes wrote Thursday for Deadline Hollywood.

“Today’s report rated the diversity performances of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC in the 2013-14 TV season in primetime (the CW is not included). The four networks were graded based on employment of Latino actors, writers, producers, directors and entertainment executives; program development; procurement; and commitment to diversity and ‘transparency.’

ABC, CBS and Fox were “mediocre,” but “NBC wins the gold star, with a pack-leading Mediocre/Good grade, because it ‘showed great improvement with Latino actors in scripted roles and cast members in unscripted roles.’ NBC also went to the head of the class because of its number of Latino writers and producers has increased slightly, though the network had fewer Latino directors. NBC got points for its ‘commitment to diversity in the programs it supports and for Latino execs it employed at its cable networks — and because NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke keynoted NLMC member organization National Hispanic Media Coalition’s MediaCon. . . .”

Lighter Asian Americans, Latinos More Likely to Back GOP

“Many political analysts and media pundits argue that the Republican Party has a ‘race problem’ when it comes to national elections,” Spencer Piston, an assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University, wrote Wednesday for the Washington Post.

“The logic is that Latinos and Asian Americans constitute the two fastest growing segments of the population, and they tend to vote Democratic, most notably in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. Projections suggest that the proportion of the electorate that is Latino and Asian American will continue to increase; therefore, the proportion of Republican votes will decline.

“But two considerations should make us pause before ringing a death knell for the GOP.

“First, research shows that Latinos and Asian Americans have weaker partisan attachments than blacks and whites. The battle for the allegiance of these largely uncommitted groups isn’t over yet.

“Which Latinos and Asian Americans might be most susceptible to Republican appeals? Recent research suggests that social exclusion can lead Asian Americans to identify as Democrats. The idea is that upon experiencing discrimination, Asian Americans decide to ally themselves with minority constituencies that also experience discrimination, as well as the party thought to represent those constituencies — the Democratic Party. By this logic, those ethnic minorities most likely to lean Republican should be those least likely to suffer discrimination: those with light skin.

“Consistent with this line of thinking, the relationship between skin color and partisan preferences among Latinos and Asian Americans is illustrated below. . . .”

Islamic State Video Features Kidnapped Journalist

“The Islamic State released a sick new video Thursday in which they unveiled an unwilling new spokesman — a British journalist who was kidnapped two years ago in Syria,” Meg Wagner and Corky Siemaszko reported Thursday for the Daily News in New York.

“Unlike the gruesome ISIS videos that showed the desert decapitations of two American reporters and an English aid worker, this three-minute, 21-second clip shows John Cantlie seated alone at a desk in a darkened room.

“Dressed like the other victims in an orange jumpsuit but with no black-clad man menacing him with a knife, Cantlie says this is the first of several videos that will show the ‘truth behind what happened’ in other kidnapping cases. . . .”

Whitaker Didn’t Ask Cosby About Sexual Assault Accusations

Former Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker, author of “Cosby: His Life and Times,” a new biography of Bill Cosby, did not ask his subject about allegations that he drugged and sexually assaulted women in 2004, television critic Eric Deggans reported for NPR on Friday.

In his report, Deggans said he interviewed Cosby critic Michael Eric Dyson, the academic and social critic. “Dyson says Whitaker’s been seduced by Cosby. He notes the biography doesn’t mention a jarring accusation from 2004. When several women claim the comic drugged and sexually [assaulted] them.”

The transcript continues:

“DYSON: So, how is it that accusations of immorality that have been levied against Mr. Cosby don’t make it into a book where the author defends Mr. Cosby in terms of his own attacks on young people?

“DEGGANS: Whitaker, who did write about times when Cosby cheated on his wife said he never asked his subject directly about the assault allegations or interviewed the accusers. As a journalist Whitaker says he wasn’t [comfortable] including complex accusations in the book that he couldn’t prove.

“WHITAKER: And I just did not want to be in a position of printing allegations and denials and then be in a position as a journalist writing the most thorough biography that’s ever been done. If people said to me, well what do you think really happened? And I would say, you know, I don’t know. . . .”

Short Takes

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