Journal-isms March 26

ASNE Urges News Sites to Join Diversity Census

¬†Richmond’s Glenn Proctor Now Reports to "VP of Audience"

 White House Photogs Say Obama More Controlling Than Bush

 . . . Columnists Weigh In on Tea Party Protesters

Census Boss Speculates That in ’20, "Negro" Will Be Gone

Ifill Confirms She Talked With ABC About "This Week"

Short Takes

ASNE Urges News Sites to Join Diversity Census

The American Society of News Editors has sent its diversity-census forms to news Web sites such as Politico, Salon, the Daily Beast and the Huffington Post, sites that operate in an universe in which diversity is not often a priority.

"Last year ASNE expanded its membership to include editors of online only newspapers , Bobbi Bowman, who conducts the survey for ASNE, told Journal-isms on Friday.

"Therefore as part of our 32-year-old annual survey that counts the numbers of full-time journalists working at daily newspapers, we’ve asked the online newspapers to join the survey. Participation in the survey is totally voluntary.

"Annually, 65 percent of newspaper editors have participated including the largest newspapers in this country including The New York Times, The LATimes, USA TODAY, The Washington Post. Etc.

We have sent census forms to:

The Huffington Post
Google
Yahoo News
Center for Investigative Reporting at Berkeley
Salon Media
The Daily Beast
Slate
Politico
The Big Money
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

In a Huffington Post piece called "Why New Media Looks A Whole Lot Like Old Media," Bryan Monroe, 2005-2007 president of the National Association of Black Journalists, wrote about an upcoming Federal Trade Commission hearing on "How Will Journalism Survive The Internet Age."

"Media giants like Rupert Murdoch and Arianna Huffington will likely slug it out on pay walls, copyrights and the prospect of Microsoft buying its way into the search world," he wrote.

"I, on the other hand, am going to talk about how white the Web is, and the threat that reality represents to journalism for our increasingly diverse nation.

"Look no further than the 17 staff members of AOL’s new Sphere.com. Or the single African-American reporter at Politico. Or the lack of diversity in Chicago’s new co-op journalism venture. We are starting off on the wrong foot.

Richmond’s Glenn Proctor Now Reports to "VP of Audience"

The Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch has installed a "vice president of audience and content development" over Executive Editor Glenn Proctor¬†in a reorganization "aimed at building audience and increasing revenue in the next five years," in the newspaper’s words.

Proctor, a former Marine, arrived at the paper in 2005 as the first African American editor of the dominant newspaper in the former Confederate capital. It was not a self-effacing arrival.

Lori Robertson wrote in the December 2006-January 2007 issue of the American Journalism Review: "Proctor is a self-professed hard-ass, a man who makes no apologies for his tough-guy style and compares himself to the famed and infamous basketball coach Bobby Knight – he’s about winning, not making anyone happy. And he was not about to conform to the genteel ways of Richmond when he marched into the Times-Dispatch newsroom and staked his claim. ‘This is my newsroom,’ he told staffers."

The March 2 editions of the Times-Dispatch said that Proctor will now "report to Frazier Millner, who becomes the group’s vice president of audience and content development after serving as The Times-Dispatch’s director of strategic marketing and product innovation. She will lead all multimedia audience growth strategies, content development for new and existing platforms and all customer marketing and community engagement activities."

Proctor was no longer referred to as "vice president, executive editor," though he is still listed that way on the paper’s Web site. He "takes on the additional duties as the group’s news director to improve the reporting and coverage in non-daily publications and on TimesDispatch.com," the piece said.

"Millner’s two other direct reports are Digital Director Mair Downing and the new director of audience engagement and marketing who will guide audience strategy and community involvement. That position is yet to be filled."

The Richmond Free Press, a black weekly that has not disguised its antipathy toward the Times-Dispatch, editorialized in its March 11-13 edition under the headline, "Proctor stripped" that Proctor "has been stripped of his executive editor title," and reproduced the Times-Dispatch’s mastheads, old and new.

"The Richmond Times-Dispatch will undoubtedly blame Mr. Proctor for the daily’s status as a sinking ship. That would be terribly unfair," the editorial said. "The Richmond Times-Dispatch never was a real newspaper. The Millner promotion is the latest evidence. Further, no one can rationally be expected to make something out of nothing."

Proctor, a board member of the Maynard Institute, did not respond to e-mails seeking comment. Millner did not respond to a message left in her office.

In December, the Dallas Morning News announced that section editors would start reporting to sales managers.

Independent photographers were barred from President Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama in the Map Room of the White House. (Credit: Pete Souza/White House)

White House Photogs Say Obama More Controlling Than Bush

"The Obama administration has barred independent photographers from a wide variety of events both potentially controversial and anodyne, ranging from yesterday’s abortion order signing, to the president’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, to his retaking of the flubbed oath of office, to bill signing ceremonies honoring female pilots in World War Two and promoting foreign travel to the United States," Clint Hendler wrote Thursday for the Columbia Journalism Review.

"The opportunity to exercise this control means that the president’s staff can pick what the only public image will show, down to the president’s body language. In the photo documenting his diplomatically touchy meeting with the Dalai Lama, Obama offered no smile. When signing yesterday’s executive order, Obama looked dutiful, but not overjoyed.

"Susan Walsh, an AP photographer who was president of the WHNPA during their successful effort to curtail the handouts under Bush, worries that the Obama administration’s regular dissemination of handout photos from events that could easily be opened to pool or other photographers is permanently eroding independent photographic access at the White House.

Ron Sachs who heads the advocacy committee of the White House News Photographers Association‚Äôs "is frustrated that the WHNPA’s continued complaints aren‚Äôt getting any traction, either with the White House or with news outlets that continue to disseminate the official photos.

‚Äú We won the access under the Bush administration,’ laments Sachs. ‘And it has been taken away under the Obama administration.’‚Äù

. . . Columnists Weigh In on Tea Party Protesters

Meanwhile, columnists had plenty to say about Tea Party protesters who shouted slurs at members of Congress as they prepared to vote on President Obama’s historic health care overhaul, as well as the historic signing of the bill:

• Cary Clack, San Antonio Express-News:¬†45 years after march, Lewis still endures epithet’s sting
• Bob Herbert, New York Times: An Absence of Class
• Earl Ofari Hutchinson, syndicated: Why the GOP won’t stop playing the race card
  
• Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe: The gap in women‚Äôs power in politics
• Allen Johnson blog, Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record: Unhealthy health care rhetoric
  
• Jerry Large, Seattle Times: Health care is a social justice issue
• Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, theGrio.com:¬†Health reform hysteria proves America isn’t ‘post-racial’
  
• Dwight Lewis, Nashville Tennessean: 200,000 reasons to like health-care bill
  
• Trudy Lieberman, Columbia Journalism Review: At Last, the Press Discovers the Consumer Story
  
• Courtland Milloy, Washington Post: Congressmen show grace, restraint in the face of disrespect
• Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: Racism simmers below surface on health care
  
• Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:¬†Change? You can believe it: Obama delivers
  
• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: How to keep hate alive
• Les Payne blog:¬†Landmark Health Care Reform – Yes, He Can!
• Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Tea partiers proved that I was right
• Elmer Smith, Philadelphia Daily News: Flash mobs, tea party mobs: Hey, no one’s responsible
• Wendi C. Thomas, Memphis Commercial Appeal:¬†Gloaters, spitters take up positions on health care reform

  

Census Boss Speculates That in ’20, "Negro" Will Be Gone

Census Bureau Director Robert Groves said on C-SPAN’s viewer call-in program "Washington Journal" on Friday that "My speculation is that in 2020" the word "Negro" "will disappear. Our language about race and ethnicity is in constant flux.

Groves spoke after a woman called in to say, “I am black. I did not appreciate the black, the African-American, and Negro. . . . I do not like that . . . It really hurt my feelings . . . that to me is racist.”

The Census Bureau has explained that it included the term ‘Negro’ as an option on the 2010 census because testing prior to the 2000 census indicated that numbers of respondents identified with this term. It said 56,175 respondents wrote in the term ‘Negro’ in response to the question on race, even though the term was included in the category label for a checkbox.

Groves said to the caller, "Let me apologize to you on behalf of all of my colleagues," and said that "in retrospect, we should have done some of that . . . research this decade."

Meanwhile, Roberto Ramirez, chief of the ethnicity and ancestry branch at the Census Bureau, said that Arab Americans who wish to be counted as a separate race are out of luck , Suzanne Manneh reported for New America Media. However, Arabs can be checked off as an "ethnicity" among whites.

Ifill Confirms She Talked With ABC About "This Week"

Gwen Ifill of PBS confirmed that she talked with ABC officials about hosting the Sunday "This Week" , but said “they couldn’t figure out what they wanted to do with it,” according to Neal J. Riley, reporting Friday on an appearance at Boston University for the student newspaper, The Daily Free Press.

At the same event, former ABC News anchor Carole Simpson, the Emerson College journalism department leader-in-residence who introduced Ifill at the program, "slammed her former employer for choosing foreign reporter Christiane Amanpour over Ifill to replace George Stephanopoulos as host.

"’This is no disrespect to Christiane, but she‚Äôs a foreign correspondent. She‚Äôs never covered Washington,’ Simpson said. ‘Christiane will do fine, I’m sure, but she ain‚Äôt the best, and I know the best.’ "

Ifill said ABC’s announcement of hundreds of layoffs in its news division had made the network “a pretty massively unhappy place,” the newspaper reported

“I was prepared no matter what they offered to stay exactly where I am,” she said.

Short Takes

• "A record 77 journalists were killed last year, making 2009 one of the most dangerous years for media workers, according to a report published Thursday by UNESCO, the United Nations‚Äô cultural agency," A. D. McKenzie of the Inter-Press Service reported from Paris on Thursday.
• The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association drew 200 to 300 people Thursday night and raised "In the neighborhood of $100,000" at its annual "Headlines & Headliners" fundraiser, NLGJA President David A. Steinberg told Journal-isms. "We also presented two $5,000 student scholarships: Mary Susman won the fifth annual Leroy Aarons Scholarship, named after NLGJA founder Roy Aarons. Carl Stephen Gaines received the inaugural Kay Longcope Scholarship, which was created by Longcope’s estate for an LGBT person of color who is interested in pursuing a journalism career." Gaines is a graduate student at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism studying business journalism. Television personalities Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb hosted the event, held in New York.
• The Associated Press laid off three news employees Thursday and four technology, spokesman Paul D. Colford said on Friday. Colleagues said the technology employees included AP’s only black technology manager, Anthony Dilligard of Atlanta, and the only black techician in New York, Dewayne McCleese, colleagues told Journal-isms.
• The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund has changed its name to Dow Jones News Fund, the fund announced on Tuesday, giving this new web address. "We have expanded our programs well beyond the traditional newspaper industry, so we felt it was time to change our name to ‘News’ from ‘Newspaper’ while still retaining our familiar DJNF acronym and logo," said Rich Holden, the Fund’s executive director, in an announcement.
• National Public Radio has changed its style on abortion terms, ombudsman Alicia Shepard wrote Wednesday. "Do not use ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ in copy except when used in the name of a group," a memo from Managing Editor David Sweeney said. "On the air, we should use ‘abortion rights supporter(s)/advocate(s)’ and ‘abortion rights opponent(s)’ or derivations thereof (for example: "advocates of abortion rights"). It is acceptable to use the phrase "anti-abortion", but do not use the term ‘pro-abortion rights’."
• "Continuing CNN’s recent trend of announcing moves via tweet, CNN/US President Jon Klein announces today that ‘Campbell Brown’ EP Janelle Rodriguez becomes CNN’s new Director of Programming in Atlanta. Kathy O’Hearn takes her spot in New York," Kevin Allocca reported Thursday for MediaBistro.
• "The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) today announced funding for what its calling its ‘major journalism initiative’ that aims to increase original local reporting in seven regions around the country," Betsy Rothstein reported Thursday for MediaBistro. "CPB is funding the creation of seven Local Journalism Centers combining CPB and participating stations’ resources for a ‘new approach to news gathering’. As explained in a release, Centers will form teams of multimedia journalists, who will focus on issues of relevance to each region; their reports will be presented regionally and nationally ‘through digital platforms, community engagement programs and radio and TV broadcasts."
• ESPN announced Thursday the launch of ESPNNewYork.com, "the latest edition of ESPN‚Äôs network of local sites and newest destination for New York sports news and information. The site features exclusive, original content from local contributors, locally relevant content created from ESPN‚Äôs multiple platforms and branded programming." As expected, "The site launches under the day-to-day editorial leadership of new executive editor Leon Carter, a news veteran with over 24 years of experience with the NY sports media world, most recently as sports editor for the New York Daily News and previously with Newsday."
• WBBH-TV reporter Travell Eiland, a reporter for WBBH-TV in Fort Myers, Fla., was arrested Saturday as he was video taping in the food court of the Charlotte County mall. Mall security asked Eiland to stop filming and leave; Eiland refused. The Charlotte County Sheriff was called and asked Eiland twice to leave the mall; Eiland still refused. He was escorted out of the mall by the Sheriff deputy and arrested for trespassing, the Florida News Center reported.
• Reporters Without Borders is opposing a bill passed by the House in which "satellite providers that knowingly and willingly contract with entities identified as ‘global terrorist’ would themselves be designated as ‘global terrorists.’ The bill would also consider implementing punitive measures against satellite providers that transmit al-Aqsa TV, al-Manar TV, al-Rafidayn TV, or any other terrorist owned and operated station," the organization said. "The text is too vague to be considered seriously by the U.S Senate", the group said on Monday.
• The Media Access Project "has tapped former Federal Communications Commissioner commissioner Tyrone Brown as president, succeeding Andrew Schwartzman, who has been atop the nonprofit law firm for the past three decades. Schwartzman will continue with MAP as senior vice president and policy director," Multichannel News reported on Wednesday.
• "Oprah Winfrey has settled a defamation lawsuit filed by a headmistress she had accused of performing poorly at her South African girls school, where some students claimed they were abused, lawyers said Tuesday," the Associated Press reported from Philadelphia.
• ABC News West Coast correspondents Brian Rooney, Lisa Fletcher and Laura Marquez have all been told that their services will no longer be needed by the network, the Enterprise Report reported on Tuesday.
• "Senate Republicans on Tuesday grilled President Obama‚Äôs nominee to be the Army‚Äôs general counsel, Solomon B. Watson IV, over the publication of two articles in The New York Times disclosing classified information when Mr. Watson was the newspaper‚Äôs chief legal officer," Charlie Savage reported Tuesday for the New York Times. "At a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, a series of Republicans portrayed the articles as jeopardizing national security and questioned whether Mr. Watson could be trusted to protect classified secrets."
• Ebonyjet.com this week ran a three-part series in partnership with CAF?â, a Chicago-based magazine, "on the pulse of a growing and increasingly powerful new generation of Latino professionals, to share stories of cross-cultural change. Caf?©‚Äôs recent ‘Blacktino’ series¬† is recognition of a maturing of black identity within the Latino community."
• The Cleveland Plain Dealer unmasked the identity of an anonymous commenter who posted personal attacks on newspaper employees on the paper’s Web site, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "Privacy advocates maintain the paper violated the public‚Äôs trust on Friday by identifying the cleveland.com poster ‘lawmiss’ as having the same e-mail address as Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold," Shawn Moynihan wrote Friday in Editor & Publisher. "Her 23-year-old daughter, Sydney Saffold, later came forward to accept responsibility for posting ‘quite a few, more than five’ of more than 80 lawmiss comments."
• "Remember a few months ago when MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer mistakenly introduced Jesse Jackson as Al Sharpton, and they were going to have a lunch to talk it over? Well, TVNewser has learned that lunch ‚Äî actually it was breakfast ‚Äî happened this week," Chris Ariens wrote Friday for the TVNewser site.
• Richard Prince discussed this week’s Journal-isms columns with Keith Murphy Friday on XM-Sirius Satellite Radio. Go to Segments 1 and 2.