Brain Aneurysm Claims “The Wire” Contributor at 48
Whites Among Latinos: Innovative or Vain?
Omb Says Newsrooms Should Ask, “Can We Talk?”
Malcolm Poindexter Dies, Pioneer Philly Broadcaster
Ex-Prisoner Roxana Saberi Says Publicity Aided Her
Job Fair Uses Skype to Link Students, Recruiters
5 Journalist Killings in Honduras Raise Alarm
David Mills on the New Orleans set of the HBO drama “Treme,” of which he was a staff writer and co-executive producer. On Monday, he told readers of his “Undercover Black Man” blog that the show’s debut was less than two weeks away. (Credit: Paul Schiraldi/HBO).
Brain Aneurysm Claims “The Wire” Contributor at 48
Mills was in New Orleans as a staff writer and co-executive producer of the upcoming HBO drama “Treme,” about a historic black section of New Orleans. It was only on Monday that Mills blogged on his “Undercover Black Man” site that Treme’s debut was less than two weeks away and posted a 14-minute preview.
HBO spokesman Diego Aldana told Journal-isms that Mills’ death was sudden, noting that Mills just appeared on Sunday with other Treme writers – including Lolis Eric Elie of the Times-Picayune – at New Orleans’ Tennessee Williams festival.
“Mills was on the set of the post-Katrina drama as it filmed a scene at Caf?© du Monde in the French Quarter when he was stricken,” HBO said in an obituary prepared on Wednesday.
“He was rushed to the downtown Tulane Medical Center where he died without regaining consciousness. Doctors there said he suffered what appeared to be a brain aneurism. Mills was on the film set as a writer and executive producer, monitoring filming of an episode of the series, which is slated to premiere on HBO in little more than a week.
“Cast and crew of ‘Treme’ held a memorial service in Washington Square park this morning and then suspended filming for the day.”
“After Mr. Mills made his television writing debut with ‘Homicide,’ which his friend, David Simon, helped to create, he wrote for ‘NYPD Blue’ and ‘ER.’ He was also a co-writer and co-producer on ‘The Corner,’ adapted from Mr. Simon’s book about drug abuse and poverty in Baltimore, which won three Emmys. Mr. Mills also created the NBC series ‘Kingpin,’ about a Mexican drug cartel, which was shown in 2003,” as Dave Itzkoff wrote in the New York Times.
In a 1998 profile in the NABJ Journal, publication of the National Association of Black Journalists, Tammy Carter noted that Mills was a University of Maryland graduate who interned for the Wall Street Journal “before working full time at the Washington Times (where he made news by quoting anti-Semitic remarks by Public Enemy’s Professor Griff), and then the Washington Post (where his Style section interview with Sister Souljah became a 1992 presidential campaign issue).
“Saying that ‘the feature section is the place to play with language, to use unusual writing techniques,’ Mills said his Style experience paid off when, two years ago, he began pursuing a TV-writing career,” she wrote.
“In college, I had a vague ambition to write for TV. But my school didn’t have a curriculum, for that, so I just sort of followed the journalism career” track, Mills told her. “In 1992, a college friend, David Simon, had written the book ‘Homicide’ that the TV show was based on. They gave him a script to do. In the fall of ’92 we just sat down cold and wrote an episode for fun. Had I not gone to school with David Simon, had he not written the book ‘Homicide’ and had he not asked me to write a script with him, I probably wouldn’t be doing this. I was not mapping out a career or strategy to get to Hollywood.”
Carter asked, “What advice can you give other journalists who aspire to follow your lead?”
He replied: “It may sound stupid, but it’s what I truly believe: just concentrate on becoming excellent. There’s so many other forces that you don’t have control over. It’s totally up to you to have control of your game.”
Mills came to the Washington Post in 1990 after making news with an interview he conducted for the competing Washington Times, quoting anti-Semitic remarks by Griff, who subsequently left the iconic Public Enemy. At the Post, his interview with Sister Souljah became a 1992 presidential campaign issue. He also spent three years documenting Jewish involvement in the slave trade, which resulted in a Sunday “Outlook” section piece in the Post.
“His coverage of race and popular culture for the Style Section of the Washington Post in the 1990s was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by the newspaper,” HBO said.
On his “Undercover Black Man” blog – its title referring to his light complexion – Mills indulged his passion for blues, jazz and ’70s funk, posting overlooked music. He assembled a virtual band composed of Web sites, and “Journal-isms” was honored to be listed as one of his drummers.
The Times-Picayune said, “Mills had come to love New Orleans and its music during his time here writing for ‘Treme.’
“I knew next to nothing about 50s and 60s New Orleans R&B, let alone the earlier jazz that grew in the city, so this has been a very, very cool musical education for me, the particular joy of knowing stuff newly,” he said.
“Mills said he approached his New Orleans musical education with a new fan’s fervor, and spoke enthusiastically about ‘walking into Louisiana Music Factory and coming out with $100 of music CDs, almost like letting the spirits guide you as to which ones to pick,’ he said. ‘There will be no end to it, it’s so deep.’ “
HBO said services were planned for the Washington area but that details were unavailable.
- Eric Deggans blog, St. Petersburg Times: Journalist, TV writer and social critic David Mills dies in New Orleans
- kintespace.com: The Undercover Black Man Interview
- Alan Sepinwall blog: David Mills, RIP
- Jacqueline Trescott and Lisa de Moraes, Washington Post: A chronicler of the gritty who knew when to grin [April 1]
Whites Among Latinos: Innovative or Vain?
Under the headline, “Journalists abandon comfort zone, embrace a very different America,” Lori Todd wrote Friday for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation that, “Community news startups and bloggers have begun to fill in the gaps left by traditional media but is it enough?
“Two women in Los Angeles are taking a different approach: Devin Browne and Kara Mears have moved in with a Mexican family in the MacArthur Park/Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. They’re renting an entryway in a townhouse, shared with 8 other people. They’re learning Spanish. Their new neighbors are suspected gangsters (at least they claim to be ‚Äî on MySpace). They’ve left the L.A. that’s familiar to them to fully immerse themselves in a world most don’t understand. This isn’t drive-by-reporting. It’s something wholly different.”
But Daniel Hernandez, a former Los Angeles Times and L.A. Weekly writer who now blogs from Mexico City, doesn’t see much different in the Entryway, which is “supported through Spot.us, a nonprofit community funded reporting startup and 2009 Knight News Challenge winner,” according to the foundation.
“The authors are wasting an incredible journalistic opportunity, in the service of their own vanity,” Hernandez wrote on Tuesday.
“The Entryway is not about the immigrants living there but about how two ‘white people’ intrepidly enter an unknown space ‚Äî what I’d call the home of any regular working real-life Angeleno, nothing more, nothing less ‚Äî and manage to ‘survive’ there.”
Omb Says Newsrooms Should Ask, “Can We Talk?”
Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander tackled the diversity issue Sunday and Monday, telling readers, “Here’s the problem: Minorities are 43 percent of The Post’s circulation area, and a large part of the region is edging toward ‘majority minority’ status. For The Post, being ‘good on diversity’ isn’t enough.
“Back when newspapers generated huge profits, altruism often drove diversity efforts. Today, there’s an urgent business imperative. For The Post, struggling to regain profitability and retain subscribers, reaching expanding minority audiences represents opportunity ‚Äî and perhaps survival.”
On his Monday blog, Alexander wrote about differences in perception among whites and others over what is an acceptable level of diversity, and he called for more talk among staffers and between the news organization and its readers.
“These types of casual discussions inevitably are informative and expand awareness. They help reduce misconceptions and can foster an environment in which racial and cultural differences can be discussed openly. The result is more honest dialogue in the newsroom, which leads to coverage that is more sophisticated and, ultimately, more accurate,” he said.
On Monday in Washington, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism co-sponsored an afternoon-long discussion of its “State of the News Media” report for 2010, complete with marquee media observers.
Neither the discussion nor the report, released March 15, mentioned diversity. Tom Rosensteil, the Project for Excellence in Journalism director, told Journal-isms that people in the news business were too preoccupied with financial concerns, missing Alexander’s point (and that of Journal-isms) that diversity and financial concerns are intertwined.
- Conor Friedersdorf, True/Slant: When Newsroom Diversity Becomes an Ideology
- Jennifer Rubin, Commentary: Racism by Any Other Name
Malcolm Poindexter Dies, Pioneer Philly Broadcaster
Malcolm P. Poindexter Jr., a groundbreaking broadcast journalist who in 1948 had to interview delegates to the Republican and Democratic Conventions in Philadelphia in the hallways because black reporters were denied floor credentials, died yesterday, four days before his 85th birthday,” Sally A. Downey wrote Wednesday for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“Mr. Poindexter, of Center City, died of Alzheimer’s disease at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
“In 1947, he began his career as a reporter with the former Associated Negro Press and at the Philadelphia Tribune, where he was a reporter and later a columnist, city editor, and controller. In 1960, he joined the Bulletin as a reporter.
“When KYW NewsRadio was launched in 1965, he was one of the first reporters hired. To research a five-part series on the plight of migrant workers, he became one of them. The series won the station an Associated Press award and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Community Service.
“In 1967, Mr. Poindexter joined KYW-TV (Channel 3). In the 1970s, in addition to reporting for KYW and occasionally coanchoring the newscast, he also hosted the weekly program Black Edition. As KYW-TV’s editorial spokesman from 1985 to 1990, he won four local Emmys for his commentaries on such issues as urban blight and Philadelphia’s dog laws.”
“Malcolm was a renaissance journalist, ahead of his time,” said Sarah J. Glover, president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists and photographer at the Philadelphia Daily News.
“He was a multi-media journalist when there wasn’t such a concept. He was able to master the various forms of media ‚Äî print, broadcast and radio ‚Äî and excelled in all that he did journalistically. Today’s journalists should take a cue from Malcolm and his legacy. He not only blazed a trail as a black journalist, he accomplished more than most journalists might be capable of in two lifetimes.”
Fargo, N.D., station KFYR-TV shows Roxana Saberi reporting for the outlet as it tells viewers of her new book about her stay in an Iranian prison.
Ex-Prisoner Roxana Saberi Says Publicity Aided Her
Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was jailed for four months in Iran last year on charges of espionage, says in a memoir that coverage of her case abroad “strengthened me to stand up to my captors,” who subjected her to “white torture,” or psychological “manipulation and intimidation.”
Saberi was released last May and is now promoting “Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran.”
On National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” on Tuesday, Saberi said she learned of efforts around the world to aid her from her parents, who visited her in Iran in April 2009.
She said of her interrogators, “I remember, on a few occasions, they tried to tell me or my parents, you know, this media coverage is bad for your daughter. You must know this is not to her benefit. And they threatened my parents basically that ‚Äî Javan,” one of the interrogators, “reminded my parents, you’re in Iran on Iranian passports. God forbid a problem arise for you. So tell the foreign media not to talk so much about Roxana. And if you talk to the media, make sure you talk to the Iranian media, like the state-controlled media.
“And one day, also, Javan brought me into the room and he was showing me all these news articles that he had printed off the Internet. And at that point, I had learned that it’s best just not to engage with these people at all and not to talk to them. . . .
“And so he was showing me all these articles like, BBC, CNN, Associated Press. He had highlighted the important parts for me, he said. And he kept reading off these headlines, like such-and-such organization has called for Roxana Saberi’s release, and he was trying to get me to be afraid that these people were speaking out for me. But on the contrary, it was strengthening me, and I felt so humbled ‚Äî a little embarrassed, too, that there was so much of an outcry for me, but so thankful. And it strengthened me to stand up to my captors.”
- Lisa Green, KFYR-TV: Saberi`s Book on Iranian Imprisonment in Stores
Job Fair Uses Skype to Link Students, Recruiters
“When budgeting considerations curtailed the annual workshop and interview sessions, the Institute decided to make it happen anyway ‚Äî virtually,” the institute said. The job fair took place Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Alicia Nails, director of the institute, told Journal-isms that 18 members of the institute drove the virtual concept. Walter Middlebrook, assistant managing editor of the Detroit News, enlisted five recruiters to undertake three interviews, each using Skype technology: Sheila Solomon of the Chicago Tribune; Will Chang of City University of New York; Brent Jones of USA Today; Don Hudson of the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger; and Denise Bridges of the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va.
With Skype, laptops are equipped with cameras, microphones and headsets so that conversations can take place over the Internet. The students had already e-mailed 15 r?©sum?©s and clip packages to the five recruiters.
While those conversations took place, the remaining students worked with Middlebrook, Detroit News reporter Darren Nichols; Desiree Cooper, a former Detroit Free Press columnist and multimedia blogger; and Frank Witsil, an editor at the Free Press and board member of the Asian American Journalists Association, Nails said.
“Sharp students,” Hudson said afterward. “It forced me into getting on the Skype train!” Bridges added.
5 Journalist Killings in Honduras Raise Alarm
“Nine months after a military-led coup plunged Honduras into political turmoil, human rights groups are denouncing what they see as an alarming spate of attacks on journalists, including the killings of five in March alone,” Alex Renderos and Tracy Wilkinson reported Wednesday for the Los Angeles Times.
“No one has been arrested in the slayings, and speculation on motives has run the gamut. The violence illustrates the depth to which Honduras remains unsettled and on edge, even after a new president was elected in November and installed in January amid promises to heal national divisions.
“. . . The five journalists killed this month were victims of drive-by shootings in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, and other cities. Some were known to be sympathetic to ousted President Manuel Zelaya; others had no public political leanings.
“Independent of politics, Honduras has a high homicide rate, and several of the journalists worked in parts of Honduras rife with drug-trafficking and smuggling rings.”
Short Takes
- “Human Rights Watch reported Sunday that more than 300 villagers were massacred in Congo in December, and that the infamous armed group known as the Lords Resistance Army was responsible,” the “Kojo Nnamdi Show” on Washington’s WAMU-FM said on Tuesday. Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch for the Democratic Republic of Congo, said on the show that she believed the gruesome killings had not received more media attention because “people assume that a place like Congo is the heart of darkness and killings like this have gone on since time immemorial. It’s not true.”
- “CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year,” Bill Carter reported Monday for the New York Times. “At the same time, Fox News, which had its biggest year in 2009, continues to add viewers.”
- When ABC-TV’s “Nightline” aired a segment on “the black man shortage” in December, some black journalists called it superficial and misleading. “Where are the news stories about White girls and Latinas and Asian ladies who can’t find a good man? Don’t they have issues too?” Demetria L. Lucas asked on essence.com. “Nightline” is revisiting the subject Friday at 7 p.m. “Why Can’t a Successful Black Woman Find a Man?” is to be debated at the Porter Sanford Performing Arts Center in Decatur, Ga., moderated by comedian Steve Harvey and “Nightline’s” Vicki Mabrey.
- Dori J. Maynard, president of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, is profiled by the Women’s Media Center as “a woman making history. She fights to make sure that our national conversations include the diversity that is intrinsic to our country within the foundation of our democracy ‚Äì journalism,” Rachell Arteaga wrote as Women’s History Month came to a close.
- Luis Alonso Lugo, a leader of the Associated
- Lynn Nottage, who won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2009 for “Ruined,” about women in a brothel in war-torn Congo, said that one reason it can be difficult for black writers to get attention is that ‚Äúthere are next to no African-Americans at influential publications reviewing theater and books on a regular basis,‚Äù Felicia R. Lee wrote last week for the New York Times. ‚ÄúWe are evaluated and critiqued by people outside the experience. Perhaps there is some resistance to penetrate the issues we‚Äôre dealing with.” Lee wrote as the 10th National Black Writers‚Äô Conference was about to begin at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y.
- “LBI Media has hired Enrique Gratas to anchor its national newscast on Estrella TV anchor for Univision’s ‘Ultima Hora,’ was laid off in March of last year along 300 other company employees as part of the network’s cost-cutting measures. He had been anchoring the 11:30 pm show since 1999,” Veronica Villafa?±ereported for her Media Moves site.
- Barbara Ciara, president of Unity: Journalists of color, plans to be among tens of thousands who will gather in Senegal’s capital city of Dakar on April 3-4 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Senegal’s founding as an independent republic, Unity announced.
- Editor & Publisher magazine and other offices of Duncan McIntosh Co. offices were closed Wednesday in observance of Cesar Chavez Day, the magazine reported. “Though Chavez is of course best known for organizing farm workers, newspapers also were part of his mission. In 1964, as he was organizing farm workers in the grape-growing fields of California‚Äôs Coachella Valley, he and Dolores Huerta created the newspaper El Malcriado: The Voice of the Farm Worker. The name can mean spoiled or ill-bred. Not coincidentally El Malcriado was the name of a newspaper published during the Mexican Revolution.”
- “The Advocate has signed an affiliate deal with NBC News, making the magazine the first LGBT-oriented publication to partner with the network,” Alex Alvarez reported Monday for MediaBistro, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. “The magazine’s online home, Advocate.com, will use NBC resources to produce daily news segments that will run online and on air via ‘The Advocate On-Air,’ a television and Web magazine. NBC News, in turn, may use content and writers from The Advocate to report on issues relating to the LGBT community.”
- Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, a major figure in reporting the story of the Jayson Blair plagiarism and fabrication scandal at the New York Times in 2003, conceded on Monday that Managing Editor Gerald M. Boyd had “some justification” for feeling “that he was being unfairly depicted as Blair’s protector ‚Äî because both men were black.” Kurtz wrote about Boyd’s memoir, ‘My Times in Black & White.”
- “The digital division of Univision Communications Inc. ‚Äî “Univision Interactive Media, Inc.” ‚Äî has partnered with impreMedia Digital, LLC to exchange content geared towards a Latino audience across multiple platforms. The companies are already in the process of sharing content online and in print, with plans for ‘full deployment’ later this year,” Alex Alvarez wrote Tuesday for MediaBistro.
- “In a wild and entertaining series of tweets yesterday,” New York Times “Tokyo-based business reporter Hiroko Tabuchi ‚Äî whose beat includes the unfolding scandal around the recent Toyota recall ‚Äî unleashed her frustration with the company she’s covering,” the Web site nytpick.com reported on Tuesday. “Tabuchi was apparently at a press conference yesterday with the company’s president, Akio Toyoda, when she let loose a Twitter tirade against the company for various abuses.”
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