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Reporter Makes Peace With Mailroom Job

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Returning April 7

Star-Ledger’s Jason Jett Refused Buyout Offer

NABJ President Joins Unity President in Senegal

Cover the Fringe? Depends on Your Sympathies

Teleconference for Journalists on Health Care

. . . Fox Business: Fair, Balanced and "Nonscientific"

IRE Honors Story on Katrina Shootings by Vigilantes

. . . Reporter Reached Key Figures in Mexican Cartel

Fellow Writers Pay Tribute to David Mills

Short Takes

Rosalind Seawright of Meridian Health, a New Jersey hospital provider, introduces Jason Jett at the YMCA’s March 18 ceremony. A 31-year veteran of the Star-Ledger, Jett went to the mailroom when management aggressively cut staff. (Credit: Richard Krauss/YMCA)

Star-Ledger’s Jason Jett Refused Buyout Offer

When the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., forced more than 40 percent of its newsroom to take buyouts in October 2008, the Newhouse-owned company made life unpleasant for those who resisted. Two of them Рreporter Jason Jett and Mitchell Seidel, assistant deputy photo editor Рwere reassigned to the mailroom. They are still there.

"It’s not as bad as it’s been made out to be," Jett told Journal-isms. In fact, two weeks ago, Jett was the proud recipient of a New Jersey Minority Achiever award from the YMCA. He was nominated by his supervisor at the Star-Ledger.

"He does fantastic work on the outside," Brian Levy, the director of data services, told Journal-isms on Friday.

"Jason has been employed by The Star-Ledger for 31 years. He has been a reporter, assistant news editor and is currently working in Advertising Services. He recently led a project to replace mail machines in remote offices and saved the company significant money," Levy wrote in his nomination letter.

"In early 2000, as director of the Minority Journalism Workshop, Jason successfully secured computers from IBM for New Jersey students of African, Asian and Latin heritage. During the 10 years that followed, there were several occasions when Jason was instrumental in providing new or refurbished computers to needy students. He also supported the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project by joining its ‘Give One, Get One’ program.

"During his annual trips to Ethiopia, Jason met many young students who needed computers. He decided to help by providing refurbished computers but was hindered in his effort by the Ethiopian government’s stringent restrictions on individuals bringing computers into the country. This motivated Jason to form a charity called ‘Run The World.’ Last year, RTW was able to distribute equipment including six ThinkPad X40 notebooks, two ThinkPad TransNote tablets and a ThinkCentre X40 desktop computer."

The newsroom Jett left behind is depleted. At the time, Editor Jim Willse said 151 buyout offers were accepted in a newsroom of about 330 people.

Most of the journalists of color left, but Chanta L. Jackson, a past president of the Garden State Association of Black Journalists, went to the Marketing Department as multimedia publications manager.

Kevin Whitmer, who moved from managing editor to editor last year when Willse retired, said he had no assessment to offer about how things were going "beyond saying we’re doing better than we have any right to do." He confirmed that a substantial portion of the work is being performed by interns "and those who have stayed beyond their first anniversary" as interns.

Whitmer said he didn’t know whether the newspaper filed its figures this year for the annual diversity census of the American Society of News Editors, but said, "We’d like to be doing better there."

Jett, 52, said he’ll be eligible for retirement in about two years. The buyout offer, he said, wasn’t attractive enough – "as little as six months’" pay, he said.

Jett had ducked telephone calls from reporters, he said, because he was afraid of what he might say. But Jett was comfortable enough this week to provide this description of his job:

"I was reassigned to Ad Services from the Editorial Department along with Mitchell Seidel, who has an almost identical tenure and salary. We alternate weekly in delivering mail to a half-dozen departments in the building and preparing legal affidavits that range in number from a dozen to 90 any given day – averaging some 30.

"The mail comes to us sorted according to department by a contractor who delivers mail to and from the local post office. We also deliver overnight packages to departments, and collect outgoing ones in a central bin for pick-up by Fedex. Mail, including inter-office memoranda, generally is handled among the first tasks of the day (by 9:30 a.m.) and again about 2:30 p.m.

"During the day we provide electronic tear sheets, or e-tears, to advertising clients per requests when one has difficulty viewing an ad online. We also assist various departments in the building with finding ads electronically, or from an archive of papers extending back up to a year maintained in Ad Services. For papers from earlier dates, we use DVDs or even CDs to source ads.

"We coordinate contractors who handle the mail and messenger services, directing them to Newhouse headquarters and ad agency offices in New York as well as agencies and company facilities in New Jersey.

"In addition, I spend time in the Data Center as a tech running jobs and monitoring operations occurring around the clock in main offices as well as satellite facilities. The work involves little input, or self-generated product, but rather starting and completing computer jobs that compile reports on sales, circulation and a litany of company operations. The reports are printed and distributed to various department heads and the administrative office, as well as archived on DAT in the data center."

NABJ President Joins Unity President in Senegal

Kathy Times, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, is in Senegal this weekend with Barbara Ciara, president of Unity: Journalists of Color and her predecessor as NABJ president.

They are joining what the Voice of America described as a "high power African American delegation" who joined "other dignitaries, including heads of state, to participate in three days of festivities marking Senegal’s 50th independence anniversary this weekend."

"Not one penny of NABJ’s money is going to that," Drew Berry, NABJ’s interim executive director, told Journal-isms. Onica Makwakwa, Unity’s executive director, said the cost to Unity for the trip was $404.25, presumably to get Ciara, anchor at WTKR-TV in Norfolk, Va., to the New York airport. Ciara told Journal-isms that the Senegalese government was picking up the tab after that. "I’m not going as a working journalist," she said.

"The subtext is I’m trying to build new financial relationships, to do some networking to develop some revenue streams that aren’t normally associated with our group, to widen the footprint for Unity."

Ciara said in a statement to the Unity board, "I’ve thought about whether I should participate and concluded that it’s too important a trip to pass up. At a time of shrinking resources in the corporate world, I have a responsibility to do everything possible to expand the reach of the organization and to ensure its long-term viability. Joining the delegation adds more weapons to our arsenal. It’s a unique opportunity for me to reach out to new donors among the members of the private sector on the trip. Further, the mission increases the visibility to UNITY and helps to position it among the elite U.S. media organizations. Once in Senegal, time will be set-aside for meetings with local journalism organizations to expand the reach of UNITY and talk about ways African journalists could participate actively in the next UNITY Convention. It’s a way to begin executing on the strategy that the board approved at our last meeting with the creation of the World Affairs Committee."

NABJ said much the same thing in its news release:

" ‘This is an incredible opportunity to further the goals of NABJ, and meet individuals who can help NABJ pursue unique global ‘partnerships,’ said Times.

"While overseas, Times plans to meet with Senegalese and other West African journalists to discuss ways that NABJ could help support journalists and advance journalism on the continent."

Djibril Diallo, who chairs the U.S. Leadership Committee for the World Festival of Black Arts 2010, and co-chairs NABJ’s World Affairs Task Force, organized the U.S. delegation.

Before playing basketball at the White House, CBS-TV’s "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith asked President Obama whether he was bothered by such terms as "socialist" or "Nazi." "Well, I think that when you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, it’s pretty apparent, and it’s troublesome, but keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out," Obama said. (Video) (Credit: CBS)

Cover the Fringe? Depends on Your Sympathies

"Yes, the ‘tea party’ contingent has stirred up a lot of debate," Derek Donovan, reader representative at the Kansas City Star, wrote on Sunday. Reader comments "all remind me of a constant theme I hear whenever the news turns to rallies: Supporters of the demonstrations want them front and center, with no mention of the fringe voices that always seem to crop up at protest gatherings of any significant size.

"By contrast, opponents want the media to seize upon the most extreme and inflammatory rhetoric, even when it’s off-message, to draw attention to the mainstream movement’s inevitable (often unwelcome) fellow-travelers.

"And that is why I don’t particularly think protests are really news in an organic sense. Some factors do tip the scales a bit, though. The huge scale of certain Iraq war protests, drawing tens of thousands of participants, made them newsworthy to me at the time. But they certainly sometimes had their own ugly side, attracting radical groups advocating violence and other methods the organizers would have surely considered anathema. . . . My advice to left, right and center: When you lead with reason, not emotion, you represent your opinions in the best light."

Meanwhile, President Obama said has noticed the "vitriol" in the nation’s political atmosphere these days and says it’s time both sides cooled it, CBS reported.

"In a brief interview with ‘The Early Show’ co-anchor Harry Smith Thursday before they shot some hoops on the White House basketball court, Mr. Obama called the extreme nature of some of the barbs directed his way on conservative talk shows ‘troublesome.’ He also said he’s ‘concerned about a political climate in which the other side is demonized’ ‚Äî an observation meant for both Republicans and Democrats.

"The remarks came in response to Smith telling him he’s been listening to talk radio and ‘the kindest of terms you’re sometimes referred to out in America is a Socialist. The worst of which I’ve heard is ‚Äî called a Nazi.’ "

Teleconference for Journalists on Health Care

The Society of American Business Editors and Writers will hold a teletraining conference call next week titled, “Now That It’s Passed: Covering the New Health Care Law,” Chris Roush wrote Friday on his Talking Biz News site.

"The call will be held on Wednesday, April 7, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern time.

"The call will include a discussion of how the tax credits work, when components of the bill will kick in, what the new law means for health insurance stocks, and what the new law does not cover.

". . . To participate in the call, send an e-mail message to sabew@sabew.org with the words ‘SABEW Training Call’ in the subject line. You will be sent instructions with a phone number and code number to participate in the conference call. You will also receive an e-mail address to send questions of the panelists in real time."

Meanwhile, the Pew Center for People and the Press reported Wednesday, "The long-running debate over health care reform continued to dominate public attention and media coverage last week as the final skirmishes played out on Capitol Hill and President Obama set out to promote the newly-enacted law.

"Two-thirds of Americans (66%) say they followed the health care debate more closely than any other major news story last week. . . . Stories about the final steps in enacting the legislation and analysis of its expected impact accounted for 38% of the newshole, while reporting about the vandalism and threats made up another 7%. Together, they made up 45% of coverage last week, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism."

. . . Fox Business: Fair, Balanced and "Nonscientific"

Zac Bissonnette reported Wednesday for DailyFinance.com that, "Fox News has been roundly criticized for selectively citing poll data to make it look like Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to Democratic-led health care reform. Now its sister network, Fox Business, has gone a step further, inviting them to participate in an online poll whose outcome is all but preordained thanks to the laughably biased menu of responses.

"The question itself, posted on foxbusiness.com, is straightforward enough: ‘Will the passage of the health-care reform bill impact your vote in the mid-term elections?’

"It’s the answers that are a problem. Readers have a choice of saying that either they are more concerned about other issues, find the bill ‘too expensive and intrusive,’ or will decide in November.

"A Fox Business executive, Ray Hennessey, says it doesn’t matter a great deal how the responses were worded since the results of polls like this aren’t used in news gathering. ‘These are nonscientific surveys, not polls, and readers who find them biased can simply choose not to make their opinions heard,’ says Hennessey. ‘We do different ones every day, and they are simply user-engagement tools.’ "

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r1X_G7cWak]

According to eyewitnesses, at least 11 people were shot by vigilantes in New Orleans’ Algiers Point neighborhood. The targets were African American men, while the shooters all were white. Reporter A.C. Thompson discusses his story.

IRE Honors Story on Katrina Shootings by Vigilantes

"Katrina’s Hidden Race War and Body of Evidence," a story about white vigilantes shooting African Americans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, won an award this week from Investigative Reporters and Editors [PDF].

"A.C. Thompson, who works for the nonprofit investigative center ProPublica, conducted an examination that shed light on a sensitive subject and detailed a largely unexplored story: that white vigilantes in the New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers Point shot and threatened African-American men with impunity after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005," IRE said. Thompson won in the magazine/specialty publication category.

He "used medical and autopsy records, documentary footage and interviews with both alleged victims and perpetrators, including police officers, doctors and others. Thompson, whose work was supported by The Investigative Fund, documented a disturbing picture of violence in a compelling investigative story."

. . . Reporter Reached Key Figures in Mexican Cartel

A reporter who reached "the heart of the illegal drug cartels operating across the border in Mexico" won an Investigative Reporters and Editors award  [PDF] this week for “Blood of Their Brothers: The Border Trilogy.”

"Reporter Shane Liddick went alone into a place few of us would dare go — the heart of the illegal drug cartels operating across the border in Mexico," IRE said.

"Once inside this crime syndicate, Liddick was able to reach key people throughout the cartel, as well as on the other side in law enforcement. Liddick’s reporting in San Diego Magazine dispels the stereotypes we have about corrupt Mexican cops and instead shows us a system at least partially populated by honest officers risking ‚Äî and losing ‚Äî their lives in the fight to keep some semblance of civilization in their hometown. Liddick chronicles his five years of work on this story in a gritty style that matches the gritty conditions in which he lived to do the reporting. Liddick’s investigation helps us understand the complex power structure in play that’s changing lives across all of Mexico, starting just twenty miles from San Diego."

Meanwhile, immigration continued to be a subject for commentary:

Fellow Writers Pay Tribute to David Mills

"The death of 48-year-old screenwriter David Mills, who won an Emmy for his work on the Baltimore production of HBO’s ‘The Corner,’ hit members of the Maryland-Hollywood TV and film communities hard Wednesday," David Zurawik wrote Thursday for the Baltimore Sun.

And not just in those places:

Meanwhile, an early review of HBO’s "Treme," the program for which Mills was writer and co-executive producer, finds it wanting:

And others left comments on his "Undercover Black Man" site.

 

Sybil Wilkes, left, and Tom Joyner are on a three-week tour in which "The Tom Joyner Morning Show" promotes the census. A listener, center, joins them.

Short Takes

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