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Listen to the Real LBJ, King Talk Voting Rights

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University Publishes Audio of Telephone Calls on Website

Holt Wins Week; Nonwhites More Forgiving of Williams

Ta-Nehisi Coates to Teach David Carr’s Class at Boston U.

Vargas, L.A. Times Partner for Section on Multiculturalism

Nothing Sacred for Oxygen: Reality Show on Black Preachers

Student Editor Faces Backlash After Opposing “Redskins”

Article Details Prosecution of Ex-Contractor in Leak Case

C-SPAN3 to Air 1963 Interview With Malcolm X

Short Takes

University Publishes Audio of Telephone Calls on Website

“The University of Virginia’s Miller Center has pulled together excerpts from President Lyndon Johnson’s secret White House tapes which shed new light on Johnson’s relationship with Martin Luther King, Jr. and his support of voting rights legislation,” the university announced in a media advisory on Wednesday. 

“Audio and transcripts of the excerpts, as well a timeline of events, are featured on a newly created webpage, which can be found at <http://millercenter.org/presidentialclassroom/exhibits/selma>.

“The new analysis comes amid much debate over Johnson’s support of voting rights legislation and his relationship with King, as portrayed in the movie ‘Selma,’ which is up for Best Picture at this Sunday’s Academy Awards. It also comes just before the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma on March 7.

“Between November 1964 and August 1965, Johnson recorded approximately 70 telephone calls that addressed the voting rights struggle, the Selma-Montgomery events, and the legislation he eventually signed into law as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

” ‘The recordings demonstrate that Johnson considered solutions to voter registration problems to be a signature part of his immediate post-election agenda and his long-term vision for the Democratic Party,’ said Kent Germany, a fellow with the Miller Center’s Presidential Recordings Program who researched and transcribed the calls.

” ‘Important conversations also indicate that he had a relatively congenial relationship on the telephone with King. Both men, seemingly, were eager to find common ground politically and to hear suggestions from each other about voting and the need to appoint black officials to high-level federal positions. Their exchanges are as notable for their strained cheerfulness as for their vagueness. Other LBJ conversations with White House aides and the attorney general, however, offer examples of Johnson’s anxiety about King.

“Calls featured on the website include:

Although readers can listen for themselves to the conversations between Johnson and King, Johnson’s admirers and detractors will each find something to bolster their case.

In December, Joseph A. Califano Jr. wrote in the Washington Post that the “Selma” movie “falsely portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson as being at odds with Martin Luther King Jr. and even using the FBI to discredit him, as only reluctantly behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and as opposed to the Selma march itself,” as the Guardian reported. Califano continued, “Contrary to the portrait painted by Selma, Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. were partners in this effort. In fact, Selma was LBJ’s idea, he considered the Voting Rights Act his greatest legislative achievement, he viewed King as an essential partner in getting it enacted – and he didn’t use the FBI to disparage him.”

Ava DuVernay, the director, responded on Twitter, “Notion that Selma was LBJ’s idea is jaw dropping and offensive to SNCC, SCLC and black citizens who made it so,” referring to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

She later argued in favor of dramatic license, said that she had no intention of making a movie to glorify Johnson, and that what Johnson said in telephone calls was suspect because he knew they were being recorded. Others said the LBJ-King relationship was not the core of the film in any case.

Journal-isms asked Germany why he undertook this project, and he replied by email:

“The years 1964-65 are the high point for American liberalism after World War II, and Johnson and King are two of the giants in its success. In terms of producing long-lasting legislation, maybe no two individuals had a greater impact than them. Their recordings are so rich because they show how liberalism functioned, especially how the most complicated struggles were usually between allies who had to find ways to get along, and not between enemies who thrived on opposing each other. It is easy to take a stand against one’s enemy, but not so easy to take a stand against an ally. These tapes show that delicate way of operating.

“On the 1/15/65 call: It is an example of their careful dialog. They suggested things and painted pictures of what the future might hold if they could hold on long enough. Johnson needed suburban voters outside the South to support aggressive voting rights measures because they could create the pressure on Republican representatives in particular. He wanted King to use his easily amplified voice in the press to show how un-American activities were in Alabama. That vision could be politically powerful.

“Johnson and JFK were not eager for more direct action protest because the potential for violence was likely. LBJ had spent the previous summer trying to manage a series of crises related to civil rights murders in Mississippi and Georgia and knew very well the kinds of pressure that existed for the federal government to intervene with strength and the kinds of damage that could bring. By July, Johnson was crediting King for creating the pressure that made voting rights legislation an overwhelming success on Capitol Hill.

“In January and February, according to his calls, he preferred that pressure to come from highlighting the problems in the press, getting the courts to respond, and getting legislation out of congressional committees controlled by powerful southern segregationists.”

Johnson and King talk on Jan. 15, 1965, about Johnson’s legislative priorities as he prepares for his first and only inauguration.

Holt Wins Week; Nonwhites More Forgiving of Williams

A majority of nonwhites think Brian Williams should be allowed to return to anchor “NBC Nightly News,” while whites are about evenly split, according to a CNN/ORC International Poll released Wednesday.

The poll comes as the NBC newscast, led by substitute anchor Lester Holt, beat the other two broadcast networks in the first full week of Nielsen ratings data since Williams left the anchor chair on Feb. 7.

Williams departed as controversy built over an erroneous report on his newscast that said he was on a Chinook helicopter that was hit and forced down by enemy fire during the 2003 Iraq invasion. He was placed on six-month suspension.

NBC news isn’t seeing any serious collateral ratings damage from suspending anchor Brian Williams over false statements he made about his Iraq reporting,” Stephen Battaglio reported Wednesday for the Los Angeles Times.

“Ratings for the week of Feb. 9-13 showed ‘NBC Nightly News’ — with Lester Holt sitting in the anchor chair — as the most watched evening newscast, averaging 9.4 million viewers. ‘ABC World News Tonight with David Muir‘ was second with 9 million followed by ‘CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley‘ with 7.6 million.

“NBC’s rating is in line with . . . its 2014-15 TV season average of 9.35 million viewers. The network had a lead of 587,000 viewers over ABC during that span. . . .”

Asked in the CNN/ORC International Poll, “Do you think NBC News should or should not allow Brian Williams to return to anchor NBC Nightly News?,” 52 percent of respondents said yes, NBC should; 40 percent said no, NBC should not; and 8 percent had no opinion.

Among whites, 48 percent said yes, 44 percent said no and 8 percent had no opinion. Among nonwhites, however, 60 percent said Williams should be allowed to return, while only 33 percent said he should not. Seven percent expressed no opinion.

The pollsters interviewed 1,027 adult Americans from Feb. 12 to 15. “Additional interviews were conducted among African-Americans, and combined with the African-Americans contacted in the initial sample of 1,027 for a total of 309 African-American respondents,” the pollsters said. “The margin of sampling error for results based on this sample of African-Americans is plus or minus 5.5 percentage points,” Results for all adults had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 points.

Brian Stelter reported for CNN, “The poll results show a generally forgiving attitude among Americans. But the 4 in 10 who say Williams should not be allowed back on ‘Nightly News’ signifies a serious problem for NBC moving forward.” 

The survey responses for nonwhites differed somewhat from an online survey Friday by Frank N. Magid Associates, one of the media industry’s leading consulting firms.

“We found African American and Hispanic respondents were more likely to feel Williams’ suspension from NBC News was appropriate,” Jaime Spencer, senior vice president of the Magid firm, told Journal-isms by email. “Hispanics were less likely to feel he should be fired, while African American respondents’ opinion on NBC firing him was not significantly different than the overall sample.”

“When it comes to regaining credibility, African Americans were more likely to be undecided, while Hispanics were more likely to feel he can regain his credibility.

The Magid survey was conducted with 1,004 Americans ages 18 to 65 (meaning it skewed somewhat younger than the “Nightly News” audience as a whole),” as Stelter noted Monday for cnn.com.

Battaglio wrote for the Los Angeles Times, “While it’s hard to draw a conclusion from a single week of ratings data, the figures have to be something of a temporary relief for the news division as Williams’ situation has been a public relations nightmare. The anchor’s plight even became fodder for comics appearing on Sunday’s celebration of the 40th anniversary of ‘Saturday Night Live,’ which drew a massive audience for NBC.

“NBC News executives expected some fallout — either from fans who were upset Williams was gone, or viewers angry about his breach of journalistic trust.

“Holt is a familiar face to ‘Nightly News’ viewers. He is weekend anchor for [the] broadcast and has been the regular substitute for Williams in recent years.” If Holt is named to succeed Williams, he would be the first African American to serve as permanent, solo Monday-through-Friday anchor on the major broadcast networks.

Ta-Nehisi Coates to Teach David Carr’s Class at Boston U.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, the writer for the Atlantic magazine who was mentored by the late New York Times media writer David Carr when both worked at Washington City Paper, will teach the remainder of Carr’s journalism class at Boston University, Dean Tom Fiedler of the College of Communication said Wednesday.

Coates will share once-a-week teaching duties with Martin A. Nisenholtz, a former senior vice president for digital operations at the New York Times Co., Fiedler told Journal-isms by telephone.

in 2013, Nisenholtz, a specialist in adapting print journalism to the digital age, was one of three authors of “Riptide,” “an oral history of the epic collision between journalism and digital technology from 1980 to the present” for the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

“David feels that Ta-Nehisi is something of a protege,” Fiedler said. “David took a lot of pride” in Coates’ accomplishments. Coates had agreed to be a guest speaker for the class, and the group had been assigned some of Coates’ work, the dean said.

Because of the record-setting Boston snowfall, the class met only once this semester, which began Jan. 20. “It’s been a shock and an understandable disappointment,” the dean said of Carr’s sudden passing. Students apply for admission to the class, Fiedler said. “I told them yesterday” that he had asked Coates to teach the class and “that they had an option to move to another elective. Nobody did.”

“Michelle Johnson, an associate professor at BU College of Communication and a former editor at the Boston Globe, said Coates and Nisenholtz were ‘excellent choices’ to fill the position in the interim,” Eric Levenson reported for the Globe.

” ‘I’m thinking about sitting in on the room,’ she said.

“Johnson said Coates in particular will give a ‘different voice’ to the department.

” ‘I’m excited to have another African-American in the department, because I’m the only one,’ she said, referring to the College of Communication’s Journalism department. ‘It’s sad that David’s not here, but it certainly opens up some interesting opportunities to hear from [these] voices.’ . . .”

Coates told Journal-isms by email that it was too early to share any thoughts about teaching the class. “I can talk after the first class next Monday. I’ll know a lot more then,” he said.

Eileen Murphy, spokeswoman for the New York Times, was asked whether there will there be a successor to or another writer for Carr’s “Media Equation” column. She replied similarly, “It’s too early to answer that question definitively.”

Vargas, L.A. Times Partner for Section on Multiculturalism

Jose Antonio Vargas, a journalist and undocumented immigrant, is joining forces with the Los Angeles Times to create a new section of the Times web site devoted to race, immigration and multiculturalism,” Brian Stelter reported Tuesday for CNN.com.

“The partnership will be called #EmergingUS and, in an unusual arrangement for a newspaper, it will be shared between the Times and Vargas.

Austin Beutner, the publisher and CEO of the Times, said #EmergingUS is the first of several ‘verticals’ of news coverage the newspaper will establish in the months to come.

“He cited the New York Times’ DealBook section of mergers and acquisitions coverage and Politico’s coverage of Washington as two examples of the approach he’d like to take.

“The name of the venture announced on Tuesday can be read two ways: as ‘Emerging Us’ or ‘Emerging U.S.’ for the United States.

“Vargas said it is ‘a multimedia platform that, through articles, original videos, shareable data and graphics, will focus on the intersection of race, immigration and identity and the complexities of multiculturalism.’

“Race isn’t just about white and black, he and Beutner said, and immigration isn’t just about the border. The new venture will try to capture those complexities.

“#EmergingUS will exist primarily on the web, but some of the work will eventually appear in the newspaper as well. The venture will produce videos and hold events. . . .”

Nothing Sacred for Oxygen: Reality Show on Black Preachers

Most of us are familiar with the story line in the premiere episodes of reality shows with ‘Real Housewives’ or ‘Wives’ in their titles,” Tom Conroy reported Wednesday for medialifemagazine.com.

“We’re introduced to a group of women that includes at least one incompatible loose cannon. One of the women, for no reason, decides to invite the others for a get-together.

“One or more of the loose cannons then get into a fight with one or more of the other attendees. If there’s time left in the hour, two of the attendees meet later in a bar or one of their kitchens to discuss what happened.

“Surprisingly, Oxygen uses that same template in the first episode of its new series ‘Preachers of Detroit.’ The staged conflict weakens what could have been an interesting documentary series about seven ministers in the African-American church.

“The preachers themselves are all colorful, and the issues they address are important. But viewers will have to pick out the good bits from the usual reality stew. . . .”

“Preachers of Detroit” debuts Friday at 8 p.m. ET.

Student Editor Faces Backlash After Opposing “Redskins”

When I raised my hand to vote in a classroom at Neshaminy High School nearly 18 months ago, I was unaware of the battle I was about to ignite as editor-in-chief of The Playwickian, my school’s newspaper,” Gillian McGoldrick, a senior at Neshaminy High School in Langhorne, Pa., wrote Tuesday for Education Week.

“In the fall of 2013, one of my fellow editors began a conversation about our school mascot, which is also the name of every sports team at our school and our school’s nickname. This would soon become a national controversy over our use of a racist mascot and a legal battle over the amount of control students have over their publications in public schools.

“This mascot is the ‘Redskin.’ It has been consistently criticized by a Native American parent within our Pennsylvania school district for its derogatory and hateful connotation. The paper’s staff and I came to a consensus that we should listen to what this parent had to say and start a conversation about the future use of the mascot, given how offensive it is to Native Americans. We debated, did our research, and ultimately came to a vote —14-7 — in favor of removing the mascot — and the football team’s name — entirely from our newspaper, essentially forming a new policy. Both the majority and the dissenting sides wrote editorials, and we went to press Oct. 23, 2013.

“As the editor-in-chief since 2013, I continue to face reproach for this decision, including the possibility of criminal charges, as well as a lot of social-media bashing by my peers and the parents in my school district. . . .”

McGoldrick also wrote, “A few days after we published the editorials and the student body’s reaction had slowly begun to die down (painful though it was), my principal, Robert McGee, sent a directive to our newspaper adviser, Tara Huber. In this directive, he said that our ‘new’ policy would be put on ‘hold,’ and that we were not permitted to edit or reject any letters to the editor, advertisements, or articles that featured the mascot. So this policy that we had just formed carefully and precisely was now suddenly reversed.

“Nothing about this directive seemed right. . . .” McGoldrick cited the state code to justify her position.

McGoldrick’s article also said, “When we printed the next edition of the newspaper without the image or name of the mascot, it did not go over well. Students ripped the paper up and threw it on the ground in the school hallways. They even threatened to take it home and set it on fire.

“I walked into a homeroom, and as I began to hand out the newspapers, one student crossed her arms and said, ‘I’m not touching that.’ When you hear this from a peer about something you struggled for more than 10 hours to complete, it is unbelievably discouraging. My fellow students couldn’t separate the mascot issue from the rights of the student press. . . .”

C-SPAN3 to Air 1963 Interview With Malcolm X

“The 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the Selma to Montgomery March, and the passage of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Dr. Martin Luther King’s role in these events is correctly capturing the imagination of Black America,” Ron Daniels wrote Monday for the National Newspaper Publishers Association. “However, there is another set of events that should also receive attention of our people. This year also marks the 50th memorial of the assassination of Malcolm X; it is also the year of his 90th birthday.

“It seems odd that very little attention is being devoted to the anniversary dates of the life and legacy of such an extraordinary leader. It is as if Black America is gripped by a case of historical amnesia. But this is not the first time we’ve suffered from the disorder. . . .”

Meanwhile, C-SPAN announced that it will air on Saturday at 7:10 p.m. ET a 1963 interview with Malcolm on its C-SPAN3 American History network:

“Former Nation of Islam minister Malcolm X was assassinated 50 years ago on February 21, 1965. He sat down for an interview in 1963 as part of a sociology class at the University of California, Berkeley. He discussed race relations in America and the Nation of Islam’s opposition to racial integration. The interview was conducted by UC Berkeley professor John Leggett and graduate teaching assistant Herman Blake. We air the program courtesy of UC Berkeley.”

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