Maynard Institute archives

New on Editorial Page: Thuggish Poses

by richard0501

Palm Beach Post Takes Readers to Deadly “Facebook Wars”

Opinion Pages Turn to Communities to Keep Diversity

Honors for Exposing “The Death No One Cared About”

With Terror Attacks, It’s Location, Location, Location

Mizzou Crisis Prompts Look at Student Newspaper Diversity

Harvard Law Profs Blast CNN Film on Sex Harassment

Dorothy Bland: I Never Intended to Become National Figure

Life Magazine’s First Photo Essay by Black Photographer

Short Takes

Palm Beach Post Takes Readers to Deadly “Facebook Wars”

Pictures of young black men pointing guns and flashing cash aren’t the usual fare for editorial pages, but that’s what readers of the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post and its website saw in September — and the photos came from the young men’s publicly available Facebook pages.

That posting garnered 22,000 shares, Rick Christie, the editorial page editor, told the Association of Opinion Journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Sunday, as 50 members and 35 guests gathered at the Poynter Institute for the group’s annual symposium.

“People were shocked that people were putting that stuff out there,” Christie said.

The Post deemed an accompanying video, also on Facebook, too graphic for readers.

Like the rest of the news industry, editorial pages are changing to adapt to the new digital environment. As Mike Wilson, editor of the Dallas Morning News, told the group, his operation is changing from a newspaper that also has a website to “a website that produces a great newspaper.”

That means different priorities, according to the editors. Web audiences favor columns with a point of view over institutional editorials. Drastic cuts in editorial page staffs can mean staffs are less diverse, but the editors say they compensate by opening their space more to community members and freelancers as a way to achieve racial, ideological, gender and age diversity.

When they take that path, the subject matter gets closer to where people live and is less about the world of policy wonks.

The Palm Beach Post’s publication of thuggish Facebook postings came in response to a wave of gun violence.

Christie told Journal-isms by telephone on Monday that his use of Facebook postings in an editorial was a different way of using social media — as a source and a way of telling the story, not just as a marketing tool.

“City officials debating how many officers they can afford in West Palm Beach’s north end had best not play down the seriousness of the recent spasm of gun violence, or delay concrete action until October,” its Sept. 13 editorial began.

“Some argue the youth involved aren’t so much gang members as cliques of punks harboring old grudges. They need to check Facebook.

“There, self-proclaimed neighborhood gangsters promise retribution for ‘snitches,’ post bragging videos of themselves rolling fat joints and waving guns, and advertise pot, pills, stolen goods and cash, all in plain view of anyone with a computer. So where are the arrests? . . .”

The editorial also said, “Laurel Robinson, director of the West Palm Beach Housing Authority, refers to the neighborhood’s summer of death as the ‘Facebook Wars.’

” ‘I am calling them the Facebook Wars because the young people who are involved are instantaneously connected,’ Robinson told The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board. ‘They don’t have to meet under a highway now to have a gang war, that’s not how it’s done. It’s so fast; it’s really, really fast.’

“It appears 20th Century shoe-leather policing isn’t working against this 21st Century, cellphone-based gang war. The city can’t wait until October, as police officials suggest, to adjust strategy. . . .”

As a black journalist, Christie has an authority that others might not have. He said he received a call from the distraught mother of the 15-year-old posing beside a buddy who was pointing a gun at the camera. “I’m a black mother. You don’t know” how that makes her feel, she told Christie. Christie replied, “If you like, I’ll call my mom, and maybe she’ll give you some advice.”

Mei Lei, a China native and Emerson College graduate, was collecting footage of Chinatown’ Chinese New Year celebration when she found a story of immigration and women’s empowerment. It became part of the Boston Globe’s Opinion Reel project. (video)

Opinion Pages Turn to Communities to Keep Diversity

That the staffs of the nation’s opinion pages have been cut is beyond dispute. “My memory is that 8-10 years ago we had about a dozen people writing full- or part- time for the opinion pages,” Mike Norman, editorial page editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, told Journal-isms by email on Monday.

“Of course, at that time we were also producing I think at least 16 pages a week with a lot of local columns. It’s 10 pages a week now, and we’re trying to build in more local columns.

Today, “We have two people (myself and one other) who work on the opinion pages full-time, and three others who write for us part-time along with their other duties at the Star-Telegram.”

Others tell similar stories. Once, 11 people worked on editorial pages at the South Florida SunSentinel; now there are three. The Orlando Sentinel had nine editorial board staff members when Paul Owens, opinions editor, joined the board in 2002. Now it’s down to three.

Moreover, Owens announced at the Association of Opinion Journalists symposium over the weekend in St. Petersburg, Fla., that his board’s African American member, Darryl Owens, is taking a buyout. Owens has been at the Sentinel for 25 years.

One challenge for opinion editors is maintaining a diverse offering in the face of cutbacks as the nation grows increasingly diverse. They do it by turning to community members and freelancers, they said at the symposium. And, as Dan Morain, editorial page editor at Sacramento Bee, told Journal-isms, “It has to be the priority in the newsroom.”

“Bringing a broader range of voices to the Miami Herald opinion pages is a constant goal,” Nancy Ancrum, editorial board editor at the Herald, told Journal-isms Saturday by email. She led a panel discussion Sunday on “How opinion editors can cultivate diversity on their pages and digital platforms.”

“I am out and about in the community A LOT. I attend events both professionally and personally. I hand out my business card to everybody with whom I have an interesting conversation. That alone means I’m talking to a broad, diverse, and interesting group of people. As a result of cocktail conversation, I invite them to write an op-ed for us. And they do! Just last night I had a conversation with a young Haitian American man who is involved in working for women’s equality. Who knew?

“His goal is to enroll men into supporting women and equitable salary, workplace treatment, and to support them in the fight against domestic violence. He is having a conference over the next few weeks for men to provide a safe space for conversation and coaching. I asked him to write me an op-ed, and I suspect that he will. We are due to talk on Monday.

“The key for me is face-to-face communication. Time-consuming? Sometimes. But more than worth it. People who never thought they could have a relationship with the Miami Herald are thrilled that they have been invited to write and to present their point of view.”

Other examples:

Rosemary O’Hara, editorial page editor of the SunSentinel, a participant in Ancrum’s panel discussion, says one of her goals is to post an opinion video every day. “I have absolutely tapped into freelancers,” she said. The SunSentinel also makes use of its “South Florida 100” community leaders to regularly offer opinions.

Joanna Weiss, assistant managing editor of the Boston Globe, gave attendees a PowerPoint presentation of the Globe’s “Opinion Reel” project, introduced in May. “Opinion Reel” is a short documentary film program that showcases locally produced films with a strong point of view.

The Kansas City Star features “As I See It,” designed to showcase local voices that once ran seven days a week as an “as told to,” Miriam Pepper, immediate past editorial page editor, told Journal-isms.

“We don’t have time to do that now,” she said. In 2001, the staff was three times the size it is now. “As I See It” now appears three days a week. One recent piece was an excerpt from “Sticky Traps,” a race-oriented play produced at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre. “Be cognizant of the people in your readership and in your area,” Steve Paul, the current editorial page editor, said. “We’re the state of Ferguson and the University of Missouri.”

Carolyn Lumsden, editorial page editor at the Hartford Courant, also part of the panel discussion, said her page moved quickly to add female voices when a 1990s-era survey showed their absence. Her page also formed alliances with such other organizations as CTLatinoNews.com. The Courant publishes the first paragraph of the organization’s piece online and links to the full article on the organization’s site.

The Courant is moving toward publishing real-life experiences, such as August’s “Living in New England’s Murder Capital” [accessible via search engine] by Sam Saylor, and has added Frank Harris III, journalism department chair at Southern Connecticut State University who is African American, to its roster.

The Courant also ran “#BlackLivesMatter: Yale Black Men’s Union Send Message ‘To My Unborn Son’,” excerpting a photo project by Yale student Eno Inyangete of the Yale College Black Men’s Union. The project was created in reaction to the death of Michael Brown Jr., the unarmed teenager killed by police in Ferguson.

The Courant also stages community forums. “We’re not going to have any panelists that don’t reflect reality,” Lumsden said.

Rick Christie, editorial page editor of the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, and Owens of the Orlando Sentinel urged running photos of contributors to advertise their diversity. Like Ancrum, Christie said he talks with community groups and urges editorial board members to do so. Owens contacted the Hispanic and African American chambers of commerce for feedback and added an editorial advisory board to which 100 people applied.

“Central Florida is approaching majority-minority status,” Owens said. The area has become a magnet for Puerto Ricans fleeing a souring economy on the island. The staff reduction means “now we have to be more deliberate and more aggressive in our outreach.”

Some suggestions came from those not on editorial boards.

Katie Hawkins-Gaar of the Poynter Institute, leading a discussion on “How we can build community through citizen contributions,” urged, “let your audience tell their own stories.” One such example: “Stories of Everyday Racism,” pegged two years ago to the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

From the audience, Julian Rodriguez of the University of Texas at Arlington, winner of the association’s Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship to an educator advancing diversity, suggested partnerships with universities. “Give them an assignment and you mentor them,” Rodriguez suggested. “They will social-network the hell out of it.”

Rodriguez is the only fully bilingual Hispanic faculty member in the Department of Communication at UT-Arlington.

Honors for Exposing “The Death No One Cared About”

“Nobody believed that her death mattered,” Ronnie Polaneczky, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, said on Saturday, paraphrasing the mother of Christina Sankey. “She’s poor and she’s black, she’s disabled and I’m alone.”

Polaneczky told the story at the symposium of the Association of Opinion Journalists at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. “We like our disabled . . . to be young and adorable,” she said. But Sankey was 37 and not the only adult to suffer from severe autism and intellectually disability. “They work among us, and we don’t see them.”

John F. Morrison of the Daily News wrote about Polaneczky’s achievement in July.

“The lonely and brutal death of Christina Sankey in 2014 touched and disturbed Ronnie Polaneczky.

“Ronnie, the Daily News columnist who often has publicized the plight of the lost and forgotten, wrote about Sankey in April 2014.

“She told how the 37-year-old woman with the mentality of a 3-year-old was found dead on a frigid day in March 2014, half-naked and frozen, sprawled between two parked cars in West Philadelphia.

“How many other Christina Sankeys does the city harbor? Ronnie wanted to know about those intellectually challenged adults, hidden away and left to an indifferent fate.

“Now, she will have the opportunity to probe further. Ronnie has been chosen to receive the 2015 Pulliam Editorial Fellowship awarded annually by the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. It carries a $75,000 stipend.

” ‘When you find something that really tugs at the heartstrings and also cries out for a policy prescription, that’s a winning combination,’ said Todd Gillman, Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News and chairman of the judging panel.

“And when paired with someone who has passion for the topic and the skills to pull it off, which Ronnie clearly does, this is a winner we can be proud of.”

Michael Tanenbaum of PhillyVoice.com explained on April 22, “Back on March 6, Sankey was left unsupervised at Macy’s in Center City after she and [Hassanatu] Wulu, her state-paid caretaker, had earlier been to Magee Rehabilitation on the 1500 block of Race Street to drop off paperwork . . . .”

Tanenbaum also wrote, “A Philadelphia Investigating Grand Jury has recommended charges against caretaker Hassanatu Wulu. . . .”

Polaneczky said Saturday that she wanted to convene a summit “to see what one, two, three things we can do. There’s a huge population of kids with autism. One day they will be middle aged. I hope to do it in honor of Christina and the other Christinas out there, and for her mom and her family.”

Wulu is to be sentenced on Wednesday.

With Terror Attacks, It’s Location, Location, Location

“If social media is an expression of public sentiment, then it seems significant that perhaps the most widely shared tweet on Friday’s terror attacks in Paris was not about Paris at all but rather was about another terror attack, earlier that week, in Beirut,” Max Fisher wrote Monday for vox.com.

“The photo in this tweet is not, in fact, from last week’s blast in Beirut. Rather, it is from 2006, during Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. But what is most striking to me about this tweet, now shared by well over 50,000 people, is that it’s wrong: The media has, in fact, covered the Beirut bombings extensively.

“The New York Times covered it. The Washington Post, in addition to running an Associated Press story on it, sent reporter Hugh Naylor to cover the blasts and then write a lengthy piece on their aftermath. The Economist had a thoughtful piece reflecting on the attack’s significance. CNN, which rightly or wrongly has a reputation for least-common-denominator news judgment, aired one segment after another on the Beirut bombings. Even the Daily Mail, a British tabloid most known for its gossipy royals coverage, was on the story. And on and on.

“Yet these are stories that, like so many stories of previous bombings and mass acts of violence outside of the West, readers have largely ignored.

“It is difficult watching this, as a journalist, not to see the irony in people scolding the media for not covering Beirut by sharing a tweet with so many factual inaccuracies — people would know that photo was wrong if only they’d read some of the media coverage they are angrily insisting doesn’t exist. . . .”

Meanwhile, under the headline, “Beirut, Also the Site of Deadly Attacks, Feels Forgotten,” the New York Times’ Anne Barnard quoted a blog posting by Elie Fares, a Lebanese doctor. “When my people died, no country bothered to light up its landmarks in the colors of their flag,” Fares wrote. “When my people died, they did not send the world into mourning. Their death was but an irrelevant fleck along the international news cycle, something that happens in those parts of the world.”

On Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy Now!” Monday, host Amy Goodman asked Mira Kamdar, Paris-based member of the International New York Times editorial board, about Fares’ quote.

“. . . What can I say? I mean, it’s — we still live in a postcolonial, imperial world,” Kamdar replied. “I think that it’s a tragedy that the kinds of attacks that have happened with such unbearable frequency in the Middle East and other parts of the world have become banalized, have become sort of, you know, something that people think is just sort of normal and that somehow the suffering unleashed there is not of the same order as could be unleashed in a city like Paris or on 9/11 in New York.

“At the same time, Paris is an emblematic kind of city. It’s a city that’s incredibly important for the entire Western world. Americans have a very romantic image of Paris. That kind of an image is shattered by an event like this, as it was in January. And so, it’s perhaps not surprising, even if regrettable, if the Western media responds inappropriately differently. . . .”

Mizzou Crisis Prompts Look at Student Newspaper Diversity

“In her first newsroom, Jackie Alexander didn’t see many people who looked like her,” Tara Jeffries wrote Wednesday for the Student Press Law Center. “Alexander, who is black, described a culture in which she felt like a token, like an outsider, like someone whose voice wasn’t heard. Sadly, Alexander said, about seven years later, not much has changed.

” ‘It can be so demoralizing and frustrating to be in a room full of people who don’t look like you and don’t value your experience and your struggle,’ she said. ‘It can be really uncomfortable in a newsroom if you’re the only person of color, if you identify differently. It’s hard being the spokesperson for an entire race.’

“Alexander now serves as the media adviser at Clemson University, where she says a lack of racial diversity still pervades the pages of student publications, sometimes skewing the content in a misguided direction.

” ‘That lack of representation in the newsroom leads to a lack of representation in the newspaper, unfortunately,’ she said. ‘The content is very flat, it’s very one-sided, and our diverse students aren’t reading us because they don’t see themselves or their lives reflected in the newspaper. And if students attempt diverse stories, because there’s no one else in the room to say, ‘Hey, that looks off,’ it runs the risk of stereotypical or downright offensive content.’ . . .”

Jeffries also wrote, “The pervasive whiteness of student newspapers — and the complex question of how to remedy it — has sparked dialogues across the country, particularly after a September op-ed critical of the Black Lives Matter movement in the Wesleyan University Argus newspaper spurred a rapid chain reaction among campus activists who complained that the newspaper lacked diverse perspectives and called for its defunding. Student government officials voted to form a group to examine the possibility of stripping the newspaper of half its funding.

“The months-long debate made national news, sharply dividing journalistic onlookers trying to balance the desire for inclusiveness in publications with maintaining a free marketplace of ideas.

“And in the last week, the complex relationship between the media and minority communities was thrust even further into the national spotlight, as a video of a confrontation between University of Missouri student protesters and a student photojournalist went viral. The protesters, part of the group Concerned Student 1950 that has been calling attention to racial issues on Missouri’s campus, had set up a media-free safe space on the campus quad and tried to prohibit a student photographer from taking pictures. . . .”

Harvard Law Profs Blast CNN Film on Sex Harassment

“19 professors at Harvard University have written a letter harshly criticizing the popular documentary The Hunting Ground for both its characterization of a Harvard Law School (HLS) student accused of sexual assault and the school’s subsequent investigation into the incident,” Alex Morey wrote Thursday for thefire.org.

“The film . . . is described by producer Amy Ziering and director Kirby Dick as ‘a startling exposé of sexual assaults on U.S. campuses, institutional cover-ups and the brutal social toll on victims and their families.’ The group of Harvard professors allege the piece is ‘propaganda’ and replete with inaccuracies. In particular, they object to an interview with former HLS student Kamilah Willingham, who says a fellow student, Brandon Winston, drugged and sexually assaulted her, despite Winston having been cleared of those charges.

“The Harvard group says that the filmmakers allow Willingham to paint a one-sided picture of the incident not supported by the record, and that the film unfairly implies a Harvard cover-up. Winston has since been cleared of all rape charges, but was found guilty of misdemeanor nonsexual touching. HLS subsequently reinstated him.

” ‘This purported documentary provides a seriously false picture both of the general sexual assault phenomenon at universities and of our student,’ the letter reads. Its signatories include several prominent HLS faculty, including former federal district court judge Nancy Gertner, Charles Ogletree, founder of HLS’ Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Jeannie Suk, who has strongly advocated for due process in addressing campus sexual assault, and renowned constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe. . . .”

CNN issued this response to Journal-isms through a “spokesperson”:

“CNN is proud to provide a platform for a film that has undeniably played a significant role in advancing the national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses. We are confident that both the film and our extensive associated coverage give this important issue the full and fair treatment it deserves.”

Life Magazine’s First Photo Essay by Black Photographer

“Fresh from assignments at Vogue and Glamour in 1948, Gordon Parks appeared one morning at Life’s New York headquarters, determined to show his portfolio to Wilson Hicks, the magazine’s esteemed picture editor,” Maurice Berger wrote for the “Lens” blog Wednesday at the New York Times.

“Mr. Hicks was initially reluctant, but he warmed to Mr. Parks’ work and the story he pitched about the gang warfare then plaguing Harlem.

“That meeting resulted in two milestones: The photo essay Mr. Hicks commissioned, ‘Harlem Gang Leader,’ would be Life’s first by a black photographer, and the first of many for the magazine by Mr. Parks. The project is the subject of an exhibition, ‘Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument,’ at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. . . .”

Berger also wrote, ” ‘The Making of an Argument’ is an illuminating exercise in visual and racial literacy, investigating how words and images communicate multifaceted realities, convey points of view and biases, and sway or manipulate meaning. . . .”

Short Takes

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