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AP Wins Release of Incriminating Cosby File

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“America’s Dad” Admits Giving Women Sedatives for Sex

S.C. Senate Votes to Take Down Confederate Flag

ESPN Moves Celebrity Tournament From Trump Golf Club

Whitlock Alienated Too Many Other Journalists, Writer Says

Nearly Half a Million Party at Essence Festival

Bay Area TV Crews Robbed While Reporting on Homicide

Houston Examined as Example of Economic Segregation

Detroit Muslims Reclaim Working-Class Black Neighborhood

“Brown Paper” Shows How to Grow Latino Listenership

Short Takes

Some viewers thought CBS correspondent Michelle Miller was emotionally overwhelmed by the latest Bill Cosby development. (video)

“America’s Dad” Admits Giving Women Sedatives for Sex

“Bill Cosby testified in 2005 that he got Quaaludes with the intent of giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with, and that he admitted giving the sedative to at least one woman and ‘other people,’ according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press,” Maryclaire Dale reported Monday for the AP.

It was a bombshell that led both the “CBS Evening News” and ABC’s “World News” and prompted Time magazine to quickly post a piece by Daniel D’Addario headlined “Why Bill Cosby’s Admission Should Put an End to the Era of Cosby Defenders.”

Lawyer Gloria Allred told the Associated Press that she hopes to use the newly unsealed testimony in other court cases against the comedian, who became “America’s dad” with the success of “The Cosby Show” in the 1980s.

Dale’s story continued, “The AP had gone to court to compel the release of the documents; Cosby’s lawyers had objected on the grounds that it would embarrass their client.”

The Hollywood Reporter was right behind the AP. “Both the AP and THR are presumably looking at the same documents,” reporter Eriq Garner told Journal-isms by email. “We probably obtained them within minutes of the AP obtaining them.”

Garner’s story read:

“The documents obtained by The Hollywood Reporter were revealed after a Pennsylvania judge agreed to unseal old court filings in a settled case brought by Andrea Constand, who was the first woman to publicly come forward with allegations that he drugged and sexually assaulted her. The settlement happened in the midst of discovery as Cosby confronted charges that there were other women who were victims. . . .

“On Monday, U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno agreed to open up court records. 

“Cosby ‘has donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, childrearing, family life, education, and crime,’ states Robreno’s opinion. ‘To the extent that Defendant has freely entered the public square and “thrust himself into the vortex of th[ese] public issue[s],” he has voluntarily narrowed the zone of privacy that he is entitled to claim.’

“The court documents shed more light on some of the accusations against Cosby.

“For example, according to one of the newly revealed court papers (see here), Cosby testified that he called Tom Illus of the William Morris Agency and asked him to send money to one female accuser. Cosby is said to have testified that Illus did not ask him why. Cosby also said he wasn’t sure whether he asked Illus to send money to more women. (Illus died four years ago.)

“As for Constand, who was the director of operations for the women’s basketball program at Temple University — Cosby’s alma mater — Cosby admitted during the deposition to have once offered her mother some money for Constand’s education after the sexual abuse allegation was made. Cosby attempted to explain he offered money because he feared that she would use the allegations to embarrass him. In unsealed court documents, Constand’s attorney also says that Cosby sent his accuser to meet with a rep at the William Morris Agency.

“According to a plaintiff court filing, several people told the police that Cosby used a modeling agency in Denver ‘to supply him with young women,’ and after alleged victims came forward, Cosby used the William Morris Agency ‘to funnel money’ to accusers. There’s even a less-than-subtle hint that the talent agency would have been added as a co-defendant in the lawsuit had it proceeded further.

“Constand’s attorney aimed to establish in the discovery process that ‘the Agency not only permitted defendant to libel plaintiff… it also used other celebrities under contract to them to publicize that slander, in order to preserve their economic interest in defendant.’

D’Addario wrote for Time, “This newly released testimony, clearly, doesn’t address each one of the accusers’ claims. But it puts an end to the idea that such claims were motivated by a desire to boost the accusers’ own profiles, or to take down a comedy hero, because Cosby reportedly admits culpability in his own words. Bill Cosby is, in fact, the sort of person who would do such a thing; he said so himself, in testimony he presumed would remain sealed post-settlement and that only became public through dogged reporting.

“For those inclined to trust the preponderance of evidence, the fact that there was eventually definitive proof of Cosby’s behavior towards women comes as no surprise. What’s more surprising is that the man himself — one who allowed fans, costars, and family members to defend him for so long — had confessed his behavior in his own words.

“Cosby has only spoken publicly about the allegations against him in the vaguest of terms, leaving an opening for his defenders to read into his silence anything they wanted. That period of debate, in which Cosby’s level of culpability remained entirely in doubt, is now over. The question is whether, the heat of the Cosby scandal having died down as suddenly as it blew up, the public will still care.”

Michelle Miller delivered the story for the “CBS Evening News.” “As Miller reported the story —live, without a pre-taped package — some viewers expressed concern for Miller, thinking she was emotionally overwhelmed by the story,” Mark Joyella reported for TVNewser.

“Actually, TVNewser understands Miller wasn’t ‘upset,’ but simply out of breath after crashing her story and running to the studio.”

S.C. Senate Votes to Take Down Confederate Flag

“Nineteen days after a white gunman killed the pastor and eight parishioners at Charleston’s historic black Emanuel AME Church, South Carolina’s Senate voted to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Capitol grounds,” Cynthia Roldan and Schuyler Kropf reported Monday for the Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C.

“With Gov. Nikki Haley on the record saying the flag needs to come down, a two-thirds vote in the House would consign the battle flag, which has flown from a 30-foot pole as part of a Confederate Soldier Monument in front of the Statehouse steps since 2000, to the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum. The vote followed weeks of protests and growing demands by politicians, civil rights activists, community leaders and businesses to ‘Take It Down,’ saying it symbolized the racism that allegedly led to the mass killing at the church,” they wrote.

In an editorial, the Post and Courier said in Monday’s print edition, “Furling the flag has the support of town councils, civic leaders, civil rights organizations, church groups, college boards, coaches and business groups. Public support for the flag’s removal can best be described as overwhelming.

“Gov. Nikki Haley’s call to remove the flag is supported by all of the state’s living ex-governors, Republican and Democrat. They include Ernest F. Hollings, Richard Riley, David Beasley, Jim Hodges and Mark Sanford. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott have expressed the same view.

“Sen. Graham told CNN: ‘God help South Carolina if we fail to remove the flag.’

“More than two-thirds of the Legislature polled by The Post and Courier have said they support bringing down the flag. Let’s hope that means tomorrow.

“The flag still has its supporters. For some South Carolinians, the banner is a reminder of the bravery of Palmetto State soldiers during the Civil War, in which more than 20,000 of them died.

“For others, though, it is a reminder of a darker side of South Carolina history — slavery, Jim Crow, and the opposition to civil rights.

“The Confederate battle flag means dramatically different things to different people; it is unquestionably a symbol of division.

“That is enough reason to remove it from its location adjacent the center of state government. For clearly, it no longer represents South Carolina. . . .”

On the website of the State newspaper, published in the capital of Columbia, businesses and civic leaders added in an advertisement, “The time has come to move our state forward into the promise of our shared future.”

Businesses and educational institutions acted on the sentiment. Deanna Pan of the Post and Courier reported Monday that “Allen University in Columbia has created the Simmons, Pinckney and Sanders Scholarship to honor the lives of three alumni who were killed last month in a mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church.”

In the same edition, John McDermott reported that “Duke Energy will donate least $100,000 to expand a diversity leadership program at Furman University in response to the Emanuel AME Church shootings in Charleston last month.”

Executive Editor Mitch Pugh did not respond to an inquiry about whether the Post and Courier will be similarly inspired. The newspaper has won plaudits for its coverage, but as reported last month, its newsroom is less diverse than it was 15 years ago.

Nevertheless, the June 17 slaying of nine African American churchgoers and its aftermath has affected journalists as it has everyone else in the area. “A lot of people have been physically and emotionally drained by the whole thing,” Alex Caban, executive producer at WCIV-TV in Charleston, told Journal-isms by telephone. Morning news meetings now begin with hugs, Caban said, one of “these little things” that make it easier to do the day’s work.

ESPN Moves Celebrity Tournament From Trump Golf Club

“ESPN is moving next week’s ESPY Celebrity Golf Classic from Trump National Golf Club following owner Donald Trump’s disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants,” Maane Khatchatourian reported Monday for Variety.

“The charity event will instead be held at Pelican Hill Golf Club on July 14.

” ‘We decided it was appropriate to change the venue, and are grateful for the opportunity to stage the event at Pelican Hill on short notice,’ ESPN said in a statement. ‘This charity outing benefits the V Foundation’s Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund, providing resources for important cancer research for minority populations, including Hispanics and African Americans.

“Our decision reflects our deep feelings for our former colleague and support for inclusion of all sports fans. Diversity and inclusion are core values at ESPN and our decision also supports that commitment.’ . . .”

Meanwhile, officials said Friday that Francisco Sanchez, 45, suspected of shooting and killing a woman at a popular tourist spot in San Francisco, “was on probation and had been deported multiple times,” Rosanna Xia reported for the Los Angeles Times.

Xia also wrote, “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has come under fire for comments about Mexicans, issued a statement Friday evening about the shooting.

” ‘This senseless and totally preventable act of violence committed by an illegal immigrant is yet another example of why we must secure our border immediately,’ Trump said in the statement. “This is an absolutely disgraceful situation and I am the only one that can fix it. Nobody else has the guts to even talk about it.’ “

The killing and Trump’s response led the “NBC Nightly News” on Monday.

Whitlock Alienated Too Many Other Journalists, Writer Says

Among the reasons that sports columnist Jason Whitlock was let go from the Undefeated, the ESPN site he was hired to create, was that his manner and opinions had offended too many black journalists, Reeves Wiedeman reported Monday for New York magazine.

” ‘Jason’s a great columnist, and columnists are supposed to elicit response, move the needle, so he can say whatever he wants,’ one black journalist at ESPN told me, Wiedeman wrote.

” ‘But at what point does that disqualify you as a guy who’s gonna run a website that’s all about connecting with an audience that you’ve offended so many times?’ When Whitlock’s hiring was announced, a number of ESPN employees went to [ESPN President John] Skipper and other executives to express reservations about Whitlock.

“One black editor at a prominent digital publication — many black journalists declined to speak on the record, citing some variation of the fact that, ‘This is a very small world, and we all have to work in it for another 30 years’ — told me he viewed the site the same way he looked at Tyler Perry’s movies: Employed black writers were better than unemployed ones, but the site under Whitlock only seemed likely to set back . . . the cause.”

Wiedeman also wrote that Whitlock “set about trying to hire everyone from traditional sports reporters to those who covered criminal justice. But he quickly found that many of his targets weren’t interested.

“Some were content in their jobs; others were hesitant about working for him. Resources were not a question — the site recently sent one of its reporters and a film crew to South Africa for a story on Josiah Thugwane, the country’s first black Olympic gold medalist — nor were salaries. Whitlock’s top target was Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic writer whose ‘The Case for Reparations’ Whitlock held up as the standard to which he wanted his site to aspire. Whitlock offered to triple Coates’s salary, but Coates still turned him down. A friend of Coates’s said the idea of potentially running such a site would have appealed to Coates, but he had little interest in working for Whitlock.

“Many potential hires said they weren’t convinced they would be able to report and write the types of stories they wanted, and some were concerned that working for Whitlock would put them on the wrong side of history.

“Whitlock’s response to the protests in Baltimore had been to tweet that ‘Children need committed parents. Gotta rebuild the home,’ and a few days later, he linked to an article arguing that the string of young black men killed by police had been an overhyped story, because almost as many people were killed each year by lightning strikes and dogs.

” ‘A lot of us feel as if we’re writing things at a particular moment in history that people are going to look back on, so it’s extremely important that the tone and confection of these pieces are right,’ one reporter who covers race told me. . . .”

Meanwhile, Coates remains happy at the Atlantic and has begun promoting his new book, “Between the World and Me,” to be published Sept. 8. Coates was on NBC’s “Meet the Press” (video) on Sunday, on the “PBS NewsHour on Thursday, and debated neighborhood crime for an hour with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu on June 30. On Saturday, Coates published “Letter to My Son,” a lengthy excerpt from his new book, on his Atlantic blog.

Nearly Half a Million Party at Essence Festival

“Nearly half a million people attended this year’s Essence Festival held in New Orleans over the Fourth of July weekend,” the Associated Press reported on Monday.

“That’s about 50,000 less than last year when participants marked the festival’s 20th anniversary with performances by Prince, Lionel Richie, Charlie Wilson, Jill Scott, Janelle Monae and Mary J. Blige.

“Organizers say this year’s festival lineup included Kevin Hart, Usher and rappers Missy Elliott, Common and Kendrick Lamar for ticketed performances inside the Superdome while more than 120 speakers, including Deepak Chopra . . . , Iyanla Vanzant and the Rev. Al Sharpton counseled those attending the free daytime experience inside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

“In addition, for the first time this year, the festival touched thousands of fans around the world via 100 hours of produced live-stream content.”

Staging profitable live events are increasingly seen as ways to strengthen publications’ bottom lines. Essence Communications has said it does not release information on how much the festival contributes to its financial health.

Bay Area TV Crews Robbed While Reporting on Homicide

“News crews from two television stations were robbed of cameras Thursday morning, and a camera operator was pistol-whipped by a man in a ski mask, as they reported on a homicide at Pier 14 in San Francisco,” Henry K. Lee and Hamed Aleaziz reported for the San Francisco Chronicle.

“The mugging — the latest in the Bay Area to target television crews — happened at 6:03 a.m. at the pier along the Embarcadero and was captured in part on the air.

“KTVU reporter Cara Liu was reporting live when someone ran up and stole camera equipment belonging to KNTV, which also had a crew on the scene. During the incident, KNTV camera operator Alan Waples was pistol-whipped.

“KTVU anchor Brian Flores was introducing the story and preparing to go live to Liu when she appeared startled and said, ‘Hold on, hold on, wait,’ before disappearing from the screen, as KNTV reporter Kris Sanchez and Waples, 54, were being robbed at gunpoint.

“The assailant, one of three men who took part in the attack, came up behind Waples, who was . . . adjusting Sanchez’s lighting, and put a gun to his head.

” ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’ Sanchez yelled.

“Waples said, ‘Take the camera!’

“He recalled later that he was waiting for the click of the gun. . . .”

Detroit Muslims Reclaim Working-Class Black Neighborhood

“This is the story of a Pakistani Muslim from Ann Arbor — a radiologist by trade, an average American by right, a regular Joe who doesn’t always go to mosque with his wife and children — on a mission to redefine how people see Muslims:

He is helping to rebuild a broken Detroit neighborhood near a black Muslim mosque,” Rochelle Riley wrote for the Sunday print edition of the Detroit Free Press.

“This also is a story about the reclamation of something lost: the spirit of Black Bottom, a vibrant, working-class, black neighborhood that was home to the city’s first black mosque and its close-knit Muslim community, a neighborhood that was paved over six decades ago to build an interstate.

“Pakistani immigrant Waseem Ullah loves America, abhors ISIS and hopes people will judge him by his actions — and his new mission, which began five years ago.

“He was in Chicago with his family, attending the annual Islamic Society of North America conference, where Muslims gather to celebrate the successes of families and mosques. There, he heard a young man speak passionately about plans to build a new black Muslim neighborhood on the city’s South Side. . . .”

Riley also wrote, “The development is among many projects across the region being undertaken by Muslim leaders, agencies and mosques to show the resolve and contributions of Muslims, who number more than 200,000 in the tri-county area based on census and survey numbers. . . .”

A note at the end of the report says, “This is the first in a series of stories that explore life for Muslims in metro Detroit. The series grew from a six-month national fellowship Rochelle Riley received in January based on a new genre of reporting called Restorative Narrative — stories that show how people and communities are learning to rebuild and recover in the aftermath, or midst of, difficult times. Riley was one of five inaugural Restorative Narrative Fellows.”

“Brown Paper” Shows How to Grow Latino Listenership

“A case study by the Latino Public Radio Consortium examines the strategies and tactics that KPCC followed to increase its listenership among Latinos in Los Angeles, providing a model for other stations seeking to diversify their audiences,” Tyler Falk reported Monday for Current.org.

“The ‘Brown Paper,’ released last week for distribution at the Public Media Development & Marketing Conference in Washington, D.C., found that KPCC’s total audience has grown 27 percent, and Latino listenership has nearly doubled since 2009. At the end of 2014, the station was the highest-rated public radio station in Los Angeles.

“Its listener-sensitive revenue grew accordingly. The paper reports that KPCC’s listener support nearly doubled, from $6.5 million to $11.4 million; corporate underwriting revenue increased from roughly $5.3 million to $7.8 million between 2009 and 2014.

“The effort proved wrong that KPCC would ostracize its white audience by trying to appeal to Latinos, said Edgar Aguirre, an LPRC board member and KPCC’s managing director for external relations and strategic initiatives. ‘It’s a win-win,’ he said. . . .”

Short Takes

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