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NAHJ Board Wants Equal Voting Status for PR Members

by richard0614

Members Deciding on Bylaw Changes This Week

Two Black Journalists Among Latest Daily News Layoffs

How About Statues of Trump at the Border?

“The Undefeated” Takes On Chicago’s “Struggle for Hope”

Opinion Writers Cite Islamophobia in Teen’s Mistreatment

Journalists Who Risked Lives, Careers to Be Honored

“No Shortage of Africans Among the Migrants”

Short Takes

A screen in the San Antonio convention center a year ago shows Mekahlo Medina addressing me

Members Deciding on Bylaw Changes This Week

The board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists is asking members to grant public relations practitioners, professors, part-time bloggers and others of media-related professions equal voting status with working journalists in the association, breaking with the practice in other journalism organizations.

In a letter posted on the NAHJ website on Wednesday, President Mekahlo Medina said, “A common criticism our board has heard over the last few years was how journalists who were part-time bloggers, freelancers, semi-retired, academics, media professionals, students or digital developers did not feel equal in our organization. 

“Some might have a vote, some did not.

“The revision to our bylaws eliminates classes. It eliminates tiers. It creates fairness and equality for members who all are working for [the] same goal — more Latinos in newsrooms.

“It means everyone who is a member can vote!

“If you pay dues and if you believe in the mission of the organization, you should have a say! You should have a voice!

“It is at the core of the American idea and should be at the core of NAHJ. . . .”

Under the proposed revisions, the NAHJ presidency would be the only position requiring that a member be a full-time journalist and have served a full term on the board.

The principle of restricting full membership to working journalists in most journalism organizations stems from the idea that the roles of people in media-related professions are sometimes in conflict, particularly in such matters as journalism practices and ethics.

While public relations practitioners exist to put the best foot forward for their clients or employers, for example, journalists have seeking the truth as their stated objective.

Moreover, professional journalists are not always the majority of these associations’ members. At the National Association of Black Journalists convention in August, Executive Director Darryl R. Matthews said that as of June, professional journalists numbered 1,215 of NABJ’s 2,851 members. “Emerging professionals” — those in the first five years of their journalism careers — numbered 88; academics, 115; media-related professionals, including public relations practitioners, 422; alumni, 23; and students, 988.

Ernest R. Sotomayor

Ernest R. Sotomayor, dean of student affairs and director, Latin American Initiatives at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, wrote of the different focuses in a message to NAHJ members Tuesday on the association’s Facebook page:

“The NAHJ’s board — I was vice president — in 1988-89 spent a full year debating excruciatingly over whether to separate from the National Assn of Hispanic Publications and the Hispanic Academy of Media Arts & Sciences, not because they were bad organizations, but because they had different focuses than us.

“We renamed our convention from the National Hispanic Media Conference to the annual National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference to ensure the message was clear to news media [organizations] that our mission was editorial in nature. What is the signal we will now be sending?”

Medina argued in his membership letter, however, that the goal of more Latinos in newsrooms is paramount.

“Members, who did not meet the strict requirement of having a majority of their income come from journalism, have been at the core of NAHJ since the beginning,” Medina’s message said. “Jay Rodriguez, who was head of corporate information for NBC; Edith Auslander, an assistant professor; Paula Maes, Public Affairs Director; Robert Alaniz, community affairs manager for KCBS & Juan M. Garcia-Passalacqua, an attorney were all founders of our organization. All of them, at the time, would not qualify to be full voting members of our organization today!

“In fact, today members like Vicki Adame, a media specialist, who is classified as an associate member could not vote in our national election; yet she founded the Bay Area chapter and she was honored by immediate past President Hugo Balta for her unflinching commitment to NAHJ!

“Azhar AlFadl Miranda was co-president of the DC chapter. She served one of the most active chapters in our organization, providing amazing [programming] and development and [focused] on delivering on our mission by helping with the largest job expo outside of the national convention. She had to resign because she became a communications coordinator for The Washington Post.

“In chapters like New York, Houston, Austin, San Diego, South Florida and Chicago, we have chapter leaders that have little or no voice at the national organization.

“It’s more than unfair. It’s just plain wrong!

“The revision streamlines the membership classification and allows us to focus on what is most important — our mission!”

Balta agreed. He messaged Journal-isms, “I support providing members with a voice. They deserve the privilege to elect the association’s leaders.”

Others were not so sure, or at least questioned how the issue was brought to the membership. “If this is something that’s been in the works for a year and a half, how come we’re just hearing about this now, just a day before voting begins?” Patricia Guadalupe, a bilingual multimedia journalist based in Washington and long active in the association, asked on Facebook. An earlier email from Medina said, “Polls open up Tuesday, September 15th.”

NAHJ members are to vote on the measures starting Friday, Medina wrote, but added that the election will not close until one-third of current eligible members cast a vote. The changes are to be discussed Sunday at the membership meeting at NAHJ’s national conference, Friday through Sunday in Orlando as part of the Excellence in Journalism convention, which includes the Radio Television Digital News Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Here are other journalism organizations’ criteria for full membership:

Asian American Journalists Association: Full membership: “For those who spend the majority of their work time involved in journalistic work or hiring journalists. Unemployed journalists are eligible for reduced dues. Full membership is also available to those who have left journalism but who were AAJA members and journalists for five or more consecutive years.”

Native American Journalists Association:  “Professional memberships may be selected for Native journalists, photojournalists or other media professionals. This level of membership may vote in all NAJA elections.”

National Association of Black Journalists [PDF]: Professional membership: “Any person whose principal livelihood comes from creating, producing or supervising the creation of journalism.”

National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association: “Full or Basic: People who derive income from the gathering, editing or presentation of news or editorial content for broadcast, online or print.”

Society of Professional Journalists: Professional membership: “You spend more than half your time working as a journalist or j-educator.”

Two Black Journalists Among Latest Daily News Layoffs

Black journalists Jim Harney and Theo Caviness were among several newsroom staffers laid off Wednesday at the Daily News in New York. The cutbacks also forced out sports columnist Mike Lupica, longtime national baseball columnist Bill Madden and Teri Thompson, assistant managing editor for sports.

Harney, 63, was one of a half dozen deputy metro editors. He spent most of his Daily News career supervising or helping to manage coverage of the city’s boroughs. In the late 1970s, he followed a favorite editor, Bob Herbert, from the Star-Ledger in Newark to the Daily News.

Harney told Journal-isms by telephone that “at this point I would like to find a position as a spokesman for a government agency or an elected official,” though he would not foreclose any options.

Caviness, 39, was design director. He messaged, “I’m not sure what is next. I need a few days to process and plan.”

Last year, the departures of Michael Feeney, Enid Alvarez, Simone Weichselbaum and Jennifer H. Cunningham left the newspaper with an alarmingly low number of African Americans and Hispanics covering the majority-minority city, though in July, the News hired Leonard Greene, a black journalist from the New York Post, to work on the rewrite desk.

Feeney, who is president of the New York Association of Black Journalists, messaged his reaction to the latest layoffs. “I’m really disappointed that the New York Daily News continues find ways to decrease the number of black journalists that work for the paper, especially in a city where blacks make up a quarter of the population,” he said.

“From the death of Eric Garner to the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, it is important, now more than ever, that our newsrooms reflect the diversity of our communities. They have to do better.”

Harney said he was told that the paper is looking to “reorganize its coverage” and that his job would be eliminated. He said he understood that to mean that the News would lean more heavily into digital efforts.

“People across the paper’s newsroom were fired,” Richard Sandomir reported for the New York Times. “Mortimer B. Zuckerman, owner of The News, ended his efforts to sell the newspaper last month; it is said to be losing $20 million a year. The paper’s editor in chief, Colin Myler, resigned last week to return to London. . .”

Robert F. Moore, managing editor for news and Metro editor, told Journal-isms by telephone, “I’m not answering any questions.”

Republican candidates debated Wednesday night on CNN. (video)

How About Statues of Trump at the Border?

“There’s a reason why you won’t see an Asian American on the main tier of CNN’s GOP debate. Or any presidential debate in the near or distant future,” Emil Guillermo wrote Wednesday for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

“Republican or Democratic, it doesn’t matter. Most people who see an Asian American simply don’t see ‘president.’

“Even with Donald Trump lowering the bar for presidential behavior, it’s not low enough to put Asian Americans on a candidates list. . . .”

Guillermo also wrote, “It’s 2015, and Asian Americans are still limited by the take-out box people automatically put us in.

“As far as the debates go, I don’t like Bobby Jindal because of his politics, but the way he’s being treated makes me feel sorry for the guy. I’m sure others don’t like him because they simply don’t see him as president.

“As Donald Trump might say, using the Carly Fiorina scale, ‘Look at that face.’

“Does Jindal look presidential?

“You mean like the guys on Mt. Rushmore — all white? Like Trump?

“In fact, here’s an idea. South Dakota — home of Mt. Rushmore — is nearly 90 percent white. It’s just 1.2 percent Asian. And 3.4 percent Latino. That’s almost SIX TIMES lower than the national average for Latinos (17.1 percent).

“So you want to cut down that minority immigration? Try the Rushmore effect. Maybe instead of a wall at the border, conservatives should just erect the stone faces of white guys like Trump at the border. That would really keep people away. It’s worked wonders in South Dakota. . . .”

Deep down, Jerry Bembry wrote, Delores Bailey knew her twins “would escape from ‘Chiraq,’ the name attached to Chicago for the dangerous ‘war zones’ that make up large portions of the city and the place where the twins’ father, Lonnie Seals, lost his life to gun violence after an argument with a friend in 2000.” (Credit: TheUndefeated.com) (video)

“The Undefeated” Takes On Chicago’s “Struggle for Hope”

The Undefeated, an ambitious ESPN website conceived by sportswriter Jason Whitlock to discuss the intersection of race and sports, is proceeding without Whitlock, a development outlined by Winston Ross on Sunday for Newsweek.

On Wednesday, the site published “Chicago and the struggle for hope” by Jerry Bembry, the story of the murder of Demario Bailey, a twin, at 16. His brother, Demacio, survives.

“Demario was murder victim No. 399 last year in Chicago, a city in which 435 people were killed in 2014,” Bembry wrote.

“That was the most murders in any city in the country. Even as many cities experience dramatic increases in murders in 2015 (murders in Milwaukee are up more than 70 percent from 2014, for example), Chicago, with 341 through Sept. 8, is poised to lead the nation in murders for a fourth straight year. Recently, the city experienced its deadliest day in more than a decade: Nine people in Chicago were shot dead Sept. 2.

“But the raw numbers don’t tell the story of the Second City and its second city. The numbers don’t speak of the violence in Chicago being concentrated in specific neighborhoods and leaving residents living in fear. The numbers don’t reveal the tens of thousands of young people in Chicago — good kids such as Demacio — who live lives of forced imprisonment, with their parents trying to shield them from the gang activity and violence that overwhelm some neighborhoods. . . .”

Opinion Writers Cite Islamophobia in Teen’s Mistreatment

“Take a zero-tolerance mindset, mix it with a bit of Islamophobia and you get what happened to Ahmed Mohamed, an inquisitive 14-year-old model student at MacArthur High School this week,” Jim Mitchell wrote Wednesday for the Dallas Morning News.

“The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and the Columbine massacre in 1999 were seminal events in how this country now reacts to perceived threats. Irrational fears often supplant common sense, as Ahmed’s’ treatment shows.

“Personally, I think Islamophobia fwas a key part of Ahmed’s treatment, and I dare say that Irving Mayor’s Beth Van Duyne anti-Islamic comments this past spring helped poison the water. Still, the handcuffing and detaining of Ahmed for proudly bringing a homemade clock to school is yet another example of a school administration that has taken zero-tolerance mindsets to absurd lengths. . . .”

The incident was also the subject of an Dallas Morning News editorial, “Overreaction in clock-bomb mix-up has chilling effect,” and column by the  Morning News’ James Ragland, “News flash: Irving officials owe young Ahmed Mohamed a big apology.”

Journalists Who Risked Lives, Careers to Be Honored

“The Committee to Protect Journalists will honor journalists from Ethiopia, Malaysia, Paraguay, and Syria with the 2015 International Press Freedom Awards,” the committee announced on Tuesday. “The journalists have endured death threats, physical attacks, legal action, imprisonment, or exile in the course of their work.

“The 2015 awardees are:

  • “Zone 9 bloggers of Ethiopia, a group of bloggers of which six were arrested, imprisoned, and charged with terrorism in retaliation for critical reporting;
  • Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, ‘Zunar,’ of Malaysia, CPJ’s first cartoonist awardee, who is charged with sedition and faces a potential 43-year jail term for drawings lampooning high-level abuse in the Malaysian government;

  • “Cándido Figueredo Ruíz, a Paraguayan journalist who faces death threats and has lived under 24-hour police protection for the past decade because of his reporting on drug smuggling on the Brazil-Paraguay border; and
  • “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, a Syrian citizen journalist collective and one of the few independent news sources that continues to report from inside the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed capital. . . .”

Short Takes

  • During a discussion of “political correctness,” fellow panelists on Fox News’ “The Five” had trouble taking Juan Williams seriously Tuesday when he said he did not want to use the name of the Washington NFL team. “Now, on the one hand, Toni Morrison, the author, has said that the PC thing is about the power to define,” Williams said, according to Media Matters for America. “It’s the people in power who said, you know, this is the way we used to talk about the Washington football team. ‘How are you going to take that away from us, that’s our tradition.’ And on that level, I can relate, I don’t want to be defined by somebody [else] — no seriously . . .” (video)
  • A column Sunday in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that included the line, “Slavery was horrible, but no black American living today has suffered from it. Most are better off than if their ancestors had remained in Africa,” was condemned Monday by the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation and online by Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press. But the Post-Gazette has seen little reaction. “Not a torrent,” Tom Waseleski, editorial page editor, emailed Journal-isms. “Beyond the two letters we printed today, we’ve gotten a handful more, all of which criticize the column. We’ll print more of the responses as they come in. Took some phone calls and emails from readers yesterday, too. Again, a handful, which is not out of the ordinary for our audience.”
  • “You read it here first: Irika Sargent, a Miami news anchor and Cornell-educated lawyer, has been hired to replace Kate Sullivan [accessible via search engine] alongside Rob Johnson on the Monday-through-Friday anchor desk at CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2,” Robert Feder reported Tuesday for his Chicago television-news blog. “Sargent, 35, most recently has been 5 and 11 p.m. anchor at CBS-owned WFOR-TV in Miami. Starting October 19, she’ll co-anchor the 5, 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts here with Johnson. . . .”
  • “Americans commonly — and mistakenly — believe that well-to-do black people no longer face the kind of discrimination that prevents them from living anywhere they can afford,” the New York Times editorialized on Tuesday. “But a federal housing discrimination complaint filed last week by the National Fair Housing Alliance shows that this toxic problem is very much with us, nearly 50 years after Congress outlawed housing discrimination in the Fair Housing Act. . . . ”
  • “Florida A&M University officials have launched an ‘official’ news site over objections from students and alumni,” Tylisa Johnson reported Tuesday for alldigitocracy.org. “Outcry had delayed the launch by a week after university president, Elmira Mangum, proudly announced late last month that her administration would launch an official university newspaper. ‘It won’t be The Famuan. It’ll be a real newspaper, like the Wall Street Journal,’ Mangum said at the time. . . .”
  • “It was a Friday night like any other,” Monica Herndon wrote Wednesday for the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. “I was working the night shift, covering high school football, as I had for the last few weeks. I was starting to like the routine of it, following the action and sending pictures back to the newsroom at halftime. Third quarter, I’m photographing a linebacker sprinting down the field, thinking to myself, ‘This is great, way better than the other pictures I have of this kid.’ Next thing I remember I’m in the back of an ambulance, and paramedics are asking me questions I can’t answer. . . . It’s nearly two weeks later and I still don’t remember how I got hit” and suffered a concussion. . . .
  • “Last fall, while reporting for UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism’s hyperlocal news sites Oakland North and Richmond Confidential, a handful of first-year student leaders recognized a need for guidance in covering communities that were new to them,” the university reported on Aug. 27. “Two of them, Gabriela Arvizu (’16) and Zainab Khan (’16), applied for and received a grant that will allow the school to address this need. As a result of their initiative, the J-School will now offer in-depth training on equity and inclusion. . . .”
  • “A Lubbock TV reporter is accused of leaving a pedestrian seriously injured in a hit-and-run crash involving a station-owned vehicle Thursday evening in South Lubbock,” Adam D. Young reported Friday for the Lubbock (Texas) Avalanche-Journal. “Patricia Janelle Cun Villacin, 23, was released from the Lubbock County Detention Center on Friday afternoon on $5,000 bond after police say a witness saw a KCBD-TV SUV hit a pedestrian about 6:30 p.m. Thursday . . .”
  • “Vicente Arenas is no longer with CBS News,” Brian Flood reported Monday for TVNewser. “Arenas joined CBS News last March as a Miami-based correspondent from KHOU, the CBS affiliate in Houston, where he had been a weekend anchor and reporter since 2003. . . .” Arenas has been president of the San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Houston Association of Hispanic Media Professionals.

  • Esther J. Cepeda of the Washington Post Writers Group and cartoonist Lalo Acaraz, participants in last weekend’s Regional Media Summit in Detroit staged by Unity: Journalists for Diversity, have written about the experience. Alcaraz titled his posting, “My Big Fat Mexican Detroit Weekend.” Cepeda’s was called “The real story of Detroit.” Alan Stamm of Deadline Detroit commented on this column.
  • Reporter Jonathan Wilson has been named to the afternoon host position at WAMU-FM, the NPR News affiliate in Washington, succeeding Elliott Francis, whose contract was not renewed. Wilson, who is half Filipino and half African American, is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association. He has cautioned that more younger people are accustomed to multiracial people and do not necessarily subscribe to traditional racial categorization.
  • The International Press Institute said Friday it “denounced the Ecuadorean government’s intention to forcibly close Fundamedios, a civil society organisation that has dedicated itself to monitoring attacks on freedom of expression in the Latin American country for more than eight years. . . .”

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