Maynard Institute archives

Barry Was a Gift to the Media

by richard0713

D.C. Journalists Say National Reporters Missed the Nuance

CNN, Fox Reporters Attacked in Ferguson Protests

Cosby Accusers Speak on the Record to Washington Post

Indy Star Tweaks, Then Removes Cartoon on Immigration

Somali Journalist, Shot Twice, Denied Asylum in U.S.

Short Takes

Marion Barry, former D.C. mayor, at the National Press Club in June promoting his memoir. (Credit

D.C. Journalists Say National Reporters Missed the Nuance

Near the end of the autobiography he wrote this year with novelist Omar Tyree, four-time Washington mayor Marion S. Barry Jr., recalled his time as a ward representative on the D.C. City Council. “Everyone above the line at The Washington Post, including most of the key editors, had benefited from covering my life over the years as the mayor of Washington, and apparently, they were still milking the cow.”

That was true not only of the Washington Post, Adrienne Washington, who covered Barry at the old Washington Star and at the Washington Times, told Journal-isms. “Marion Barry made the careers of a lot of D.C. journalists, myself included. You could go down the list,” she said by telephone, naming local journalists in print and broadcast. “It wasn’t going to be long before you got a good front-page story out of Marion. He kept us busy.”

Barry’s death at age 78 on Sunday was international news, as Barry was in life. Yet international audiences often received an inadequate or misleading picture of Barry on Sunday.

Milton Coleman, a former senior editor at the Post who covered Barry as a reporter and supervised coverage of him as an editor, told Journal-isms, “The national press corps had no sense of Marion in the period that I call classic Marion.”

TMZ was one of the most egregious. It reported Barry’s death with the headline, “CRACK MAYOR DEAD AT 78,” prompting justified outrage that such a headline could summarize Barry’s life. [A petition to TMZ has gathered more than 15,000 signatures.] Chuck Todd, host of NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” ended a sympathetic report by saying that while Barry was arrested in a 1990 “sting” operation that famously saw him inhaling crack cocaine, many Washingtonians would “forgive him because of his days as a civil rights leader.” (video)

Not really. It was what Barry did for everyday black residents while mayor that established the forgiveness, winning him those elections.

Lurma Rackley, who was Barry’s press secretary at the time of the 1990 drug bust, remembers former radio reporter Rudolph Brewington giving Barry a hug years later.

“As you know Marion built a number of senior citizen centers,” Brewington said by email. “Specifically, the one [at] 37th Street and Alabama Avenue, SE.

“I moved my late mother down from New York when she was about 80 years old, and I introduced her to the center.

“She fell in love with the place and the people, and I believe it extended her life because of the activities and joy she felt at that center.

“I told Marion how my mother [and other participants in the center] felt about having that facility to come to and be a part of it in the twilight of their lives, and I thanked him for building such a facility that directly helped the seniors, and yes, how eternally grateful I was for his foresight. . . . Whatever one thought of him, he was about serving the people, like my mother, which is why he was loved to the consternation of certain folk.”

That was closer to the Barry that local reporters knew. His work was informed by the civil rights movement — he was an activist in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, but not defined by it — and he lived in the same racially polarized city as the journalists. While Barry railed against the white power structure, many city hall reporters of color dealt with their own racial workplace issues. They were often assigned to the beat to take advantage of racial commonalities with their sources.

As Rackley wryly noted, some journalists even fell victim to the same vices as Barry.

That is not to say that they did not have issues with Barry. But for the most part, the issues were accompanied by sometimes grudging admiration.

Jonetta Rose Barras, who covered local government for a variety of D.C. news outlets, was one of his strongest critics. The title of her 1988 book, “The Last of the Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in the New Age of Black Leaders,” reflects her criticism.

Barras told Journal-isms by email Sunday, “I think writing about Barry’s handling of the press is a very good idea. Of all the politicians I have covered, I think he was probably most adept. He and Bill Clinton shared a similar style.

“Barry could manipulate the media masterfully, pulling them in when he wanted and expelling them with a moment’s notice. He knew how to make a journalist feel special, distributing morsels at the right time. Often they would amount to little, but they could result in a mention of him in some news article. He [understands] his value to the press.

“When he was angry with a reporter, he banished him or her. But [he] would [be] reeling them back in when he needed to represent himself or offer his opinion on an issue.

“I think when he told [the New Yorker’s] David Remnick that he was a ‘situationist’ it was true regarding his politics and his packaging of his politics, which is to say his media relations.”

Kojo Nnamdi, a veteran broadcaster who hosts the long-running “The Kojo Nnamdi Show” on public radio’s WAMU-FM, found himself denounced by Barry on his own show in 2010 after Nnamdi wrote a commentary in the Washington Post that called Barry “a central figure in the city’s racial divide.”

“Unlike some others, Marion had no fear of the media,” Nnamdi told Journal-isms by email. “He almost never used the words ‘no comment.’ He DEMANDED to come on my radio show to respond to something I wrote in a newspaper. Why? Because he could. No one turns down a radio interview with Marion Barry. And because a letter to the editor is not the Barry way. Wouldn’t have the personal touch that is his most effective trait. It would be live and unedited. Marion had unlimited confidence in his own charm, and with good reason.

“He wasn’t good at prolonged feuds with us in media. Didn’t bear grudges for long. Never stopped speaking to a reporter for long. He’d much rather charm you. He was as forgiving as he was forgiven.”

Barry’s relationship with the mainstream media was, as some said, complicated.

The Washington Post boosted Barry into the mayor’s office with an endorsement in 1978. “Though I didn’t write any of the several Post endorsements of Barry for mayor in 1978 — and I’ve never found anyone who will own up to having done so — it happened,” columnist Colbert I. King wrote for the Post on Sunday.

But the Post became disillusioned with Barry, who adopted a term initially used to deride him, “Mayor for Life.”

Not that it mattered to Barry that much. Barry wrote in his memoir, “The Washington Post no longer endorsed me for a fourth term. It really didn’t matter. The Washington Post Editorial Board didn’t register well in the black community. . . .” Barry won his fourth term with black support and white antipathy. He famously told white voters after his comeback 1994 election, “Get over it.”

“Barry was too busy making lemonade to bother about the headlines,” Barras wrote in her book. “After all, he knew he didn’t have any friends in the media. The Washington Post had abandoned him years before and The Washington Times, which began operation in the 1980s, had never embraced him. As expected, the black media, particularly the Washington Afro-American newspaper, one of the country’s oldest black media organizations, steadfastly supported him. . . .”

Coleman told Journal-isms that “two different Marion Barrys” interacted with the city hall press corps, one “in the early years, during the first term, and another Marion in the second and third terms. He was much more under attack. In the early years, he was far more personable. There was not as much of a need on his part to be manipulative. It was part of his coming into power.”

According to Rackley, Barry’s experience as a reporter on the student newspaper at LeMoyne-Owen College persuaded him that “he was savvy about the news business, and in some instances he was. He would come up with some good ideas.”

The mayor was comfortable calling reporters at midnight without telling his staff. But Barry sometimes was too trusting of journalists and got burned, Rackley said, such as the time after his release from prison in 1990. A television reporter violated her ground rules and began by asking, “Are you going to tell us who was your pusher?” “The mayor raked me over the coals a little bit,” Rackley said. That reporter wasn’t granted more interviews and later complained in the Columbia Journalism Review.

Jim Vance

Barry began to judge reporters individually, as do many public officials. Jim Vance, longtime anchor at WRC-TV, the NBC-owned station, was rewarded with the first interview when Barry came out of rehab in 1990. Bruce Johnson of WUSA-TV, the CBS affiliate, also gained Barry’s trust. The Howard University radio station, WHUR-FM, received an interview during the trial on the cocaine charges.

Vance went public with his own drug addiction in 1985 and sought treatment at the Betty Ford Center. In 1994, Barry outed Post columnist Courtland Milloy’s drug problems. Rend Smith wrote in 2010 for Washington City Paper:

“At a Post luncheon in 1994, Barry, campaigning for mayor, was speaking about his own drug and alcohol use as Milloy sat by, listening. When asked to name the major mistakes he’d made Barry digressed. ‘Before we get to that, let me just talk about myself a little bit, personally. Again, I think I’ve had a remarkable recovery…I often use the example of [WRC-TV’s] Jim Vance and, I hope he doesn’t get offended by this, Courtland Milloy, who’ve gone through difficult situations but come back to work.’ . . . “

Barry wrote in his memoir, “Ironically, CBS-WUSA-Channel 9 news anchorman Bruce Johnson told me years later that a lot of the media professionals were going through the same issues that I was going through with drinks, drugs, alcohol and women.

” ‘He said, ‘Shit, Marion, we had our own struggles and addictions to deal with. That’s what made your case so strong and hypocritical for a lot of us.’ . . . “

Some of Barry’s attention was financial. WPFW-FM, the community-supported Pacifica radio station founded in 1977, credited Barry on Sunday for saving it from bankruptcy in its early years. The station received a grant for a training program in public broadcasting under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, known as CETA. 

On “News Now With Roland Martin” on Radio One on Monday, Radio One Chairman Cathy Hughes said she was critical of Barry for a long time and found that a $75,000 grant was initially held up. Listeners told her, “He’s just like you, you just don’t see it,” Hughes said. She became one of his biggest fans, and concluded that Barry was “sent by God to the nation’s capital.” 

On the other hand, Barry spoke out against perceived enemies. In May, Barry made known his feelings about a proposed HBO movie about “Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C.,” an unflattering 1994 book about the Barry era.

” ‘Tom Sherwood and Harry Jaffe are trying to exploit me, and I’m tired of being exploited,’ Barry said of the 20-year-old book’s authors on WAMU’s The Kojo Nnamdi Show. ‘The citizens are tired of being exploited by them,’ ” Will Sommer reported for Washington City Paper in May.

” ‘Much of Barry’s appearance centered on his unhappiness that Dream City, a book about an African-American mayor and a majority African-American city, was written by two white men.

” ‘Why should I let two white men exploit a black man?’ Barry said. . . .”

Barry’s human frailties were part of what endeared him to some journalists and many of his constituents.

“He really cared about people. He could remember names,” Adrienne Washington said, recalling that when she mentioned that her mother was ill, Barry called her mom so often that “she said, “would you please tell Marion Barry to stop calling me?’ “

Washington teaches a course on the city at the community college of the University of the District of Columbia. She shows the 2009 PBS documentary “The Nine Lives of Marion Barry.” The students, 19- to 24-year-olds, respond, “That’s my mayor!” as they watch. “It’s like a legacy,” Washington said. “It’s passed down. A lot of them are from Wards 7 and 8,” the areas of the city most populated by African Americans. “They still see him as the people’s mayor.”

On the last weekend of his life, Washington said, Barry was upset that the business community hadn’t contributed enough money to pay for his annual turkey giveaway.

Barry “never got rich from being Mayor for Life,” she added. “He ended up in an apartment.

“He’s always been a man of the people. That’s the thing I hope doesn’t get lost.”

 

CNN, Fox Reporters Attacked in Ferguson Protests

“It’s after midnight in Ferguson now but looks like reporters are still fair game for some,” Dominic Patten reported Monday night for Deadline Hollywood.

“In the middle of a talkback with CNN’s Jake Tapper just a few minutes ago, correspondent Sara Sidner was hit in the head by a rock that someone threw at her. ‘Sorry I just got hit by a rock,’ said the tough reporter before going straight into describing the burnt out scene around her. ‘I’m OK, I’m OK, I’ve been hit by much worse in my day.’ Sidner went on to continue her reporting but Tapper jumped in asking her ‘to get to safety’ as more rocks were flying [toward] her. . . .”

As Rebecca Rivas reported for the St. Louis American, “After three months of hearing testimony and viewing evidence, a St. Louis County grand jury chose not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown Jr. St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert M. McCulloch announced their decision Monday, November 24 in a courtroom in Clayton, the county seat. . . .”

John Eligon and Manny Fernandez added for the New York Times, “Thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the country — from Los Angeles to Atlanta to New York — to protest the grand jury’s decision, and in most places the demonstrations were peaceful. . . . “

In an unusual move, on Monday night officials made available 24 volumes of material from the grand jury, covering 23 meetings held between Aug. 20 and Nov. 21. “Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson said that he felt he was authorized to use force against Michael Brown Jr. after Brown punched him twice in the face,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

“Wilson said he went for his gun because he thought that a third punch from Brown could have ‘knocked me out or worse.’

“He also said that that even as he was running away, Brown could have posed a threat to officers responding to his initial call for help. ‘He still posed a threat, not only to me, to anybody else that confronted him.’

“Wilson compared Brown to a demon during the struggle at Wilson’s SUV. . . .”

Rachel Clarke and Mariano Castillo of CNN were among several reporters who summarized or posted the grand jury material.

Earlier in the evening, Deadline’s Patten reported on attacks on CNN reporter Stephanie Elam, Fox News’ Steve Harrigan and CNN’s Don Lemon. “Just as President Barack Obama’s remarks were ending, CNN’s Don Lemon and crew were hit with what the anchor thought was tear gas. Soon afterward, St. Louis County Police sent out a tweet saying it is smoke not tear gas. Removed to a ‘safe area’ as unrest escalated, Lemon said on air he doesn’t know what it was but it was ‘very hard to breathe.’ “

However, another comment from Lemon drew fire in social media and online.

“How long you think it took for Don Lemon to say something infuriatingly dumb and insensitive on this rotten night?” Rich Juzwiak asked on Gawker.com. “If you guessed less than a minute after Anderson Cooper threw to him, you guessed right.

” ‘Obviously, there’s a smell of marijuana in the air.’

“Obviously.

“Don Lemon can’t not. . . .”

In an editorial headlined, “The grand jury says no. Now St. Louis must make the most of it,”  the St. Louis Post-Dispatch joined others in urging calm. Among many, the advice went unheeded.

Cosby Accusers Speak on the Record to Washington Post

“Sixteen women have publicly stated that [Bill] Cosby, now 77, sexually assaulted them, with 12 saying he drugged them first and another saying he tried to drug her,” the Washington Post said in an extensively reported story in Sunday’s print edition.

“The Washington Post has interviewed five of those women, including a former Playboy Playmate who has never spoken publicly about her allegations. The women agreed to speak on the record and to have their identities revealed. The Post also has reviewed court records that shed light on the accusations of a former director of women’s basketball operations at Temple University who assembled 13 ‘Jane Doe’ accusers in 2005 to testify on her behalf about their allegations against Cosby.

The story by Manuel Roig-Franzia, Scott Higham, Paul Farhi and Mary Pat Flaherty also said, “The allegations are strung together by perceptible patterns that appear and reappear with remarkable consistency: mostly young, white women without family nearby; drugs offered as palliatives; resistance and pursuit; accusers worrying that no one would believe them; lifelong trauma. There is also a pattern of intense response by Cosby’s team of attorneys and publicists, who have used the media and the courts to attack the credibility of his accusers.

“Martin Singer, an attorney for Cosby, issued a statement Friday defending his client and assailing the news media. . . .”

Indy Star Tweaks, Then Removes Cartoon on Immigration

“The Indianapolis Star removed a cartoon from its website over the weekend after readers complained that the drawing was racist for depicting an immigrant family climbing through a window to crash a white family’s Thanksgiving dinner,” Emma G. Fitzsimmons reported Sunday for the New York Times.

“The newspaper should not have published the cartoon, the paper’s executive editor, Jeff Taylor, said in a statement on Saturday. The cartoon, by the artist Gary Varvel, featured a white father unhappily telling his family, ‘Thanks to the president’s immigration order, we’ll be having extra guests this Thanksgiving.’

“Mr. Taylor said that he was uncomfortable with the depiction when he saw it online, but editors decided to leave it up to allow readers to comment on it, and ‘because material can never truly be eliminated once it is circulating on the web.’

“They decided to remove it on Saturday, he said. . . .”

In the original cartoon, the crashers were led by a mustachioed man, Ryan Grenoble wrote Saturday for the Huffington Post. “After readers alerted them to the drawing’s racist overtones, cartoonist Gary Varvel and the Star rectified the situation by . . . publishing a tweaked version of the cartoon in which the Latino man’s mustache had been removed.”

Somali Journalist, Shot Twice, Denied Asylum in U.S.

“As his friend Ali lay dying in the back of a car, Said Muse Dahir thought it might be time to leave Somalia,” John Stanton reported Sunday for BuzzFeed.

“The 22-year-old journalist had already been shot twice himself by an al-Shabaab gunman. He said he realized the group’s attacks on journalists in his hometown of Galkayo were becoming more frequent, and deadly.

” ‘They force us to leave the country,’ Dahir told BuzzFeed News. Within months, Dahir would begin a journey in search of ‘first a safe place, and then a place to have free speech’ that would take him across three continents to the southern border of the United States.

“Instead of a safe place, he found himself in in an El Paso, Texas, detention center fighting an ultimately losing battle against federal attorneys arguing for his deportation.

“After the judge overseeing his case read her verdict, Dahir told her, ‘You are ordering me to be dead, and you will be responsible for my death.’ According to Dahir, the judge simply responded: ‘Good luck.’ . . .”

Short Takes

 

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