New Yorker Magazine Is Latest to Explore Ties
NAHJ Knocks “Anchor” Term; Bush Says He Means Asians
Birmingham News Sheds Last Black City Desk Reporter
Right-Wing Sites Force Activist to Disclose Private Past
“News One Now” to Air at 4 a.m. on West Coast
Debating “Black,” Refugee/Migrant and Latino/Hispanic
Why Writers, Publications Still Need Copy Editors
NABJ Unhappy After Meeting in Chicago Over Column
Tony Gleaton Dies, Photographed African Diaspora
Richard Spencer, who promotes “white racial consciousness,” said, “I don’t think Trump is a white nationalist,” but he did believe that Trump reflected “an unconscious vision that white people have . . .” (video)
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New Yorker Magazine Is Latest to Explore Ties
“Ever since the Tea Party’s peak, in 2010, and its fade, citizens on the American far right — Patriot militias, border vigilantes, white supremacists — have searched for a standard-bearer, and now they’d found him,” Evan Osnos wrote for the Aug. 31 issue of the New Yorker.
“In the past, ‘white nationalists,’ as they call themselves, had described [Donald] Trump as a ‘Jew-lover,’ but the new tone of his campaign was a revelation. Richard Spencer is a self-described ‘identitarian’ who lives in Whitefish, Montana, and promotes ‘white racial consciousness.’
“At thirty-six, Spencer is trim and preppy, with degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago. He is the president and director of the National Policy Institute, a think tank, co-founded by William Regnery, a member of the conservative publishing family, that is ‘dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of European people in the United States and around the world.’
“The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Spencer ‘a suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old.’
“Spencer told me that he had expected the Presidential campaign to be an ‘amusing freak show,’ but that Trump was ‘refreshing.’ He went on, ‘Trump, on a gut level, kind of senses that this is about demographics, ultimately. We’re moving into a new America.’
“He said, ‘I don’t think Trump is a white nationalist,’ but he did believe that Trump reflected ‘an unconscious vision that white people have — that their grandchildren might be a hated minority in their own country. I think that scares us. They probably aren’t able to articulate it. I think it’s there. I think that, to a great degree, explains the Trump phenomenon. I think he is the one person who can tap into it.’
“Jared Taylor, the editor of American Renaissance, a white-nationalist magazine and Web site based in Oakton, Virginia, told me, in regard to Trump, ‘I’m sure he would repudiate any association with people like me, but his support comes from people who are more like me than he might like to admit.’ . . .”
NAHJ Knocks “Anchor” Term; Bush Says He Means Asians
No sooner had the National Association of Hispanic Journalists on Monday called for presidential candidates and the news media to drop the term “anchor babies” than former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said that in using the term he was referring to Asians, not Hispanics.
The term has been used to describe American children born to undocumented immigrants.
The Daily Kos reported this exchange between Bush and reporters Monday in McAllen, Texas:
REPORTER: Do you worry that using the term “anchor babies” could affect your ability to win the Hispanic vote?
BUSH: No. Look, as I said in Spanish, my background, my life, uhh, the fact that I’m immersed in the immigrant experience…this is, this is ludicrous for the Clinton Campaign and others to suggest that somehow I’m using a derogatory term.
“What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed, where there’s organized efforts, and frankly, it’s more related to Asian people coming into our country, having children in that organized efforts, taking advantage of a noble concept with birthright citizenship. I support the fourteenth amendment. Nothing about what I’ve said should be viewed as derogatory towards immigrants at all. This is all how politics plays, and by the way, I think we need to take a step back and chill out a little bit as it relates to the political correctness. . . .”
In its statement earlier Monday, NAHJ said:
“This term belittles these children and triggers hate and threats towards their parents. ‘American children of undocumented immigrants’ is an accurate term that does not incite and sets the stage for reasonable dialogue about the issue.
” ‘This is not about being politically correct. This is about respect for human beings. It’s about being decent enough to give them an ounce of dignity instead of dwindling them down to a political potshot,’ said Mekahlo Medina, NAHJ President. ‘The issue of immigration and American children born to undocumented immigrants are topics the American people and candidates for president should discuss as they campaign to lead our country, but they should do it in a way that doesn’t belittle, incite and stir hate.’ “
- Anti-Defamation League: White Supremacists View Donald Trump as Champion of Disaffected Whites (July 15)
- Dylan Byers, Politico: Teflon Don
- Jarvis DeBerry, NOLA.com | the Times-Picayune: If the U.S. revokes ‘birthright citizenship,’ we’ll be like the D.R.
- James Edwards, “The World,” PRI: The white supremacists lining up behind Trump
- Adrian Florido, NPR “Code Switch” : Tracing The Shifting Meaning Of ‘Alien’
- Hadas Gold, Politico: Trump organization seeks peace with Hispanic media
- Emil Guillermo, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund: Riding Wong Kim Ark to combat GOP’s anchor baby talk, and thanks to family of Dr. Suzanne Ahn
- Jim Naureckas, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: Two Candidates Surge in 2016 Polling – but Only Trump, Not Sanders, Fascinates Media
- Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: The dubious origins of Trump’s immigration scheme
- Rochelle Riley, Detroit Free Press: Trump echoes H. Ross Perot’s ’92 straight talk campaign
- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: Can anyone compete against Trump?
- Rick Sanchez, Fox News Latino: The facts about immigration trump Donald Trump
- Brian Stelter, CNNMoney.com: Just how much media coverage is Donald Trump getting?
- Catherine Thompson, Talking Points Memo: An avowed ‘white supremacist’ wants to name a town after Donald Trump
Birmingham News Sheds Last Black City Desk Reporter
The Birmingham (Ala.) News has laid off its last black city desk reporter, Barnett Wright, but the company insists that it is seeking journalists of color for digital jobs in the parent Alabama Media Group.
The News, based in a city that is predominantly African American, is not alone in backsliding on diversity as legacy media shift toward digital operations that fail to employ as many journalists as full-scale print operations.
The News did not participate in the annual newsroom diversity survey of the American Society of News Editors, but six other Alabama newspapers that did reported no journalists of color.
Last December, Vernon Clark, the remaining African American city desk reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer, took a buyout and left after 33 years at the paper.
As Benét J. Wilson, who has been following the story for alldigitocracy.org, reported, “AMG, a subsidiary of Advance Publications, has disrupted its news operations across the country. In Cleveland, for example, Advance took away several beats from The Cleveland Plain Dealer, including the police beat, but left behind the more experienced reporters who covered the beats. The beats were moved to cleveland.com, where younger reporters were put in charge of them.”
Three years ago, 62 of 102 positions in the Birmingham newsroom were slated for layoffs, according to a document circulating then in the newsroom. “I’m the only black business writer,” Roy Williams told Journal-isms at the time. He ticked off the losses, including his own job. “The only two black editors. All five black zone reporters. All three black copy editors. The only black editorial writer, who has been here 30 years. It hit us really hard.”
Wilson quoted Michelle Holmes, Alabama Media Group’s vice president of content. “Holmes noted that AMG is looking for diverse journalists, including ones for its new AL.com Studios, a digital video platform. ‘For those positions, we are seeking video journalists with proven ability in digital storytelling, and advanced shooting and editing experience,’ she wrote. ‘In general, for all our roles, we are looking for journalists with strong digital acumen who are committed to storytelling, experimentation, and a willingness to deliver significant journalism on multiple platforms. . . .”
- Jalena Keane-Lee, CNBC.com: Diversity can be helped through ‘cultural competency’: Experts
- Sal Morales, latinousa.org: Midlife Crisis Pink-slipped
- Kay Steiger, ThinkProgress: Celebrated Black Reporter Laid Off By Newspaper
Right-Wing Sites Force Activist to Disclose Private Past
“This is thanks to a monumentally squalid series of articles by conservative site Breitbart that questioned whether or not King was actually a black man — an assertion that was thoroughly discredited by King. Normally, I’d advise you to avoid reading any further, but the King saga is a perfect symbol of some of the worst tendencies currently found in both the dankest corners of the conservative media and the shamelessly trigger-happy world of the mainstream media.
“Breitbart’s ‘scoop’ about King came from Vicki Pate, a blogger who runs a truly startling website called ‘Re-NewsIt!’ The site is the kind of typo-ridden bile factory that would normally be dismissed without a second glance. Its sole aim appears to be to ‘expose the truth’ about the nefarious charlatans at the heart of the Black Lives Matter Movement, as well as to smear any black victims of crime. . . .”
Mirkinson also wrote, “What defies all comprehension is why reputable news outlets ran with this sorry excuse of a story. CNN’s Don Lemon — who always seems to be at the center of the network’s most journalistically dubious decisions — breathlessly told his viewers that family members had sworn exclusively to him that King was white. (Never mind King’s own statement that his family was a complex, tangled ball – making it entirely possible that some family members didn’t know what the hell they were talking about when it came to his racial background.)
“The Daily News [in New York] ran multiple stories with headlines like ‘Rachel Dolezal 2.0? Shaun King, activist for the Black Lives Matter movement, outed as a white man.’
“It’s bad enough that sites like Breitbart are peddling this nonsense. But for CNN to use its still-considerable authority to drive such a clearly malicious smear campaign forward is something else entirely. CNN should have taken one look at both the Breitbart story and its source and known to stay away. That it chose not to do so is basic journalistic malpractice. . . .”
- Danielle C. Belton, The Root: Shaun King, Trolling Conservatives and the Reverse Paper-Bag Test
- Editorial, Daily News, New York: Black like him, Shaun King unfairly attacked by his foes
- Scott Eric Kaufman, Salon.com: Black Lives Matter activist strikes back against smear campaign: “Glenn Beck and Breitbart don’t give a sh*t about my race. They just want me to shut up.”
- Shaun King, Daily Kos: Race, love, hate, and me: A distinctly American story
- Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Why ‘Black lives matter’ resonates
- Barbara Reynolds, Washington Post: I was a civil rights activist in the 1960s. But it’s hard for me to get behind Black Lives Matter.
- Scott Stroud and Phillip Lucas, Associated Press: Racial identity of Black Lives Matter leader is called into question … but does it matter?
- Dexter Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Shaun King is no Rachel Dolezal: Look who’s calling him white
“News One Now” to Air at 4 a.m. on West Coast
When TV One’s “News One Now” daily news panel show moves from 9 a.m. ET to 7 a.m. ET on Sept. 14, it will air on the West Coast at 4 a.m., host Roland S. Martin told viewers on Monday. He advised those viewers to set their digital video recorders (DVRs) to watch it later.
“With this move, we are expanding the show’s potential to reach additional viewers by moving it to the 7 a.m. ET/4 a.m. PT hour,” TV One spokeswoman Brandii Toby-Leon messaged Journal-isms on Monday. “Following the 7 a.m. ET broadcast, we will be airing entertainment programming for the rest of the day. At this time, we do not have any plans to encore News One Now at 10 a.m. ET/7 a.m. PT.”
Toby-Leon added, “We will be hitting viewers while they are still at home, before their commute, and when they really prefer to watch the news during the weekday. It also provides us with a greater opportunity to reach more African American morning news viewers in the time period.”
“News One Now’s” broadcast network competitors, such at NBC’s “Today” show, “CBS This Morning” and ABC’s “Good Morning America,” will be airing simultaneously at 7 a.m. on both coasts. “In total, we have 3 feeds of the TODAY Show: Eastern, Central and Pacific,” NBC spokeswoman Nicole Enberg told Journal-isms by email. “During the 7 o’clock hour, TODAY reaches more than 5 million people through the broadcast (and millions more online).”
“News One Now” has averaged 105,000 viewers per episode this year, according to the Nielsen research company, although TV One prefers to say that “News One Now has grossed almost 2 million total viewers since its inception in November 2013.”
Debating “Black,” Refugee/Migrant and Latino/Hispanic
The decision by Associated Press Stylebook editors to keep “black” lowercase when referring to African Americans and other black people “is a niggling reminder of the pervasive issues of Black underrepresentation in the newsroom and its effects: tone-deaf and/or anemic coverage of Black individuals and communities,” Meredith D. Clark wrote Sunday for the Poynter Institute.
“As media coverage of networked activism in the #BlackLivesMatter movement revives discussions of how media talk about race, the question persists: Why won’t mainstream news outlets capitalize the b in Black?” said Clark, an assistant professor at the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas.
“It’s a question of social and political will. . . . “
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Jensen, ombudsman at NPR, reminded listeners Friday about when the network uses “refugees” and when “migrants.” She referred to an April discussion between Mark Memmott, standards editor, and Scott Simon, “Weekend Edition Saturday” host:
“MEMMOTT: Well, let’s work through the words. Refugees leave their homes or their countries to escape persecution, or they might be seeking safety because of wars, as you said. Some may have been forced from their homes by armed forces. Certainly, many of the people who we’ve been hearing or reading about are refugees, but they’ve been coming from more than a dozen countries, and they’ve been coming for many different reasons; some of them maybe just to seek better lives.
“The word migrants fits for them all. As the dictionary says, a migrant is a person who moves from one place to another, and in particular, it’s a word applied to those who leave one country to settle in another. We haven’t been using the word immigrants for a very sad reason. The people who didn’t make it to Europe — the hundreds who drowned — never got the chance to immigrate. One immigrates when you arrive in a new country. . . .”
On vox.com Thursday, Terry Blas, a Portland, Ore.-based writer/cartoonist and creator of the web series “Briar Hollow,” drew a mini-comic to explain the difference between “Latino” and “Hispanic.”
“Latino is a term that is telling you about geography,” he wrote. “Hispanic is a term that is telling you about language. It’s easy to remember if you dissect the words. . . .”
NABJ Unhappy After Meeting in Chicago Over Column
The National Association of Black Journalists said Monday that it “is disappointed with the response by the Chicago Tribune editorial board to the public outcry over a column by editorial board member Kristen McQueary, who called for a Hurricane Katrina-like storm as a starting point for fixing Chicago’s ills.
“McQueary wrote on Aug. 13 that she was ‘praying for a storm’ in reference to Hurricane Katrina. She then wrote a second column on Aug. 14 after negative comments online and on social media circulated, saying readers simply missed the point of the first op-ed.
“The Hurricane Katrina analogy ‘lacks news judgment,’ said Sarah Glover, NABJ’s 21st president. ‘Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.’ . . .”
In a letter Aug. 14 to the editorial board, the NABJ-Chicago Chapter requested a public apology and a two-week suspension for McQueary.
Glover and Kathy Chaney, president of NABJ-Chicago, met Thursday with McQueary; John P. McCormick, deputy editorial page editor; and Marcia Lythcott, editor of the Commentary page, Bruce Dold, the editorial page editor, told Journal-isms by telephone on Monday.
“They had a good conversation,” Dold said. “I fully support Kristen. She’s an excellent writer and columnist.”
McQueary wrote Aug. 14, “When I wrote a column Thursday about Hurricane Katrina, and how I wished Chicago could face a similar storm — to be jolted in a new direction — I offended the entire city of New Orleans and beyond. I used the hurricane as a metaphor for the urgent and dramatic change needed in Chicago: at City Hall, at the Chicago City Council, at Chicago Public Schools. Our school system is about to go bankrupt, and the city’s pension costs and other massive debts have squeezed out money for basic services.
“I wrote what I did not out of lack of empathy, or racism, but out of long-standing frustration with Chicago’s poorly managed finances. . . .”
- David Bauder, Associated Press: Television Networks Looking Back At Katrina
- Jamelle Bouie, Slate: Where Black Lives Matter Began
- Jarvis DeBerry, NOLA.com | the Times-Picayune: ‘Katrina,’ ‘federal flood,’ ‘levee failures,’ what do you call what happened?
- Jarvis DeBerry, NOLA.com | the Times-Picayune: Hurricane Katrina, Danziger Bridge and the exaggeration of ‘chaos’
- Editorial, Chicago Tribune: Katrina and the next crisis (accessible via search engine)
- Editorial, Chicago Tribune: From Katrina’s ruin: New Orleans strives to build a stronger city (accessible via search engine)
- Daniel Kerry, Ebony: ‘Katrina Truth’ Site Details Neglect of Black New Orleans
Tony Gleaton Dies, Photographed African Diaspora
“He was working, signing prints, talking to museums (several have his work in their collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem) and checking in with his friends right up to the last day. I admired his work, but also treasured his friendship.”
Bates also wrote, “His subjects tend to be people who are usually invisible to the rest of society, and who are outside of the mainstream aesthetic. He saw his work as a way to correct that marginalization, at least for a moment: beautiful portraits of beautiful people, taken with respect.
“In the beginning, he got a lot of pushback. ‘Why do you want to take our picture?’ the villagers would ask, warily. ‘We have no money to pay you.’
“When Tony would explain that he was documenting the African Diaspora around the world, and that they and he were both part of it, the conversation often became even harder.
” ‘You want to take pictures of black people?’ they’d ask.
” ‘Yes, like you and me … ‘ he’d [begin.]
” ‘Well,’ they’d respond, looking at his fair skin, light hair and blue-green eyes. ‘You’re not black. And we’re certainly not black. So you need to do that somewhere else.’
“Eventually he learned to refine his approach . . . “
- Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times: Tony Gleaton dies at 67; photographer of black life in West, Americas
Short Takes
- “At the 2014 NFL Rookie Symposium, Cris Carter told incoming players that it’s in their best interests to have a ‘fall guy’ in their crew — one man willing to take the rap and even go to jail to keep the player out of trouble,” Barry Petchesky reported Monday for Deadspin. “There was, for the first time in the symposium’s history, a reporter in the audience: The MMQB’s Robert Klemko. Though Klemko wrote an account of the panel led by Carter and Warren Sapp, he did not mention these comments. Now we know it’s because the NFL asked him not to. . . .” Michael David Smith added for NBC Sports, “ESPN opened tonight’s edition of Monday Night Countdown with an apology from analyst Cris Carter over his comments from the 2014 rookie symposium that came to light over the weekend. . . ”
- “A Tampa Bay Times investigation has found that incidents of violence and disruption have soared as district leaders neglected programs meant to make the schools safer,” Lisa Gartner and Michael LaForgia reported for the Times on Friday. “At Campbell Park, Fairmount Park, Lakewood, Maximo and Melrose, children . . . have been shoved, slapped, punched or kicked more than 7,500 times since 2010 — the equivalent of eight times a day, every day, for five years straight. Times reporters spent a year taking an unprecedented look at safety in the five schools, reviewing hundreds of thousands of discipline records and police reports. . . .”
- “A new poll finds African-American millennials say they are just as engaged in getting news online as their white counterparts, further debunking a long-held belief that people of color are at risk of being left behind technologically,” the Associated Press reported Friday. “In general, 64 percent of millennials say they read and watch news online regularly, including 66 percent of African- Americans, according to the poll, conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute. Sixty-five percent of white millennials say they keep up with the news online, while 53 percent of Hispanics do the same. . . .”
- “In our new book, The Asian American Achievement Paradox — based on a survey of 4,780 adult children as well as 140 in-depth interviews of Chinese, Vietnamese and Mexican immigrants — fellow sociologist Min Zhou and I found ways in which positive stereotypes can be advantageous,” Jennifer Lee, a professor of sociology at University of California, Irvine wrote in a piece republished Saturday on the AsAmNews site. “We found that racial stereotypes and implicit biases could actually be helping Asian Americans achieve their much-touted academic success. . . .”
- “Ernesto Portillo Sr., 81, a retired radio broadcaster who was in the field for nearly 50 years and a newspaper columnist for more than two decades, and his son, Ernesto ‘Neto’ Portillo Jr., an Arizona Daily Star columnist and editor of La Estrella de Tucsón, the Star’s Spanish-language publication,” were to be honored Aug. 15 in Tucson, Ariz., Carmen Duarte reported Aug. 10 for tucson.com
- On Friday, more than 60 publishers and editors joined Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan; Benjamin Chavis, president and CEO of the, National Newspaper Publishers Association, and Denise Rolark Barnes, NNPA chairperson and publisher of the Washington Informer, among others, to discuss the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. “When the first march occurred 20 years ago, the black press was instrumental in its success, getting out the word to blacks across the U.S. as October 1995 drew near. Barnes said they will play a similar role again” for the upcoming march, “Justice or Else 10-10-15,” D. Kevin McNeir reported Friday for the Informer.
- Spanish journalist Luís de Vega was expelled in 2010 after spending eight years based in Rabat, Morocco, and declared persona non grata by the Moroccan authorities, Karlos Zurutuza reported Sunday from occupied Western Sahara for Inter Press Service. This year will mark four decades since the territory, the size of Britain, was annexed by Morocco after Spain pulled out from its last colony of Western Sahara. ” ‘The Western Sahara issue is among the most sensitive issues for journalists in Morocco. Those of us who dare to tackle it inevitably face the consequences,” de Vega told IPS over the phone . . . ”
- Although the expanding Chinese media outlets in Africa were initially viewed as vehicles for pro-Chinese propaganda, analyst James Wan writes that “most journalists working for them — the vast majority of whom are African — have not been subject to censorship,” Roy Greenslade reported for Britain’s Guardian.
- The Committee to Protect Journalists Thursday condemned “the killing of Peter Julius Moi, a reporter for business weekly The Corporate and independent bi-monthly New Nation, who was shot in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, Wednesday, according to reports. Unidentified assailants in a car shot Moi twice in the back while the journalist was walking home from work in the Jebel Kujur area of the city at about 8 p.m, according to news reports. . . .”
- Reporters Without Borders said Thursday that it condemns last week’s announcement by the Bolivian government that “politicized” news media will be denied the funding that comes from state advertising.
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