Also Undercovered, Diplomat Says: Afro-Latinos, Indians
Riots, Looting Follow Efforts to Show a Peaceful Face
8 Blacks, Latinas Named Stanford, Michigan Fellows
N.Y. Times Declares 1.5 Million Black Men “Missing”
Abu-Jamal Worsening, Visitors Barred From Prison
Dyson’s Attack Ran “Because I Work Here” Now
6 Writers Won’t Honor Charlie Hebdo
Obama Really Meant It With “Rhymes With Bucket”
Consolidation to Continue, Despite Failure of Cable Merger
Also Undercovered, Diplomat Says: Afro-Latinos, Indians
English-language media outlets in the United States skimp on news from Latin America because they falsely assume that only Spanish-language speakers are interested, according to the nation’s top diplomat for the Western Hemisphere.
The result is a “ghettoization” of such news [video], Roberta S. Jacobson, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told visitors from the Association of Opinion Journalists on Monday. The outlets fail to realize that like other immigrants, Spanish speakers become bilingual by the next generation, and that if importance is measured in business terms, “we still sell more in this region than to China.”
By contrast, Asia is “covered excessively,” Jacobson contended.
Latino millennials speak Spanish at home, it said, but “when it comes to all things digital, English is Hispanics’ language of choice. On social media, 6 in 10 communicate primarily in English. They are also nearly 5 times more likely to have visited a website in English than in Spanish in the last week.”
Jacobson mentioned a development that might garner more attention were there more extensive coverage of Latin America: As the region rebounds economically, Afro-Latinos and indigenous people are not sharing in the benefits.
The career diplomat pointed to Brazil, Colombia and Peru, where Afro-Latinos and Indians often live in more remote areas and have historically been victims of discrimination. Afro-Colombians live on “conflicted” land. In Peru, Indians are less connected to the rest of their countries through broadband, Jacobson said.
A CIA World Factbook’s listing of racial categories hints at the complexities in the Southern Hemisphere. It puts the Colombian population as mestizo (mixed Amerindian and white), 58 percent; white, 20 percent; mulatto (mixed white and black), 14 percent; black, 4 percent; mixed black-Amerindian, 3 percent; and Amerindian, 1 percent.
Peru’s population is 45 percent Amerindian and 37 percent mestizo, with whites at 15 percent, and black, Japanese, Chinese and other, 3 percent.
Brazil is listed at white, 47.7 percent; mulatto, 43.1 percent; black, 7.6 percent; Asian, 1.1 percent; and indigenous, 0.4 percent.
The department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs maintains a “Racial and Ethnic Equality & Social Inclusion” website.
Beyond race, Jacobson said that women, the disabled and LBGT people likewise do not fare as well as their U.S. counterparts.
Her comments were part of an annual briefing for opinion writers that this year touched on such topics as the Nepal earthquake disaster, Cuba, the Islamic State, press freedoms, the proposed Iran nuclear deal, vetting visa applicants, trade proposals, the Ebola crisis, cybercrime and Ukraine.
The official death toll in Nepal has soared past 4,000 people, including four Americans. An interagency task force created Saturday and led by the U.S. Agency for International Development is providing assistance that is the “signature capability” of the United States, said Jeremy Konyndyk, USAID director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.
Last year, the State Department listed Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic as the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, explaining that only one of those countries — Syria — was receiving much media attention. Coverage brings funds to nongovernmental relief organizations, saving lives and guarding against leaving swaths of territory unprotected and lawless, said Nancy Lindborg, then assistant administrator for the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance in the USAID.
This year, Konyndyk said the world’s most pressing crises are Syria; South Sudan; Yemen, scene of a civil war; and the West African Ebola zone, with Ukraine, Iraq and Nepal deserving a close eye.
The Central African Republic has stabilized, Yemen “has the potential to be really bad,” Iraq has “serious needs” and Syria and South Sudan have become worse, Konyndyk said. In South Sudan, 3½ million people are “food insecure” in a “purely man-made crisis” created by warring parties, he added.
In another discussion, a State Department official said the department was aware of 500 children adopted by U.S. citizens who cannot join their American parents. The department provided the information under guidelines that the official could not be named.
The children are from the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2013, the Congolese government suspended issuance of exit permits to the children.
“I’d like to see more in the press about this,” Michele T. Bond, acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, told Journal-isms.
According to local press reports, “At least one U.S. citizen — and possibly more — has been implicated in a child-trafficking scandal in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) while allegedly trying to smuggle kids out of the African country for the purpose of adoption,” Erin Siegal McIntyre reported in September for Fusion.
American parents are not the only ones frustrated. Others are from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy.
In a written statement to Journal-isms after the meeting, the State Department official said, “The issue of intercountry adoptions is a very sensitive subject for the Congolese people and government. The government has asked all affected countries to give it the time necessary to review its adoption policies and processes following the growing Congolese concerns over reports of fraud, corruption, and child-buying in the adoption process. Given these sensitivities and concerns, Congolese government officials have not responded favorably to perceived foreign pressure for immediate lifting of the suspension.
“Following the announcement of the suspension on exit permit issuances for adopted Congolese children, U.S. government officials, including U.S. Ambassador [James C.] Swan, engaged extensively with Congolese authorities at the highest levels in a variety of Ministries.
“We continue to persistently raise the exit permit suspension in meetings with all Congolese officials who have a role in any part of the Congolese adoption process. . . .”
Two prominent former journalists — Doug Franz, former managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, and Richard Stengel, former managing editor of Time — greeted the opinion writers in their post-journalism roles as State Department spokesmen. Franz, who left the Times in 2007, is assistant secretary of state for public affairs, and Stengel, managing editor of Time from 2006 to 2013, is under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs.
On Monday, the Committee to Protect Journalists released its annual “Attacks on Journalists” report, in which Robert Mahoney wrote, “The neutral space in which journalists can operate as independent witnesses has been shrinking for some time. The beheadings in 2014 in Syria of U.S. freelancers James Foley and Steven Sotloff, by militants belonging to the group known as Islamic State or ISIS, highlighted the danger. Journalists are now targets. Insurgent groups no longer use reporters to transmit news but instead kidnap them to make news. . . .”
Franz noted the State Department’s support for journalists. It convened a January conference to support guidelines that better protect freelancers abroad, and launched a program to help provide “physical, digital and emotional self-care security training” to journalists in Central America, East Africa and Central Asia.
British war correspondent Tim Hetherington was killed in a mortar attack in Libya in April 2011. As Franz noted and Oliver Laurent reported for Time, filmmaker Sebastian Junger founded Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues, advocating for increased medical training for freelance journalists, after a medical officer told him that Hetherington probably could have survived his injuries if his colleagues on the scene had had first aid training.
The State Department also intends to encourage embassies to make impunity for crimes against journalists a bilateral priority, Franz said.
“Ninety percent of crimes against journalists are never prosecuted,” Franz said, quoting the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Stengel contended that the notion that the United States is withdrawing from the world “couldn’t be more wrong-headed. We’re more engaged in more places than anytime in our history.” He repeated that foreign aid, the State Department budget, USAID and “all the money that goes to foreign governments” is less than 1 percent of the U.S. budget, contrary to the 18 or 19 percent most Americans have guessed in surveys.
Yet, Stengel said, $24 billion is added annually to America’s gross domestic product via foreign students, who, along with trade and other measures, represent America’s engagement with the rest of the planet.
- Josue Lopez Calderon, HuffPost LatinoVoices: How Hispanic Triangulation Can Help the U.S. Innovate in Foreign Policy (May 18, 2014)
- CBS/Associated Press: Nepal earthquake death toll continues to rise
- Kristen Hare, Poynter Institute: 23 front pages from Nepal’s devastating earthquake
- Keyonna Summer, Tampa Bay Times: Dunedin couple to relocate to Congo amid adoption fight (Oct. 30, 2014)
- Stephen Tellier, KAAL-TV, Austin, Minn.: Pres. Obama Applies Pressure as Minn. Family Fights to Bring Adopted Son Home (April 1)
- Ayman al-Warfalli, Reuters: UPDATE 2 — Islamic State kills five journalists working for Libyan TV station — army official
Riots, Looting Follow Efforts to Show a Peaceful Face
Critics denounced media organizations over the weekend for emphasizing violence over peaceful protests in their coverage of Baltimore reaction to the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray after he was injured April 19 in police custody. But on Monday, riots and looting broke out on the city’s west side, and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced a weeklong, citywide 10 p.m. curfew starting Tuesday.
“Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency and requested the U.S. National Guard to assist Baltimore police and several other state and local agencies in enforcing the curfew,” Colin Campbell and Luke Broadwater reported for the Baltimore Sun.
Sun reporter Justin Fenton told CNN Monday that he was saved from rioters by a Baltimore business owner armed with a shotgun, CNN reported. [video]
The Sun’s Kevin Rector reported on Saturday, “A photographer for Reuters was detained and another for the Baltimore City Paper was thrown to the ground by Baltimore Police officers while covering protests over police brutality late Saturday, they said. . . .”
In the Washington Post, local columnist Petula Dvorak described angry teens surging past her in West Baltimore on Monday.
“In a flash, one of them bumped into me and grabbed the phone out of my hand. I chased after him, screaming, and other protesters knocked into me, tripped me and shoved me to the ground. They circled around me, some with bricks or rocks or bottles in their hands.
“But one boy pushed through the crowd and pulled me up, and another came to my other side.
” ‘We’ll get your phone back. Come over here,’ he said, pulling me away from the knot of teens and toward some other journalists, one of whom had a bloody scrape on his head. . . .”
Meanwhile, critics blasted network decisions to cover the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday night instead of the Baltimore protests.
“The contrast between the two Saturday nights — one full of schmoozing and well-chosen barbs and the other full of people fighting for their lives — was so stark that both liberal and conservative media outlets seized on it for a critique,” Sarah Seltzer wrote Monday for flavorwire.com.
- Leah Eliza Balter, Baltimore Sun: Baltimore’s real, untelevised revolution
- Will Bunch, Philadelphia Daily News: The night the news died
- Shaun La, Baltimore Sun: Police and ‘Black Baltimore’
- Tom McKay, mic.com: One Tweet Shows the Hypocrisy of the Media’s Reaction to Riots in Baltimore
- Mark Puente, Baltimore Sun: Undue Force (Sept. 28, 2014)
- Evan Serpick, Baltimore City Paper: City Paper photo editor J.M. Giordano beaten by police at Freddie Gray protest
- Al Tompkins, Poynter Institute: Journalists attacked and injured in Baltimore riots (April 28)
8 Blacks, Latinas Named Stanford, Michigan Fellows
Five journalists of color will be among the 12 U.S. fellows in the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships program at Stanford University, and three will fill 12 slots for American journalists in the Knight-Wallace Fellows program at the University of Michigan, the programs announced separately on Monday.
The Stanford fellows include:
- Sarah Alvarez, senior producer and reporter, Michigan Radio, Ann Arbor, Mich. Her “journalism challenge” is: “How do we fill the information gaps faced by low-income news consumers?”
- Jenée Desmond-Harris, staff writer, vox.com, Washington: “How can we translate academic insights about race and racism into conversation-changing journalism?”
- Tonya Mosley, broadcast contributor, Al Jazeera America, Seattle: “How can local television news stations establish and maintain consistent and meaningful engagement with audiences?”
- Tracie Powell, founder and editor, All Digitocracy, Washington: “How can we make newsrooms more diverse and connect with increasingly diverse audiences?”
- Matilde Suescun, director, digital, community empowerment initiatives, Univision, Miami: “How can we develop a narrative about education on mobile devices for Spanish-speaking Hispanics?”
The Michigan fellows include:
- Danya Bacchus, reporter and anchor, KNSD, San Diego, Calif.: “Leaderless movements: the rise of digital activism”
- Teresa Frontado, director, social media for news, Univision: “How can legacy news organizations weather social media?”
- Mosi Secret, metropolitan reporter, New York Times: “The role of long-form narrative journalism in fostering social change.”
Jim Bettinger, director of the Stanford program, said by email, “Our 106 applicants included 45 applicants of color, 57 white and 4 who did not self-identify.”
N.Y. Times Declares 1.5 Million Black Men “Missing”
“An analysis in The Times — ‘1.5 Million Missing Black Men’ — showed that more than one in every six black men in the 24-to-54 age group has disappeared from civic life, mainly because they died young or are locked away in prison,” the New York Times editorialized on Sunday.
“This means that there are only 83 black men living outside of jail for every 100 black women — in striking contrast to the white population, where men and women are about equal in numbers.
“This astounding shortfall in black men translates into lower marriage rates, more out-of-wedlock births, a greater risk of poverty for families and, by extension, less stable communities. The missing men should be a source of concern to political leaders and policy makers everywhere.
“While the 1.5 million number is startling, it actually understates the severity of the crisis that has befallen African-American men since the collapse of the manufacturing and industrial centers, which was quickly followed by the ‘war on drugs’ and mass imprisonment, which drove up the national prison population more than sevenfold beginning in the 1970s.
“In addition to the ‘missing,’ millions more are shut out of society, or are functionally missing, because of the shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers, racial discrimination or sanctions that prevent millions who have criminal convictions from getting all kinds of jobs. At the same time, the surge in imprisonment has further stigmatized blackness itself, so that black men and boys who have never been near a jail now have to fight the presumption of criminality in many aspects of day-to-day life — in encounters with police, in schools, on the streets and on the job. . . .”
- Shereen Marisol Meraji, NPR “Code Switch”: Questioning The Black Male Experience In America
Abu-Jamal Worsening, Visitors Barred From Prison
“He was not in a wheelchair, but can only take baby steps. He is very weak. He was nodding off during the visit. He was not able to eat — he was fed with a spoon. These are symptoms that could be associated with hyper glucose levels, diabetic shock, diabetic coma, and with kidney stress and failure. . . .”
On Monday, Hanrahan wrote, “The prison barred all visitors today for ‘health and security reasons.’ As I was at Prison Radio’s studio in San Francisco on Sunday afternoon, the phone rang. Mumia called in with a message for his supporters . . . . Please know that he remains critically ill and needs our support to get lifesaving medical care. . . .”
- Linn Washington Jr., This Can’t Be Happening!: The Public Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal?
Dyson’s Attack Ran “Because I Work Here” Now
“I bring all this up because of the discussion that has arisen among readers since the publication of a Michael Eric Dyson essay about Cornel West on our site this past Sunday. The conversation has been wide-ranging, but for me, there has been one stinging question that must be addressed: Why, considering this magazine’s history of a white gaze and a white audience, did it appear in The New Republic?
“I first saw that question in a post on my Facebook wall the night we published the essay, which I co-edited with my colleague Theodore Ross. Lamenting the harshness of the critique and the public manner in which it was delivered, author and Vassar professor Kiese Laymon directed this question at Dyson on Facebook: ‘You do this in the New Republic? This? There? Why?’
“Those questions have a very simple answer: because I work here. Dyson, who I’ve known since I was a producer at MSNBC, had been working on the essay for several months. When he learned from my former colleagues that I had changed jobs, he contacted me in March and asked whether we’d consider publishing his essay. I was well versed in the hyperbolic vitriol West had directed not just at President Obama and Dyson, but also at Melissa Harris-Perry, the host of the show on which I’d last worked.
“Not only did I agree that a forceful response to West was long overdue, but that it should come from a fellow black intellectual. We accepted it. . . .”
- Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR “Code Switch”: A History Of Beef Between Black Writers, Artists, and Intellectuals
- Michael Eric Dyson, New Republic: All Black Lives Matter
- Henry A. Giroux, CounterPunch: The Perils of Being a Public Intellectual
- Jeet Heer, New Republic: Acting Without Thinking
- Scott Eric Kaufman, Salon: Cornel West responds to “character assassination” by New Republic: “Deep integrity must trump cheap popularity”
- Jamilah Lemieux, Ebony: Mike Check: Dyson on ‘The Ghost of Cornel West,’ and Why He Had to Go There
- Elwood D. Watson, Huffington Post: Michael Eric Dyson-Cornel West Squabble: Nothing New to See Here
Obama Really Meant It With “Rhymes With Bucket”
“President Obama’s performance at the White House [Correspondents’] Association dinner on Saturday seemed carefully calibrated to deliver one overarching message: the president no longer cares what his critics (read: white people) think,” Nick Chiles wrote Monday for atlantablackstar.com.
“During much of his six years in office the White House appeared to go out of its way to avoid giving Republicans fodder to use in attacking him. But that no longer is the case. Many publications noticed, with headlines that sent out the message: President Obama doesn’t have any more f**ks to give.
“Jokes aside, the question now is whether this attitude will carry over into the politics in his last 20 months in office. Will he use every option in his toolbox to get around the Republican Congress and try to shape the country in his image — including going out of his way to help his people, the Black community? Perhaps he will follow up the nomination of new Attorney General Loretta Lynch with a string of Black appointees. Maybe he’ll start signing executive orders to really dig down to the obstacles blocking Black progress in areas like economics, housing, education and criminal justice.
“Or maybe he won’t. But he’s no longer afraid to talk about it. . . .”
- C-SPAN: 2015 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner (video)
- foxnews.com: Reporter at White House Correspondents’ Dinner ignores national anthem to text
- Politico Magazine: The Truth About Covering Obama
- James Warren, Poynter Institute: White House Correspondents’ Association president: Obama’s now ‘a heck of a lot harder to get on the phone’
- White House Correspondents’ Association Announces 2015 Award Winners (March 31)
Consolidation to Continue, Despite Failure of Cable Merger
“Even if Comcast’s $45.2 billion bid for Time Warner Cable is dead, consolidation among the companies that pipe in our TV, phone and Internet will carry on,” Tali Arbel reported Friday for the Associated Press.
“Combining the No. 1 and No. 2 U.S. cable companies would have put nearly 30 percent of TV and about 55 percent of broadband subscribers under one roof, along with NBCUniversal. That appeared to be too much concentration for regulators.
“Bloomberg News and The New York Times both said Thursday that Comcast is planning to drop its bid, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the matter. Comcast and Time Warner Cable declined to comment on the reports.
“But cable companies are likely to keep merging as online video options proliferate, the number of cable and satellite TV subscribers slips and costs rise for the shows, sports and movies piped to subscribers.
“At the same time, there will be more competition for young customers seeking stand-alone Internet and mobile video offerings and cheaper TV channel packages.
“This is already happening. Verizon’s FiOS is trying smaller, customizable TV bundles, while HBO has launched an online version of its content, HBO Now, that doesn’t require a cable TV subscription. . . .”
- Mary Alice Crim, freepress.net: Comcast Folds
- David Gelles, New York Times: Comcast Withdraws Purchase Bid, but It Isn’t Going Anywhere
- Harry A. Jessell, TVNewsCheck: No Reason To Cheer Comcast-TWC Collapse
- Jonathan Mahler, New York Times: Once Comcast’s Deal Shifted to a Focus on Broadband, Its Ambitions Were Sunk
- Hilary Stout, New York Times: Comcast-Time Warner Cable Deal’s Collapse Leaves Frustrated Customers Out in the Cold
Short Takes
- “Black women are more likely than white women to aspire to a powerful position with a prestigious title [PDF] (22 percent vs. eight percent) according to a study released today by the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI),” the center reported on Thursday. “The report, Black Women: Ready to Lead, finds that unlike white women, black women perceive a powerful position as the means to achieving their professional goals and are confident that they can succeed in the role. Yet, despite their ambition and qualifications, 44 percent of black women feel stalled in their careers (as compared to 30 percent of white women). . . .”
- “American Experience: Freedom Summer” (PBS), “Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown” (HBO), “POV: American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs” (PBS), “Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa” (SABC 2, DStv, channel 190 / GOtv, channel 65), “Ebola” (BBC World Service) and “Doc McStuffins” (Disney Junior) were among the winners of the documentary, education and public service Peabody Award winners announced on Thursday, Denise Petski reported for Deadline Hollywood.
- Commenting on Bruce Jenner’s disclosure that he is transgender, Kay Ulanday Barrett wrote Friday for Fusion, “The painful reality is that our gender identity is under speculation, suspicion, doubt, and policing. But the current curiosity surrounding Jenner’s interview in the non-trans community creates a magical fantasy based on a very wealthy, able-bodied, American, and white experience that isn’t the case for many of us who struggle for survival and justice as transgender people of color.. . .”
- “The Undefeated was originally meant to attract the best and brightest young black talent in the country,” with Editor-in-Chief leader Jason Whitlock’s “aim set so high that he at one point seriously tried to recruit The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates, the sharpest cultural commentator in the business today,” Greg Howard wrote Monday for Deadspin. “As things worked out, though, those young writers comprehensively refused to work with him. So did big-name ESPNers like Howard Bryant, Jemele Hill, and Stephen A. Smith, whom he tried to bring in as contributors. Whitlock and ESPN were nevertheless able to cobble together a staff of talented, ambitious writers and editors, but the story of his site so far is about his complete inability to work with them. . . .” The Undefeated is an ESPN site on race, sports, and culture for African Americans. Question and answer with Whitlock.
- “Oh, Don Lemon. In a GQ profile of CNN’s genius anchor, you can’t even make it through the first few paragraphs before finding something new that makes Lemon look like a moron,” Chris O’Shea wrote April 21 for FishbowlNY. “Lemon, of course, wrongly thinks sorbet is pronounced ‘sorbette.’ He even corrects the author (and mediabistro alum) Taffy Brodesser-Akner, when she pronounces it the right way. The GQ profile does nothing to alter the perception that Lemon has plenty to say and it’s almost always wrong. . . .”
- “In the fall of 2013, The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WNYC & WQXR undertook a historic undertaking: to record — for the first time — all 10 plays from August Wilson’s lauded American Century Cycle,” New York Public Radio announced on Monday. “Those audio recordings, along with exclusive video excerpts and photographs from the readings, are now being made available for online streaming on a time-limited basis here until August 26, 2015. . . .”
- “Eleven projects from 13 U.S. universities each won a $35,000 micro-grant to seed collaborative news experiments in living labs — their communities,” the Online News Association announced on Friday. Among the winners is Howard University for “HU Insight”: Can students create a digital network for fact-checking and investigating reports and claims about the African American community?” Partners are the National Newspaper Publishers Association and Trice Edney News Wire.
- The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists is offering guidelines in covering the oral arguments to be heard in the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday on whether a state may refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions.
- NPR television critic Eric Deggans is one of “The 14 Most Important Media Reporters in America,” according to Mediaite. “After moving to NPR in 2013, Deggans has established himself as one of America’s preeminent TV critics. Not only does he provide insightful takes on big cultural moments, but he also gives fearless analysis of the uncomfortable questions many in media are unwilling to tackle head-on,” Andrew Kirell wrote on Friday.
- “The University of Nevada’s Reynolds School of Journalism plans to use a $35,000 grant to establish a Spanish-language reporting team just in time for the run up to the 2016 Presidential election,” Selena Hill reported Sunday for Latin Post.
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