Tampa Bay Times Finds “Bicycling While Black” Targeting
Can Comcast, Time Warner Cable Merger Proposal Be Saved?
Iran Charges Washington Post Journalist With Espionage
In Iraq, Islamic State Exacts Heavy Toll on Journalists
Michael Eric Dyson Takedown of Cornel West Is Personal
Half of Whites See No Racial Disparity in Death Penalty
NPR Ebola Stories, “Latino USA,” Afropop Win Peabodys
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“We’d like to think we can all go about our lives without intrusion, without anybody looking in our pockets,” said Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Tracy Sheehan. “If we’re all going to take a hard approach on bike riding without lights, then let’s do it across the city and across the county, (video “You almost roll your eyes when you read the reports,” said Circuit Judge Tracy Sheehan. “Oh no, another bike stop, another kid riding on the handlebars, here we go. And certainly, we have laws and we should all follow the law, but it occurred to me the stops were all occurring in certain neighborhoods and with certain children, and not in my neighborhood, and not with the white kids.” (Video)
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Tampa Bay Times Finds “Bicycling While Black” Targeting
“Better not bike while black in Tampa,” Tom McKay wrote Saturday for mic.com..
“A Tampa Bay Times investigation has found the city’s police officers are disproportionately ‘targeting poor, black neighborhoods with obscure subsections of a Florida statute that outlaws things most people have tried on a bike, like riding with no light or carrying a friend on the handlebars.’ The police department used violations of the statute as an excuse to ‘stop, question and search almost anyone on wheels.’
“Well, just so long as they’re black. The newspaper analyzed over 10,000 citations that Tampa Police Department officers have issued to bicyclists over the past 12 years and found that about 79% of the ticketed people were black. That’s despite the fact that Tampa is roughly a quarter black, according to the newspaper’s analysis. The Tampa Bay Times further found that 80% of the ticket stops resulted in no arrest, and when they did, “it was almost always for a small amount of drugs or a misdemeanor like trespassing.’ . . .”
The story, by Alexandra Zayas and Kameel Stanley, written for Sunday print edition of the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times, said:
“Officers use these minor violations as an excuse to stop, question and search almost anyone on wheels. The department doesn’t just condone these stops, it encourages them, pushing officers who patrol high-crime neighborhoods to do as many as possible.
“There was the 56-year-old man who rode his bike through a stop sign while pulling a lawnmower . Police handcuffed him while verifying he had, indeed, borrowed the mower from a friend.
“There was the 54-year-old man whose bike was confiscated because he couldn’t produce a receipt to prove it was his.
“One woman was walking her bike home after cooking for an elderly neighbor. She said she was balancing a plate of fish and grits in one hand when an officer flagged her down and issued her a $51 ticket for not having a light. With late fees, it has since ballooned to $90. She doesn’t have the money to pay. . . .”
Can Comcast, Time Warner Cable Merger Proposal Be Saved?
“Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. are slated to sit down for the first time on Wednesday with Justice Department officials to discuss potential remedies in hopes of keeping their $45.2 billion merger on track according to people familiar with the matter,” Shalini Ramachandran, Joe Flint and Brent Kendall reported Sunday for the Wall Street Journal.
“The parties haven’t met face-to-face to hash out possible concessions in the more than 14 months since the deal was announced.
“Staffers at both the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission remain concerned a combined company would wield too much power in the broadband Internet market and give it unfair competitive leverage against TV channel owners and new market entrants that offer video programming online, said people with knowledge of the review.
“One of the options that the FCC is considering is to designate the merger for a hearing, people familiar with the agency’s thinking said. A hearing order would put the merger in the hands of an administrative law judge, a move which would be seen as a sign that the FCC isn’t convinced the deal would be good for the public.. . .”
Iran Charges Washington Post Journalist With Espionage
“Iranian authorities are charging The Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, with espionage and three other serious crimes, including ‘collaborating with hostile governments’ and ‘propaganda against the establishment,’ according to his attorney in Tehran,” Carol Morello reported Monday for the Washington Post.
“Providing the first description of the precise charges against Rezaian since his arrest nine months ago, the lawyer said that an indictment alleges that Rezaian gathered information ‘about internal and foreign policy’ and provided it to ‘individuals with hostile intent.’
“The statement, issued from Tehran by Rezaian’s attorney, Leila Ahsan, was provided to The Post by the family of the imprisoned reporter.
“Rezaian also is accused of collecting classified information, said Ahsan, who is believed to be the only person outside the judiciary to have read the indictment. The indictment says he wrote to President Obama, in an example of his alleged contact with a ‘hostile government.’ . . .”
Morello also wrote, “Martin Baron, The Post’s executive editor, described the charges against Rezaian as ‘scurrilous.’ . . .”
In Iraq, Islamic State Exacts Heavy Toll on Journalists
“The militant group the Islamic State swept through Iraq last summer, taking over city after city and leaving a wave of destruction of a scale only just being discovered. Oday Hatem wrote Monday for PBS MediaShift. “Even now it is difficult to understand how much damage was inflicted, including on the Iraqi journalist community, where rumors of missing or killed journalists are swirling and their families are afraid to speak out,”
“I had to flee Iraq for fear of my life last spring. Over the past few weeks, I conducted dozens of interviews with Iraqi journalists who worked inside the country, families of kidnapped journalists, and local human rights groups to better understand how much harm Islamic State wreaked on my colleagues still in the country.
“What we know, from CPJ research in neighboring Syria, is that the Islamic State is holding the majority of about 20 Syrian journalists who were reported by media groups and families to have been kidnapped. Last fall, the organization I used to lead, the Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq, estimated that the group was holding five journalists in Iraq. The Metro Center to Defend Journalists, another press freedom group based in the Iraqi Kurdistan city of Sulaymaniyah, said the militants were holding nine journalists in Iraq. . . .”
Michael Eric Dyson Takedown of Cornel West Is Personal
“It was personal,” Danielle C. Belton wrote Monday for The Root.
“In Michael Eric Dyson’s takedown for the New Republic of his friend and mentor Cornel West, he has a come-to-Jesus moment that is neither pretty nor kind, but painfully blunt. The realization comes to Dyson that West is a parody of the intellectual he once was, that his vicious and often personal attacks on President Barack Obama have come at a cost: the loss of his credibility.
“And the loss of their 35-year friendship.
“Dyson’s story, ‘The Ghost of Cornel West,’ is a tale of transgressions, verbal and personal, of bruised egos and hurt feelings, of a father figure lashing out at the perceived ease of youth and the successes of those for whom he laid a path
“Belton also wrote, ‘Dyson spoke with The Root Sunday about his piece and why he wrote it.’ . . .”
- Luvvie Ajayi, Awesomely Luvvie: Love and Hip Hop Academia: The Michael Eric Dyson Takedown of Cornel West
- Ben Norton, medium.com: The Ghosts of Obama’s Victims
- Gary Younge, the Guardian: The Cornel West-Michael Eric Dyson feud is petty. Black people are dying in the streets
- Dave Zirin, the Nation: Cornel West Is Not Mike Tyson
NPR Ebola Stories, “Latino USA,” Afropop Win Peabodys
The NPR News Reporting From The Frontlines: The Ebola Outbreak coverage has been honored with a George Foster Peabody Award, one year after the public media organization led early and exceptionally deep coverage of the infectious outbreak in West Africa,” the network announced on Monday.
“NPR’s Latino USA is also a winner in the Radio/Podcast category for Gangs, Murder and Migration in Honduras, an episode that examined the many reasons driving contemporary migration from Honduras, a country in crisis.
In addition, “Vice News was honored for two stories: one on a Chicago high school of high-risk students and the other coverage of ISIS in Iraq and Syria,” Luke McCord reported for Broadcasting & Cable. “. . . .CNN nabbed a Peabody Award for its coverage of treatment delays in Veterans Administration hospitals and the kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram. . . .”
An institutional award is to be presented to Afropop Worldwide.
In the entertainment category, among the winners is “Jane the Virgin” on the CW. “Immaculately conceived, it’s a smart, self-aware telenovela that knows when and how to wink at itself. Its Latina lead, Gina Rodriguez, is incandescent,” the judges said.
Documentary, public service, education and children’s programming winners are to be announced on Thursday.
Short Takes
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“Mark Trahant, a well-known independent print and broadcast journalist and member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribe, joins the University of North Dakota Communication Program faculty next fall as Charles R. Johnson Endowed Professor of Journalism,” the university announced. Trahant, board chairman of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, is the 2014 Atwood Chair of Journalism at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
- “It came as a great surprise to learn that Isabel Wilkerson, who has received so much acclaim for both her journalism and for The Warmth of Other Suns, her history of the Great Migration — the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, appearances on dozens of best-book lists, and the honor of being the 2013 One Book, One Chicago selection — was not only thrilled to hear that Warmth had won the Reader’s Greatest Ever Chicago Book tournament, but had been following the contest for several weeks,” Aimee Levitt reported Thursday for the Chicago Reader.
- NBC BLK, the black-oriented portal that launched in January, on Monday posted the first of four parts of a series called “Black & Green,” “stories exploring different aspects of African American presence and lack thereof in the legal marijuana industry.” The first part examines six reasons it can be challenging for African Americans to enter the legal marijuana business.”
- “When people see Jorge Ramos interviewing someone they know, Univision’s audience knows that Jorge is representing them,” Isaac Lee, Univision’s president of news, said at the 2015 International Symposium of Online Journalism, held April 17-19 at the University of Texas at Austin, “That he is not asking the questions to be celebrated as a fair and balanced journalist,” he continued, Steve Taylor reported Sunday for the Rio Grande Guardian. “He is asking the questions to represent them. He is going to ask the person whatever is necessary to push the agenda for a more fair society, for a more inclusive society and for the Hispanic community to be better.’ . . .”
- “Ali Velshi is getting new duties at Al Jazeera America,” Brian Steinberg reported Friday for Variety. “The onetime CNN anchor, who joined Al Jazeera America before it launched in 2013, will lead the half-hour program ‘Ali Velshi on Target,’ a half-hour program focused on political and economic issues. Velshi had been hosting ‘Real Money,’ a show centered on business and financial news. The new program is slated to debuts May 11 and will air weeknights on Al Jazeera America at 10:30 p.m. ET. . . .”
- “If your target is a mammoth, global institution like the World Bank, it helps to have a global network of muckrakers to hold it accountable,” Chris Ip wrote Friday for Columbia Journalism Review. “It’s a role uniquely suited to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who yesterday released the series, ‘Evicted and abandoned: The World Bank’s broken promise to the poor,’ reporting that at least 3.4 million people from Ethiopia to Honduras have been displaced by development projects supported by the bank, in some cases violating their human rights. . . .”
- “The Travel Channel has tapped TV Host and Pop Culture Commentator Jawn Murray to host a new series called ‘Night Crawl New York with Jawn Murray,’ according to a news release Thursday. “The five-episode series focuses on New York nightlife venues and premiered this week on the network’s digital platform TravelChannel.com. . . .”
- “Bloomberg will be stylin’ and profilin’ at this year’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner on Saturday night,” Brian Flood reported Monday for Bloomberg News. “Mark Halperin and John Heilemann will anchor a special broadcast, live from the Washington Hilton, to cover the annual event. New York Knicks legend and fashion icon Walt “Clyde” Frazier will join the show as a special correspondent. . . .”
- “I miss Sam Donaldson,” April D. Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, told Damon Marx of FishbowlDC on Thursday. “I worked with him for a short period of time during the Clinton years. Sam was from the old school. He used his vocal abilities to out shout others with questions to the President. His voice carried his questions with force across the largest spaces. He out shouted most journalists. Unfortunately some of the new breed of journalists at the White House frown upon that Sam Donaldson example. When did we change? Why did we change? I miss Sam Donaldson for his lead in how Presidents could not side step our questions.” . . .
- “Fake journalists in Lagos operate in groups,” Femi Akinola reported Monday for the Daily Trust in Nigeria. “At press events, they pretend to be more active than genuine journalists. This group of impostors are easily identified by the manner they pursue organisers of events demanding for gratification, or what is called the ‘brown envelope’, at events. . . . Sunday Trust checks revealed that these impostors possess identification cards of various daily newspapers and magazines. Though the identification cards in their possession do not in most cases resemble the original ones issued by the newspaper companies, they get away with their act many times because unsuspecting and ignorant members of the public are none the wiser. . . .”
- “Memo to journalists: When you write an open letter to the Pope, keep your cell phone charged. He may call to chat about it,” Daniel Burke reported Thursday for CNN. “Yes, the ‘Cold Call Pope’ rang again this week. This time, according to an Argentine journalist, Francis phoned to answer a column about candidates who seek campaign-boosting photo ops with the popular pontiff. Apparently, the Pope was persuasive. The call ended with the journalist, Alfredo Leuco, pledging to learn how to pray.. . .”
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