Post-Dispatch Says the Same About Neighboring Police
Officers Who Severely Beat Attica Inmate Make Plea Deal
Yale Clears Officer in Case of Columnist Blow’s Son
Task Force to Determine Future of Maynard Institute
Children of Color Projected to Be Majority of Kids by 2020
. . . ASNE Readies for 2015 Newsroom Diversity Census
Electronic Media Plan for 50th Anniversary of Selma March
English, Spanish Sunday Shows Said to Shortchange Latinos
Post-Dispatch Says the Same About Neighboring Police
On Monday, President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing delivered a long-awaited report [PDF] in response to the deadly confrontations of 2014, including the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. On Tuesday, a biting report from the Justice Department called out the Ferguson Police Department for abuses against African Americans. And on Wednesday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorialized that “dumping its police department would be the wisest course for Ferguson — and indeed, for most of the nearly five dozen other police departments in St. Louis County.”
The editorial began, “The obscure intersection of Canfield Drive and Copper Creek Court in Ferguson has turned out to be a crossroads for American policing.
“Since then-Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown near that intersection last Aug. 9, ‘Ferguson’ has become shorthand for a wide variety of complaints about law enforcement practices, here and around the country. Not all of those complaints are valid, but some surely are.
“On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice said witness testimony and forensic evidence do not refute Mr. Wilson’s assertion that he feared for his life when he shot Mr. Brown, even though the 18-year-old was unarmed. The same conclusion was reached in November by a St. Louis County grand jury.
“But later Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder addressed the findings of his department’s investigation into the circumstances underlying the community outrage over Mr. Brown’s death. ‘Some of those protesters were right,’ Mr. Holder said, adding that the findings of the six-month investigation of the Ferguson Police Department are ‘searing.’
“The Ferguson report came two days after the release of interim recommendations from President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. What happened in Ferguson leading up to Aug. 9 underscored the importance of the task force recommendations: Police practices in large parts of America must change.
“That’s already happening in some of the nation’s more forward-thinking police departments, as well as in the two dozen departments operating with Justice Department supervision under court-approved consent decrees.
“Ferguson will have to reach its own agreement with the Justice Department or face the possibility of a civil rights lawsuit. Either way would be expensive, raising the possibility that the city could choose to disband its 52-officer police force. The neighboring city of Jennings did that in 2011, choosing to contract for services from the St. Louis County Police Department. Ironically, one of the newly unemployed Jennings officers, Darren Wilson, was hired on in Ferguson.
“The public interest, in terms of both finances and public safety, suggests that dumping its police department would be the wisest course for Ferguson — and indeed, for most of the nearly five dozen other police departments in St. Louis County. As the president’s task force noted Monday, ‘small forces often lack the resources for training and equipment accessible to larger departments.’. . .”
The editorial also said, “On progressive police forces, swaggering macho cops are being transformed — sometimes reluctantly, often enthusiastically — into better educated, better trained, more community-oriented, more diverse and more effective police forces. They’re trained to recognize their own biases. They’re using sophisticated data models to identify individual criminals instead of patrolling entire communities like occupying forces.
“Everyone, including the cops, is safer. If this could be the eventual legacy of the Ferguson tragedy, what a gift it would be.”
- Wayne Bennett, the Field Negro: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.
- Emanuele Berry, St. Louis Public Radio: Locals disheartened but not surprised with Justice Department claims that Ferguson violated rights
- Charles M. Blow, New York Times: The Feds vs. Ferguson
- James E. Causey, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Black professional men talk to at-risk youths at Barack Obama High School
- Michael H. Cottman, BlackAmericaWeb.com: L.A. Police Fatally Shoot Homeless Man — But Was It Justified?
- Jarvis DeBerry: NOLA.com | the Times-Picayune: Ferguson and its police officers saw residents as a source of unending revenue
- Rigoberto Hernandez, NPR “Code Switch”: A Few Reactions To The DOJ’s ‘Scathing’ Report On Ferguson Cops And Racial Bias
- Adam Johnson, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: LAPD, Media Rush to Judge Skid Row Victim While Insisting Public ‘Not Rush to Judge’
- German Lopez, Vox: Here are 7 racist jokes Ferguson police and court officials made over email
- Phillip Morris, Plain Dealer, Cleveland: The lives of dead and wounded police officers matter, too
- TMZ: Skid Row Attack: 4 Cops Take Down Homeless Man … For Destroying TV Cam
Officers Who Severely Beat Attica Inmate Make Plea Deal
“Three guards accused of beating an inmate at the Attica Correctional Facility so severely that doctors had to insert a plate and six pins into his leg each pleaded guilty on Monday to a single misdemeanor charge of misconduct,” Tom Robbins and Lauren D’Avolio reported Monday for the New York Times. “The last-minute plea deal spared them any jail time in exchange for quitting their jobs.
“The resolution of the case came more than three years after corrections officers beat a 29-year-old inmate, George Williams, at the prison in western New York. He suffered two broken legs, broken ribs, a broken shoulder and a severe fracture of his eye socket, among other injuries. . . .”
The plea deal followed a lengthy front-page article on the case published in the Sunday print edition of the Times. It was written by Tom Robbins of the Marshall Project, the nonprofit news start-up that focuses on criminal justice issues and is edited by Bill Keller, former executive editor of the Times, and named after the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Robbins appeared with Melissa Block Tuesday on NPR and said Williams’ was the rare story to reach the public. They had this exchange:
“BLOCK: What usually happens in use of force cases at Attica?
“ROBBINS: In every other instance what had happened was that they were taken to solitary, known as the box inside prison. And they were then brought up on charges and usually remained there for — sometimes years. And their story never gets told.
“BLOCK: And in terms of the prison guards, how often have they been punished for excessive use of force?
“ROBBINS: Well, this was the first time in New York State history that New York State correction officers had been criminally charged for a non-sexual assault of an inmate. So that gives you an idea of how rare this was. . . .”
- Angela F. Chan, Huffington Post: America Never Abolished Slavery
- Peniel E. Joseph, The Root: We Can’t Ignore the Link Between Ferguson and Those Attica Prison Guards’ Brutality
So, according to Yale, this was “in compliance with department policy”? No apology? #sigh http://t.co/36ZSmY338l
— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) March 3, 2015
Yale Clears Officer in Case of Columnist Blow’s Son
“An investigation by the Yale Police Department’s Internal Affairs Unit into a complaint that a YPD officer inappropriately used a firearm in detaining Tahj Blow ’16 has found that the officer’s actions complied with department policy,” Stephanie Addenbrooke and Tyler Foggatt reported Wednesday for the Yale Daily News.
Blow is the son of New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, who wrote after the January incident that he was “fuming.”
The younger Blow “was stopped on Jan. 24 after the YPD received reports that an intruder had entered Trumbull College. The report was amongst a series of thefts in the college. The intruder was described as a tall African-American male who was wearing a red and white hat and a black coat,” Addenbrooke and Foggatt wrote.
“According to the report, the release of which was announced in a campus-wide email early Tuesday afternoon, the officer did not point his firearm at Blow, but instead held the weapon at the ‘low-ready position.’ The position, the report noted, is ‘a technique that involves a firearm pointed in the direction of, but not directly at, a potential suspect.’ The report further stated that video surveillance showed that officer’s finger was ‘indexed along the receiver or frame of the gun,’ a technique which keeps the finger away from the trigger.
“The report’s conclusion stated that the officer — whose name, along with Blow’s, was redacted — ‘was working well within the established and accepted procedures for a law enforcement officer.’ In particular, the report states the officer did not violate department policy on patrol operations, the use of force policy and the post use of force policy. . . .”
Kathleen Megan reported for the Hartford Courant Tuesday, “Neither Blow nor his son responded to emails Monday, but Blow tweeted a link to the Yale report, asking: ‘So, according to Yale this was “in compliance with department policy’? No apology?’ A hashtag ‘sigh’ followed. . . .”
Task Force to Determine Future of Maynard Institute
The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Wednesday posted videos of Monday’s memorial service for the late MIJE President Dori J. Maynard, released a statement from its board of directors on the Institute’s future and said it had named program director Evelyn Hsu as acting executive director.
“Meeting Sunday by conference call, the MIJE board embraced Dori’s longer range questions about the Institute and is taking immediate steps to determine the future,” the board statement said.
“A board task force, chaired by Martin Reynolds, will look at short-term steps needed to ensure that MIJE remains as relevant today as the program that was launched at Columbia University a generation ago. . . .” Reynolds is senior editor for community engagement at the Bay Area News Group.
“That task force will be followed by a formal strategic planning process.
“Board task force: Martin Reynolds, Paula Madison and John X. Miller. . . .” Madison is a businesswoman and retired NBCUniversal executive, and Miller is managing editor of the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal, its top newsroom job.
The statement began, “Dori J. Maynard recently asked the board of directors to think about what the Maynard Institute should look like in the next twenty or fifty years. How does the institute celebrate the legacy of its founders? How do we reframe the mission in an era of social media to provide opportunity to those who want to practice journalism? And, how do we improve the content of the news media so that America is accurately reflected as the most diverse generation in history moves onto center stage?
“Dori Maynard’s untimely death makes these questions even more critical. The Institute has never been about a single leader. There have been extraordinary voices from the beginning, of course, Bob Maynard, Nancy Hicks Maynard, Leroy Aarons, John Dotson, Charles Jackson, and so many others who have shared a passion for an inclusive news media.
“The Institute has always changed over its history. . . .”
According to a bio, Hsu “joined the institute in 2004 as director of programs. Most recently, she was senior director for programs and operations. Hsu is a 1979 graduate of the institute’s Summer Program for Minority Journalists. She worked as a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post. She was an associate director of the American Press Institute and a member of the faculty of the Poynter Institute. She is a past national president of the Asian American Journalists Association.”
The Institute’s planned livestream of the Oakland service for Maynard on Monday was not completed due to technical difficulties. On Wednesday, it released a video of highlights from the service (video) and a separate video of the hourlong service (video).
- NABJ Digital: #wjchat: All About Media Diversity
- Geneva Overholser, Nieman Foundation News: Dori Maynard ‘saw the possibility of change in almost everyone’
- Dru Sefton, Current.org: Dori Maynard, pioneer for diversity in journalism, dies at 56
- Doris N. Truong, Storify: In Memoriam: Dori Maynard, media diversity crusader
Children of Color Projected to Be Majority of Kids by 2020
“Around the time the 2020 Census is conducted, more than half of the nation’s children are expected to be part of a minority race or ethnic group,” the U.S. Census Bureau reported on Tuesday.
“This proportion is expected to continue to grow so that by 2060, just 36 percent of all children (people under age 18) will be single-race non-Hispanic white, compared with 52 percent today,” the bureau said in its report, “Projections of the Size and Composition of the U.S. Population: 2014 to 2060.”
The bureau also said, “The U.S. population as a whole is expected to follow a similar trend, becoming majority-minority in 2044. The minority population is projected to rise to 56 percent of the total in 2060, compared with 38 percent in 2014. . . .”
The bureau reported in 2012 that as of July 1, 2011, 50.4 percent of the nation’s population age 1 or under was either Hispanic or a race other than white.
. . . ASNE Readies for 2015 Newsroom Diversity Census
The American Society of News Editors Wednesday announced plans for its 2015 newsroom census, part of its stalled effort to match the number of newsroom people of color with the percentage of those groups in the general population.
“The Robert R. McCormick Foundation, the census sponsor since 2012, will provide funding for the 2015 census. For the first time, we are partnering with the School of Journalism & Mass Communication (SJMC) at Florida International University to conduct this year’s census. Yu Liu, assistant professor at SJMC, will lead the project,” the announcement said.
Last year’s census showed that 13.34 percent of journalists in newspaper and online newsrooms were racial and ethnic minorities. “Currently, minorities make up 37.02 percent of the U.S. population; that number will increase to 42.39 percent by 2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. . . .”
ASNE’s Wednesday announcement also said, “The Minority Leadership Institute, launched in 2012 by the ASNE Diversity Committee, helps train and develop up-and-coming, mid-level newsroom leaders and connect them with a network of established ASNE leaders. There have been a total of seven institutes since the launch, and we plan to host as many as three this year.
“The diversity committee also has partnered with Journalism That Matters, a nonprofit that convenes conversations to foster collaboration, innovation and action so that a diverse news and information ecosystem can thrive.”
- Bill Chappell, NPR: For U.S. Children, Minorities Will Be The Majority By 2020, Census Says
English, Spanish Sunday Shows Said to Shortchange Latinos
“Sunday shows in both English and Spanish treat Hispanics as a single-issue constituency focused on immigration, according to a Media Matters analysis that examined the shows’ discussions and guests from August 31 to December 28, 2014,” Cristina Lopez and Jessica Torres wrote Wednesday for Media Matters for America.
“While Latinos make up more than 17 percent of the U.S. population, the report found that only 7 percent of guests on English-language Sunday shows were Hispanic, of which 46 percent spoke specifically about immigration. The report also found that while the Spanish-language Sunday shows devoted great attention to immigration, they gave much less coverage to issues of similar importance to the Latino community. Confining Latinos’ perspectives to a single issue damages their ability to engage in discussions about the other equally important issues that affect them and the general electorate. . . .”
The authors noted a Pew Research Center study that said, “The general electorate, much like Hispanic voters, identified the economy, health care, and immigration as top issues for the 2014 midterm elections, according to a September poll by Pew — suggesting that priorities for the Hispanic community are not very different from those of the general population of voters.. . .”
Short Takes
- For Wednesday, National Grammar Day, Kristen Hare of the Poynter Institute asked this columnist and others, “What are your biggest grammar pet peeves?” Journal-isms in turn asked the question of the presidents of the journalist associations of color. Paul Cheung, president of the Asian American Journalists Association, replied, “Not so much grammar issue but one of our pet peeves [is] folks using Asian-American and Asians interchangeably.” Bob Butler of the National Association of Black Journalists responded, “The number of people who tell me they want to join to be ‘apart’ of a great organization. I’m sure there are others that I’ll think of later.” The National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Native American Journalists Association did not respond.
- “Former NBC News president Andrew Lack’s return to 30 Rock — he is currently in talks about a ‘top job’ in the news division — would catalyze a major shakeup among the executive leadership and would likely signal Brian Williams’ return to the network, current and former high-level NBC News staff told the On Media blog on Monday,” Dylan Byers reported Tuesday for Politico.
- “Harpo Studios will finally bring its Chicago production work for Oprah Winfrey’s cable network to a close, parting with most of Harpo’s remaining 200 Chicago employees,” Lynne Marek reported Tuesday for Crain’s Chicago Business.
- “The White House has proposed turning Radio Marti, a U.S. government-controlled broadcaster created in part to undermine communist rule in Cuba, into a separate entity as Washington seeks rapprochement with Havana,” Arshad Mohammed, Warren Strobel and David Adams reported Tuesday for Reuters.
- “Vanity Fair is going south of the border,” Chris O’Shea reported Wednesday for FishbowlNY. “Parent Condé Nast plans to debut Vanity Fair Mexico in April, with Lourdes Garzon, VF’s Spain and Mexico director, editing the title. Condé is printing 90,000 copies for VF Mexico’s debut. A website is also in the mix. . . .”
- “People en Español has tapped Charo Henriquez as executive editor of peopleenespanol.com,” Chris O’Shea reported Wednesday for FishbowlNY. “Henriquez comes to the magazine from GFR Media, a media company in Puerto Rico. Henriquez previously worked for El Nuevo Día, the most widely-read newspaper in Puerto Rico. During her time there, she served as senior producer, multimedia editor, digital program manager and associate business director. . . .”
- “A new study from professor Erika Hall of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School suggests that white people have a far more negative view of the term ‘Black’ than they do of the term ‘African-American.’ For instance, study participants routinely concluded that a person had a higher level of education and job status, if that person was referred to as African-American rather than Black,” Brittney Cooper wrote Wednesday for Salon. Cooper also wrote, “my investment in the term ‘Black’ also has to do with being in solidarity with the many other Black people in this country and in the world, who are not American, who hail from the Caribbean or the Continent or other European countries, too. Though racial politics play out differently in all those locales, what we share in common is the global problem of white supremacy. . . .”
-
Sports columnists Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have been selected for the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame,” the U.S. Basketball Writers Association announced on Monday. It also said, “Burwell will be enshrined posthumously. He passed away from cancer on Dec. 4, 2014. A past president of the USBWA in 2010-11, Burwell is the first African-American to be elected to the USBWA Hall of Fame. . . .” - “Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Stephen Henderson will host WDET-FM 101.9’s Detroit Today, airing weekdays from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., beginning Monday, March 16,” the Wayne State University station announced on Tuesday. Henderson added on Facebook, “And yes – this is an extra gig. Still editing the freep edit page and hosting/co-hosting on Detroit public television,” referring to the Detroit Free Press.
- “Leading national sports journalists Christine Brennan of USA Today and Michael Wilbon of ESPN will join the faculty of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications as professors of practice as part of the school’s new sports journalism graduate program,” Storer H. Rowley reported for the university on Wednesday. “In addition to continuing their current professional roles at USA Today and ESPN, respectively, Brennan and Wilbon, former Medill classmates and distinguished alumni, will teach part time at Medill. Operating out of Medill’s Washington, D.C., newsroom, they will contribute regularly to classes, projects and events on Northwestern’s Evanston and Chicago campuses. . . .”
- “Miami Herald reporters Carol Marbin Miller and Audra D.S. Burch won the 2015 prestigious Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting for their series, Innocents Lost, a year-long project that chronicled how nearly 500 children died of abuse or neglect over six years in families who had a history with the Florida Department of Children & Families, the state agency designed to protect children,” Joey Flechas and Carli Teprof reported Wednesday for the Herald.
- “You don’t need to be Latina yourself” in order to write for Latina magazine, Corinne Grinapol reported Tuesday for FishbowlNY, “but you do need to be able to demonstrate that you have a good sense of the interests of the mag’s target audience of ‘women who were born and educated in the United States, speak English and are immersed in American culture while maintaining a firm connection to their Latina roots.’ ” Grinapol recommended the magazine’s lifestyle section, “The Good Life,” as a best bet for pitching.
- “Several conservative blogs picked up a ‘report’ from the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Jarida, yesterday that made the bold, but unlikely, claim that President Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli planes if they were to attack Iranian nuclear facilities in 2014. Among them [were] FoxNews.com, The Daily Caller, Breitbart, and several others . . .,” Damon Marx wrote Monday for FishbowlDC.
- In Kenya, “Police arrested Eric Wamanji, a senior manager at the Geothermal Development Company, yesterday for allegedly sending a death threat to the Editor of the Star newspaper, Charles Kerich,” the Star reported on Tuesday. The Star has published articles regarding allegations of mismanagement and irregularities at the company.
- In St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, “Acting Attorney General Terri Griffiths told executives of The Virgin Islands Daily News on Thursday morning that she will prosecute the newspaper on criminal charges because of its telephone calls to obtain comment and information from her,” J. Lowe Davis reported Feb. 27 for the Daily News. Davis also wrote, “Griffiths’ departure concluded a volatile session in which she accused The Daily News of harassing her by calling her cell phone after business hours to seek her comment on news events. . . .”
- “Radio presenter Edgar Quintero became the second Colombian journalist to be murdered in three weeks on Monday (2 March) when a gunman shot him as he entered a baker’s shop near his workplace,” Roy Greenslade reported Wednesday for Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “The killer arrived by motorbike and, after shooting Quintero seven times, mounted his bike and fled. Quintero, known as Quintín, hosted a daily news and commentary programme on Radio Luna in Palmira, a city in Colombia’s south-western department, Valle del Cauca.. . .”
- Reporting on Rwanda, Reporters Without Borders said Monday it was “appalled to learn that a Kigali court has sentenced religious radio station director Cassien Ntamuhanga to 25 years in prison for allegedly conspiring against the government. “Cassien Ntamuhanga, who ran Amazing Grace radio, was convicted on 27 February of forming a criminal gang, conspiracy against the established government or president, complicity in a terrorist act and conspiracy to murder. He pleaded not guilty on all charges when the trial began last November. His lawyer said he will appeal. . . .”
- “The BBC brought forward the transmission of a hard-hitting documentary about the gang rape of a young woman in Delhi following the decision by Indian authorities to ban the film,” Tara Conlan and Maseeh Rahman reported Wednesday for Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “India’s Daughter had been scheduled for Sunday, International Women’s Day, but it will now air on Wednesday night on BBC4. . . .” Ellen Barry added in the New York Times that one of the men on death row for the crime, Mukesh Singh, told Leslee Udwin, the filmmaker, “that the young woman invited the rape because she was out too late at night and that she would have lived if she had submitted to the assault. . . .”
- “In November 2013, delays and some outright refusals in issuing visas for foreign correspondents in China were making headlines,” Bob Dietz wrote Tuesday for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “A few months later, in its March 2014 survey of members, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) described the situation as ‘grim.’ An emailed report on results of the most recent survey (which can be viewed here [PDF]) found the visa registration process was smoother than in previous years, but ‘Chinese authorities are continuing to abuse the press card and visa renewal process in a political manner.’ . . .”
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